The Oscar-winning documentary short “Period. End of Sentence.” follows women and girls in rural India through a time of quiet rebellion as they launch their own pad-making enterprise. But menstrual equity isn’t just a fight happening somewhere else.
Menstruation and Menstrual Equity
Menstrual Equity’s Red Carpet Moment
Rayka Zehtabchi stands out in this year’s pool of Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Short—not only because she’s the only woman among them, but because her film “PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE.” also tells a uniquely female story that emerged from a transnational feminist coalition fighting for menstrual equity.
Marching On for (Constitutional) Menstrual Equity
Ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment goes beyond a matter of principle. It would also offer a host of legal remedies to gender-based disparities, including discrimination in the workplace and the injustices that face survivors in our rape culture—and it would be a major boon to the emerging movement for menstrual equity.
We Heart: The Hilarious Menstrual Equity Musical “Keep Calm and Tampon”
Today is Menstrual Hygiene Day—which we’re reclaiming here at Ms. as Menstrual Equity Day! That’s why we’re kicking back to watch “Keep Calm and Tampon,” the short musical directed, written and acted entirely by women that celebrates every single menstruator who takes on the patriarchy, everyday sexism and even the state in their fight for equality.
The Politics of Periods
Given that this particular bodily function has been an essential slice of the human condition forever—and stigmatized, sidelined or, at best, ignored for just about as long—it is no small thrill that menstruation has become a modern cause célèbre. Now the time is ripe to harness all that momentum and go full-blown political: periods as a public policy agenda.