Calling it a period and only a period matters

Calling it a period and only a period matters – here’s why
Help us make language the next success in women’s health/ sport

In conjunction with 50 top female athletes, we’ve just launched our Call it What it is (CIWII) campaign, a plea to standardise the language of the female body, starting with period.

On first glance it might seem innocuous, what’s wrong with shark week or time of the month. Is it really that big a deal?

Yes. Humans have used coded language and euphemisms around the female body for centuries. The dynamic dates back to the bible, probably further. It’s a deep-set habit (which exists for a reason) yet its drawbacks play out in doctor surgeries, sports changing rooms, classrooms and gyms to this day.

Research in 2016 found that, worldwide, there are some 5,000 different euphemisms for periods. It’s clear no-one anywhere really wants to talk about this stuff. And that’s a problem.

What’s in a euphemism?

Social anthropologists have big opinions on why euphemisms catch fire and get passed down, generation to generation.

In short, euphemisms conveniently sand the edges down on sharp and uncomfortable subjects. We don’t want to talk about them so a social compromise is made. By keeping things light and fluffy, often humorous, we make it more accessible and palatable as conversation fodder. But it’s limited.

The code extends to advertising too. Period products? Make sure the demo-liquid’s blue.

The upshot of Aunt Flow and the blue dye is that it creates a distance between perception and reality. And in that void – which exists in individuals’ psychology and therefore in society-at-large – there are casualties.

Even the elite

The #SayPeriod campaign built a head of steam through the summer, in many ways a best-summer-ever for women’s sport.

Best-summer-ever … despite that tag, or maybe because of it, a number of top athletes cited their periods’ negative impact on performance. These felt like watershed statements: Omerta – the code of silence – was finally being shattered; in some cases on live TV.

Telling, too. If anyone should have period science, coaching and insight by the bucketload, it’s A-list athletes.

Words from Lydia Ko, Dina Asher Smith, Iga Swiatek and others were powerful. But that power was blunted when the athletes or journalists or both felt the need to use the code. They reverted back into the snug warmth of the social compromise.

So it became less of a period problem and more of a … time of the month problem; a women’s stuff problem; a girls’ issues problem. Dialling back the language dialled back the power. The lack of cohesion made it feel like we have a spear but can’t sharpen the tip.

Girls in sport

We know girls in sport drop out at twice the rate of boys. We know that 64% of schoolgirls in sport now won’t be by their mid-teens. We also know that period blame, pain and shame are the chief reasons why.

The social compromise is a key blocker in turning this around. By stunting the dialogue around natural female functions, we shroud it in shame, limit knowledge, fail to teach body-literacy and preserve a wonky situation … in perpetuity.

If nothing changes nothing changes

This tweak to language. This plea to use one term and not 100, or 10 or even 2. It sounds so simple, but that’s its beauty.

It’s a change anyone can make – now, today.

It’s a change we can all impart to friends, peers and, crucially, the next generation. If we can hand over a functional vocabulary that lends itself to cohesion and change we can evolve past a social compromise that continues to limit her in school, into life, into sport and beyond.

Sure, period is just a start. Vaginas, menopause, bullying and breasts may be future battlegrounds. But this is a step we can all take. Language has power. The wrong language hurts. The right language will be a stepping stone to her future, better.