By Dr Kate Neely (Director of International Programs, RoundTrip Foundation)

What do Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider, Meryl Streep in Out of Africa and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday all have in common?

OK… Aside from being women travellers on film?

Yep – I am sure that everyone noticed that not one of them had to stop what they were doing – kicking ass, exploring, riding a Vespa – and deal with menstruation. How unrealistic is that?

Unfortunately, it’s not just in films and stories that we avoid talking about menstruation. Despite a lot of work by a lot of people to bring menstruation into the mainstream (well done on the period emoji, Plan International 🩸), it is still not a topic you will hear being discussed at most dinner parties. We tell our travel stories – such as how we missed a flight and took the slow road, but we don’t talk about how we had to sign-language to buy pads or tampons in outback Vietnam. Or how we missed out on the Turkish Hammam experience because we weren’t sure if it was ok to do that during our period, or how that would work.

Advice for menstruating travellers on travel websites tends to be along the lines of, “if you are not sure what will be available where you are going – stock up on what you will need before you go”. Gee thanks *eyerolls*. Sometimes they will tell you what you are not allowed to do while menstruating – I find this odd – with the exception of a problem or a self-declaration, pretty much no-one is going to know that you have your period. The list of cultural taboos around menstruation is interesting/horrifying; from ‘don’t touch the pickles’ in India to a frightening week of isolation in a cold mountain shed in Nepal (see below for links).

Clearly, having rolled my eyes at the advice from other websites, I am not about to give advice on how to manage your menstrual hygiene issues while travelling. I am going to point out that as travellers we have lots of options: pads, tampons, menstrual cups, period undies or skipping periods altogether (my preference). And even in areas with water scarcity, we are privileged enough to be able to find ways to maintain a good standard of hygiene.

So why am I here, I hear you ask?

I wanted to highlight the difficulty of menstrual hygiene for women in developing countries. I am in Timor-Leste again and my friend Novi asked me to bring some menstrual cups with me so that she can run some classes and explain the options to young women. “Sure” I said, packing a dozen menstrual cups in my bag and, on the advice of other friends (thanks Sarah and Terry) throwing in some period undies as well. So, at this point of course I am wondering – well what do women do when their income is (on average) less than $2 a day and pads cost 50c each?

….. (pauses here for thinking music)……

So of course, I investigated by asking a selection of young women and found out that if you are menstruating in Timor-Leste then you most likely use a small towel or piece of cloth tucked into your undies to soak up the blood. Oh, and you can’t wash your hair because local tradition says that you will get sick if you do that.

Sooo, it’s a while since I was a teenager but, hell – going to school with a bit of cloth tucked in your undies and hoping not to leak blood on your (probably white) school uniform – NUP – I’d stay at home! And that is just what many young women do. So not only is having your period awkward and uncomfortable, you miss out on school and become less employable than your male peers, trapping you (and all women) in a cycle of poverty and powerlessness. Yow! – and then to add to this… even if disposable pads or tampons were affordable, if every woman in the developing world used them, they would constitute an environmental nightmare.

If we can barely bring ourselves to discuss menstruation with a couple of mates over a pizza and beer, how do we help women in developing countries get access to affordable, appropriate, empowering, and environmentally responsible menstrual hygiene products?

Here is my solution (well okay it’s not a whole solution, but it’s a start). As travellers who want women and girls to have good menstrual hygiene choices wherever they are, your mission…

….. (pauses here for dramatic music)…..

is to talk about menstrual hygiene

Breaking taboos requires us to be open to challenging our own world. If we can talk about periods openly, if we can look at pads and tampons and menstrual cups without feeling shy or embarrassed, we can start to change taboos at home and elsewhere. Funding affordable menstrual hygiene products requires us to talk about periods. Getting young women to stay in school requires us to talk about periods. Creating a fairer world requires us to talk about periods.

So hey… let’s talk about periods 🩸 😊

If you want some conversation starters, try these:
Basics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_and_menstruation
Taboos around the world https://www.teenvogue.com/story/period-taboo-around-the-world
The Pad Man (movie) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7218518/
How the UN views menstruation https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1034131
Academic version: Menstrual Taboos: Moving Beyond the Curse https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_14