STOP the STIGMA

Holt University of Oklahoma Women's Health Advocacy

PERIOD POVERTY.

Every month has its own different story, Of suffering, vulnerability and pain. Pain that has a timetable and a frequency.

It’s a ladies’ problem, beware, So why should men know?

Why should there even be a mention? Let them suffer, All alone!

Just some blood-flow and the whole day ruined, Not a problem, not something about it You can be doing.

Thighs contract, there’s loads of tears, Also a regret, for losing so much blood. We have no choice, no one to report to, Isn’t this discrimination, where the only victims Are us dames and madames?

At times, there’s so much distance to travel , And so much heat unbearable.

But there’s no water, no food, no shelter as A haven.

An extreme degree of poverty that strikes, Is every month’s that time, It leaves no one, no girl from suffering a fate Of pain, paleness and not at all sublime!

GUNCHAA SHANDILYA.

my first period is dripping between my legs. with my clothes, my face turns peachy red. retracing my thoughts. Imagine someone noticing my blood stained pants. my head starts to trap me in that airless bathroom stall filled with shame.

I soon scrape the gooey blood off the cloth and wrap toilet paper around and around. my head is spinning around and around. my underwear turns into a mummy. let us clap to the six grader for becoming a “woman”

Becoming a “Woman”

Seohyun Ryu

Divine Feminine

Jessica Waltman

This is one of 213 digital collages developed to create the film, Not Normal. It combines photos of nature and self portraits with painted elements and archive images to tell a story about the urgency for period literacy change.

NotNormal

Awomantriestosurviveherpainfulperiodslongenoughto findanswers forherstrange symptoms.Shediscoversanewnormalasshetriesto receive adiagnosis,findaccurate information,andseekeffectivetreatment for deep infiltrating endometriosis.

AllisonRich