[Let´s Talk Periods]*

Yes that's today's topic: Periods.
This is what I want to talk to you about today (I understand you might not want to read about it, but it doesn't stop us women bleeding once a month).

Periods are trending for several reasons lately:

1. The Tampon Tax Is In The News Again:
It's been cofirmed that part of the money from the tampon tax is going to go to an anti abortion charity. The tampon tax is already a joke (in case you haven´t heard, tampons are nw taxed as a non-essential luxury product in the UK), but the fact that the government has decided to give  £250,000 to Life, an organisation that campaigns against abortion, is just beyond my comprehension. 70 organisations will share the £12 million the government raised from the tampon tax, not just Life, but I really don´t want to give a penny of my money to them.

A solution for this could be for everyone using tampons (or most at least) to stop buying them and start using a menstrual cup.

2. Bodyform And Its #Bloodnormal Campaign. 
Have you seen the add that shows red liquid on a pad? That's what most people notice, but the ad in geneal just wants to depict periods as a normal thing, showing real-life scenarios of women dealing with periods.
I tweeted about this the minute I saw it (and got a couple of tweets back with a bit of grief, stating that it was disgusting and if the next thing should be to show shit on toilet roll ads...), since I think it's about time we stop using that blue liquid on advertisment (that goes for nappies too, but that's a story for another blogpost).
Somehow, we get taught that periods are taboo pretty early, hiding tampons in pockets, even up my sleeves, like if I was carrying something illegal that no one could see. Whenever you find yourself without a pad or a tampon, always whispering to your girlfriends or colleagues, all hush hush in case somebody hears you asking for one, but why? WHY? Are we hiding from other women? Are we hiding it from men?
51% of the global population are women, that is more than half of the world bleeding once a month; how can it still be so much of a taboo?
After reading a few articles on the topic, I had no idea that as television advertisement goes, it was only last year that a menstrual product advert featured actual blood on television (that was, again, Bodyform, with their Live Fearless campaign). Now they've done it again depicting red liquid and in case you missed it, please take 20 seconds of your time to watch it below:

How does this ad make you feel? Do you think it is disgusting? Does that red liquid make that much of a difference to you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

I personally think it's a step forward, for something so normal, natural and frequent, we cannot keep tiptoeing around it. Periods are normal and we should deal with them as such; that goes for talking openly about them, seeing them depicted as they are on advertisement campaigns and feeling supported and not excluded while on it.

(*This post is in collaboration with Bodyform*)