Instagram reinforces menstruation stigma


Time of the month. On the rag. Aunt Flo. Given the amount of nicknames Western society has attributed to menstruation, it’s a marvel we don’t talk about it more. Despite the abundance of available euphemisms and the fact that every woman in America will bleed, does bleed or has bled once a month, periods have remained taboo — until now.

With her photo series “Period,” Rupi Kaur, a 22-year-old student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, challenged the stigma surrounding menstruation by calling attention to its normality and beauty. Kaur knew she was going against the grain, but she didn’t expect that her Instagram photo would be removed twice or that a media explosion would follow. The support Kaur has garnered over the past week — as well as the initial backlash — reveals the importance of her work. After all, the college senior has proven that deconstructing the period taboo is essential to equality.

“Period” started as a photo series project for Kaur’s visual rhetoric course. As Kaur told Kaleigh Rogers from Motherboard, she posted the photo because she was proud. When Kaur looks at the photo in question, she thinks it’s “absolutely beautiful,” so while she knew she would stir up some controversy, she “never thought that it would be to this extent.”

Sure enough, Instagram removed the photo — which depicts the poet fully-clothed in grey sweatpants and a white tank top lying in bed with a red stain on the seat of her pants and a spot of blood on the sheets beside her — within 24 hours. Enraged, Kaur turned to Facebook and Tumblr, where she posted the photo with a caption addressing the irony of the period taboo, condemning patriarchal censorship, and celebrating the beauty of menstruation. In a Facebook post garnering more than 70,000 likes and 17,000 shares, Kaur asserted, “[I] will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be okay with a small leak. When [sic] your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified. pornified. and treated less than human.” Kaur’s revolutionary words — “Their patriarchy is leaking. Their misogyny is leaking. We will not be censored” — flooded Internet in the days that followed, with countless blogs and news sites addressing the controversy.

A little over a day after the image’s second removal, Kaur’s photo reappeared on Instagram. Despite the fact that the photo was removed multiple times, Instagram spokespeople asserted that the removal was accidental in their emailed apology to Kaur and statements to news sites. Regardless of whether or not this was an honest mistake, there is nothing in the posting guidelines prohibiting the depiction period blood. Moreover, Instagram features an abundance of near-pornographic images, despite explicitly prohibiting such images.

The fact that someone would flag a perfectly tasteful depiction of menstruation and Instagram would then decide it was a good idea to remove the photo reveals a deep-seated misogyny in Western culture. After all, it’s got to be more than just squeamishness. As Emma Gray points out in her article for the Huffington Post, “We watch news reports about war and ‘Law & Order: SVU’ marathons without batting an eye, but there has still only been one menstrual product advertisement … that uses the color red to signify period blood.” It’s not an issue with the sight of blood so much as it is a double standard; women are supposed to bear children, but they’re also expected to be fantasy-beings, free from bodily excretions. You’d think that humanity could overlook a bit of blood, given the fact that menstruation is essential to human life, but revulsion justifies misogyny and misogyny justifies oppression.

Luckily for us, the secret’s out. The reinstatement of Kaur’s photos and the mass support she garnered spell out a clear victory for the feminist movement overall. Placing her story in the context of feminist progress, we can draw parallels to German feminist Elonë’s use of sanitary pads to call attention to sexual assault early this month. The young woman was inspired by a tweet: “Imagine if men were as disgusted with rape as they are with periods.” Elonë posted pads bearing these words as well as other poignant messages around Karlsruhe on International Women’s Day, igniting a social media explosion similar to Kaur’s.

Stigmas surrounding menstruation are ingrained in our culture, but they can only withstand so much exposure. Slowly but surely, the feminist cause is coming to fruition, and the normalization of periods is a vital step towards equality. Much as menstruation catalyzes life, deconstructing the period taboo will no doubt give birth to a greater respect for women.

Jennifer Frazin is a sophomore majoring in English and theatre. Her column, “Not That Kind of Girl,” runs Wednesdays.