Changing the conversation on taboo
Over the past 100 years, we have developed and continue to improve our ability to discuss difficult topics. Sex education is taught in schools, workplaces are hiring and providing mental health first aiders, and people are fighting biases that have been long ingrained in our discussions.
However, is it time for us to move past the point of stigmatising stigmas and create normalised conversations that no longer feel alien?
The quickest history lesson on taboo subjects ever.
Back in medieval times, taboos existed around a woman’s virginity, men’s sexual misdemeanours (mistresses aka side chicks) the rich/poor divide spoken amongst the upper classes, treatment of workers and much more.
Whilst virginity was an issue, childbirth was not, miscarriages were due to the unknown as to why they happened, witchcraft (remember learning about dunkings?) was blamed, but it was a whole palava. Understanding illnesses until the early 1900s was confusing, and no one knew why. Imperfections such as smallpox scars could cause people to be discarded out of higher circles.
These continued mainly for the next 300 years or so, until we moved into the 1800s and just after the French Revolution where considerable political unrest sparked years of movement towards a more equal society. This provoked such conversations as to the performance nature of royal birth viewings, where people would vie for front seats at the childbirths of new monarchs, watch the rich eat and more.
The first person to be considered a celebrity, Lord Byron, was fantasised by newspapers as they became cheaper to create and distribute nationwide. Broadsheet distribution and mass creation of newspapers helped to normalise behaviours and create a common consensus on things such as alcohol (the devil’s brew) and more.
Revolutions, the slave trade (huge taboo in some circles still) and more lead us into the 1900s — finally, the century of women gaining the vote in England through determination. While first considered too fragile or emotionally unstable to be able to vote, women gained the right to vote, and in doing so started to unravel a historical taboo on the inequalities placed through law on everyone who wasn’t a white straight man.
At this point, homosexuality is still taboo as an all-male government still enforces interpretations of biblical verses. Surprisingly, homosexuality is a newer taboo, while sodomy was illegal from the twelfth century onwards, more positive literature can be found around homosexual relationships for centuries afterwards.
Continuing through the uprisings and protests, workers demanded their rights, and the rich started to get scrutinised for unfair wages, the miner’s protests demanded safe working conditions, and we developed into a new era of society.
If we now move into modern times, we can see the vast distribution of gender roles, the discussions around mental health, and the discussions over the still inequalities surrounding race, gender and sexuality.
Gender roles: Do they even matter anymore?
“Why are you doing that, it’s a delete as appropriate man/woman’s job?” Pretty much everyone will have heard this at some point. Why do we need to attach gender to millions of job roles? There are, of course, exceptions. You’d expect that a woman’s domestic violence centre was primarily women, a male would be expected to run a male-only homeless shelter.
Why then, is parenting leave inequal in heterosexual relationships? A woman isn’t defined by her ability to be maternal, and once she has physically recovered, may want to get back to work. Her partner then may want to take the full maternity leave time to support the child’s upbringing. Statutory Paternity Leave is just one or two weeks, depending on circumstances, whereas Statutory Maternity Leave is normally 52 weeks. I think it’s time that men were allowed to have equal leave if the mother is physically well and can return to work.
Each persons experience and gender perception is different. I’m not talking about biological sex, which is determined by your chromosomes. Gender is defined through personality and can be shaped by our environment and choices. Your perception of your gender is the only person who can decide that. Wear what you want, and show yourself off. I’m very open in my lack of femininity and enjoy living in a world where I am able to wear clothes and act as I feel.
Yet, I still get judged fairly regularly for spending time in the gym and wanting to lift heavy. I get told that I’m “turning into a man” I can assure you my chromosomes won’t be changing by lifting, “muscly women aren’t attractive” do I look like I’m attracted to someone who thinks that? And my personal favourite “it’s weird that you don’t like getting your nails and hair done, no man will want someone who isn’t presentable” well, I for one, am so glad bigotry still exists.
This isn’t to say femininity and masculinity are wrong.
It’s the opposite. Femininity and masculinity are wonderful things, but women shouldn’t be valued on their femininity and men on their masculinity. Men are amazing, women are amazing. A small minority spoils it for the rest. Men can be feminine, women can be masculine, but women can also be feminine and men masculine.
People should be celebrated for who they are, regardless of their gender and biology, and that applies to everyone, even cis white men who want to be masculine.
This was highlighted to me in conversation with a friend (a man, no surprises there). He, as a man, wants to be masculine but feels like he’s being judged for upholding that and wanting to stay masculine. He felt like he was branded as toxic and masculine, and that masculinity had become nothing but toxic masculinity. However, as someone who knows him, he is anything but upholding toxic masculinity, trust me.
It’s time to let people be their non-toxic selves and be themselves, no matter where they fall on the masculine to feminine spectrum.
Onto the big P. Period.
As a young girl, I didn’t know how different my periods were (I do now). My first memory of periods was being shown the size of a tampon in Year 5. It petrified me. Women are less likely to be believed by doctors, discarded, and told “sex will fix it”, something that has been said to me multiple times.
Growing up, it felt like periods were something that we had to be quiet about. If you wanted to go to the toilet at school, girls would show a pad to the teacher secretly in order to go. Boys would squirm at the sight of a tampon or a pad fallen out of a bag. You’d get asked if it was “that time of the month.”
Now I know that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s something that people go through. Sadly, young people are growing up who are ashamed, worried about their bodies and don’t know where to turn. Perhaps they’ve grown up in a house of brothers, and don’t have someone to turn to.
Ireland recently banned an advert around lightening the mood on how to insert a tampon. Something that was designed to promote healthy conversations around a difficult topic was banned due to its seemingly sexual nature. Pad and tampon adverts are often about being empowered on your period, the latest design that is definitely 100% leak-proof, odour free, good for your vagina, designed to be even more suited to the contours of our bodies, contributes to ending female something or the other and is completely environmentally friendly. Sound familiar?
Let’s be honest. Who actually feels like they can conquer the world while on their period? I know I certainly don’t and instead would rather spend the time curled up and doing the bare minimum. My hormones are all over the place, and I just want to ignore the world for a week. Yet adverts told me I should be celebrating my womanly habits and empowering myself. I think I’ll pass on that.
If we start addressing periods without using the normal “red week”, “time of the month” etc. it normalises them and makes young people feel less ashamed. With Guides, we have done a period poverty badge and looked at breaking the barriers around periods, encouraging open and honest conversations. It was a chance for the girls to ask questions in a safe space, and it worked.
Education providers should also be providing better education that is the same for everyone on the period topic. When 50% of the population (ish) bleeds for a week every month, it’s time for everyone to understand what is going on, and break the taboo. How are we supposed to be breaking down gender inequality barriers if we don’t understand how we work biologically? At our fundamental core, we are a system of organs, blood flow, and skin plus a few more things. There are differences between male and female bodies, but if we stigmatise how the other sex works, we continue to create a societal divide between us.
Who are we to judge, to shame, to create taboo? We do not create a healthy, honest world if we do so. It merely pushes people into groups and divides us.
