21: Breaking period taboos

Menstruation is a subject that many people are squeamish about so when an Indian cricket team placed a sanitary pad advertisement on  their jersey, people sat up and listened. The Rajasthan Royals is a cricket club playing in the wildly popular IPL or Indian Premier League tournament in the UAE. Their campaign Let’s Talk Periods in which cricketers call on men and women not to be embarrassed about menstruation has been seen by millions of cricket fans who tune in from across the globe. It has sparked conversations on social media about the shame surrounding the menstrual cycle and lack of access to menstrual products.

Ramola Talwar Badam speak to three women about periods. Suzanne Al Houby, is the first Arab woman to have climbed Mount Everest (amongst a team of all men), Dr Rasha Rady is an assistant lecturer of paediatrics at Cairo University Children’s Hospital and Sarah Zipp, a lecturer at the University of Stirling in Scotland, who runs a project to coach the coaches. Zipp says talking about menstruation will stop young girls around the world from dropping out of sport.