The Human Rights at Home blog has a great post on the subject of menstrual health. Menstrual health is a critical part of sexual and reproductive health yet is often viewed as taboo or is simply neglected. Fortunately, the post announces a major conference on menstrual health with a human rights prospective from June 4-6, 2015, in Boston. Check it out!
Among the milestones of the past year was the first ever Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28, 2014. As a step toward bringing menstrual health out of the shadows, the global day was a great success, triggering blogs, op eds and other acknowledgments of the role that the menstrual cycle plays in the lives of women and girls. As Gloria Steinem famously wrote in her spot-on Ms. Magazineessay, “If Men Could Menstruate” the social status of menstruation would be different — and longer and more would be something to brag about! But instead, menstruation is an obstacle to girls education and women’s employment, and women everywhere understand that their dignity is undermined when menstruation is treated as shameful. No wonder that Elena Kagan, now a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, made headlines — and won fans among female law students — when one of her first acts as the new Harvard Law School Dean was to acknowledge the reality of menstruating students by providing free tampons in the women’s bathrooms….