Last Sunday, when I got home in the evening, I had to handwash my knickers and trousers as they were soaked in blood, my menstrual blood. This incident, familiar to every single woman in the world, could have been perfectly avoided had I been able to use an adequate facility, permitting me to change my menstrual protection within a sensible timeframe. But this was, unsurprisingly, not the case.

On a usual day, feeling the tragedy approaching, I would have turned to a nearby bar or restaurant and ordered the cheapest item on the menu, probably a coffee, which would have granted me the utilisation of a comfortable, warm restroom. Yet, with all bars and restaurants closed on account of the measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, this possibility was off the table. Going back home was not an option either, as I was in a town sixty-five kilometres, or one-hour train, away from mine. The urgency took hold of me. I could feel my tampon’s exhaustion giving way.

At this point, I was in despair, utterly uncomfortable and dreaming of being back in my apartment. Why did I ever leave it in the first place? I blamed my poor judgement for finding myself amidst this situation. I should have known better than to give in to the pleasure of a one-day trip, especially during a pandemic, when on my period, and stayed home for safety instead. To make matters worse, I was not alone. I felt not only embarrassment, but also guilt, dragging my companion from one street to the next in a desperate attempt to find relief.

The realistic part of me had no expectations of finding a public toilet, simply because they do not exist, as experience has proven to me repeatedly. And yet, hope reappeared in the next corner when I spotted a petrol station. That should do it, I thought, petrol stations usually boast free restrooms among their services. But, to ensure continuity to my nightmare, there were no toilets to be seen and when I inquired, the only (male) worker on duty at the time denied having any available (meaning that he would not open the staff bathroom for me and make an exception).

Disconsolate, we resumed our roaming of the streets until encountering what seemed to be the only working business in town: a supermarket. This time it was a woman whom I asked for the favour of ending my suffering, even knowing the unorthodoxy of my demand, but this time, too, she displayed no sympathy, despite us being the same gender and thus familiar with the problems of our kind. She could not, or would not, suggest any alternative. No sisterhood was manifested that afternoon. No human compassion was demonstrated.

It was clear to me that it was time to go back home. Luckily, the train station was not far (of course, no toilets were available there either) and the train, delayed by twenty minutes, happened to be a modern one where, finally, I could satisfy the needs of my menstruating body, two hours too late.

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Normally I would not share such a detailed account of my intimate mishaps, yet, as much as I am certain that the distress of this story resonates with the majority of women out there, who therefore need no such account, I equally know how entirely ignorant men seem to be about the afflictions proper to our gender, to the point of indifference, and it is time they become aware.

It has been noted innumerable times by several (female) authors¹ how categorically different the social treatment of menstruation would be were the men the ones who bled. But because it is us, women, the inconsequential half of the population, the issue has never received its due attention or remedies. We are, once again, punished for our differences.

Our toileting needs are greater than men’s, and not only menstruation-wise. For instance, women are over thirty times more prone to having a urinary tract infection than men are². I have had it several times. All my female friends have had it at least once. Yet, the only free public toilets I have ever seen across Europe (with the exception of some French cities) are urinals, which are, of course, solely intended for those endowed with the privilege of peeing standing. Men have, therefore, the favour of biology on this issue, as well as that of urban engineering, social acceptance and the governing bodies who made the decision to legalise street peeing in some allocated spots —as long as you have a penis, that is.

Society has once again failed women. But capitalism has conveniently figured out a remedy. For starters, it has liberalised our periods by giving us the power to choose from a wide variety of colourful menstrual products, after some businessmen smartly worked out the profit they would make from women’s monthly bleeding —let us not forget how costly these products are as none of them are considered first-necessity goods. Secondly, as I mentioned before, the lack of public facilities is balanced out by the great number of local establishments of food and beverages, where you just have to order a drink and the bathroom is all yours.

Indeed, it is just a matter of spending money on every occasion our bodies are in need (which could easily be every four or five hours).

What transpires from the above is that the satisfaction of women’s hygienic needs is constrained by gender as much as it is constrained by class. Women across the globe are already paid less than men³ and, on top of that, we are expected to allot a quite significant sum of money from that reduced amount to cover our bare necessities. The woman who cannot afford to buy her right to attend to her body’s demands when in public will simply not leave the house; she will remove herself from society, thus perpetuating the existing stigma around what for a long time was referred to as “the curse” (and it still is in some religions).

Undoubtedly, this self-confinement, by all means appalling, will not have the same impact on everyone; for some of us it will simply mean forgoing a planned trip or a day at the beach, whereas for a big proportion of the female population it actually entails dropping out of school or missing a day of work, with the consequent loss of income for that day’s worth. I think it is safe to say, whenever that is the case, that our menstrual health should not be regarded as a women’s issue. It is actually a social issue and an economic issue, as well as a health issue, the more reason why ensuring the provision of and access to public toilets should be paramount on every government’s agenda, which is to this day not the case.

While our specific problems are not contemplated and addressed alongside those of men, women’s capacity to participate in society and our ability to act as autonomous individuals in a world that already defies us in every possible dimension will continue to be undermined. Considering that menstruation is a natural process that happens, on average, once a month for a lifespan of about fifty years to half of the world’s population, it is high freaking time society recognises women’s needs as human needs and ensures that, regardless of economic or geographic situation, women can satisfy their needs with dignity and without it taking a toll on our lives.

Our bodies are not a cage. It is society that has built a cage around them.

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1. For example, read this Gloria Steinem’s text
2. https://nortonhealthcare.com/news/uti-ecare
3. Latest figures from the World Economic Forum