The Secret Coven of People Who Menstruate
I think somewhere, once, I read about a person on their period being in their full power - in witching terms. In fact, many modern-day witches claim that period blood is spiritual and is a powerful substance that can be used for fertilising plants, or casting spells. One of the most memorable experiences of my life was when I went to a climate change conference and I spoke to the host afterwards. I asked her about period sustainability - something she hadn’t brought up in her talk - and she spoke totally unabashedly about her own sustainable period practices. She told me that she used a menstrual cup, and that as an avid gardener, she collected her menstrual blood and used it to fertilise her garden plants - that it was like a superfood for them. She also liked doing this on a full moon.
This moment has stuck with me ever since; almost every time I look at my menstrual cup I laugh at the memory. At the time, I was shocked at that woman’s honesty; her story was so bizarre to me, and to the countless others I have told it to. For many years, I labelled her as an oddity, as someone to laugh about. As shameful as it is to admit, I found the idea disgusting for an incredibly long time. Because, although we are desensitised to the image of blood in all types of films and TV series, we are scandalised by the very thought of period blood. Moreover, the idea of handling menstrual blood in a reverent way is downright disturbing. So, this strange hypocrisy has emerged in our media; we can stomach the sight of a fake wound in a slasher film, yet advertisements shy away from showing fake blood on the sanitary products they promote.
As I’m writing this, Halloween is just around the corner; plastic witches with bulbous, green noses and warts hang in shop windows, and children sport brooms and pointy hats on their way to wrangle some sweets from worn-out parents. This pop culture image of witches has developed over time, iconised in films like The Wizard of Oz, and has simultaneously deflected from the terrible truth of witch trials through its cartoonishness, and further villainised such a markedly feminine image. But witches have a long and horrific history in Scotland, and Edinburgh particularly, with the last legal execution for witchcraft in Scotland taking place as late as 1727 when it was outlawed.
In Europe, women with knowledge and relative power were persecuted and deemed ‘witches’ for hundreds of years, as the idea that we should know anything that may empower us goes against traditional patriarchal male narratives. Witchcraft - or, more accurately, the superstition about women with scientific or physiological knowledge - has often been linked to menstruation. This is due to menstruation’s connotations of fertility and reproduction, its cyclical nature, and simply just the raw, bloody-ness of it all. Not to mention the seemingly magical facts such as that when people who menstruate live together, they very often ‘sync up’ and begin to have the same cycle and periods. Which is a little spooky, and very cool.
But because of this superstition that is embedded in society, femme people collaborating and sharing knowledge has been demonised and presented as dangerous, rude, and vindictive over time. These ideas have thus bled into the way that people who menstruate behave with each other and themselves about their menstruation, its trials and tribulations. We hide it away from the world, we shy away from our own bodies and try to sanitise and censor the experience as much as possible. Because sure, dealing with blood, stomach cramps, and a sore back is not exactly pleasant, but the way in which we try to ignore and erase these experiences from our lives as if they are something shameful is deeply upsetting. We are disgusted with ourselves for something that is an inherent part of who we are, and kind of magical.
One of the first things people who menstruate learn about menstruation is to hate it. We are taught it is something to keep secret, an experience that is not part of everyday life, but secondary to it. We are put in a separate room for a singular lesson within the sex education curriculum and are told that the menstrual cycle is only relevant for 3-4 days of the month, that this is a healthy cycle, that that kind of discharge is regular, that this is a ‘normal’ flow. We are not taught to accept and explore our variance, we are not taught to interact with our menstruation and genitals as anything other than a vague ‘you know, Down There’ or ‘That Time of the Month’. We are even made to be afraid of simply using scientific terms to describe ourselves and our experiences.
People who menstruate keep the monthly occurrence undercover, like we’re double-agent spies; sharing secret intel and vital assets (tampons, pads, you know the drill) with each other in bathrooms, classrooms, or under tables. There is power in the inherent trust and compassion between people who menstruate, this can be seen in the simple ‘do you have a tampon’ request that we have all asked, or been asked, many times. This kind of unconditional generosity undermines the very existence of patriarchal power structures; as it allows for collaboration and community building that acts as a threat to the way society is unfairly structured.
So, when I think about that woman from the conference now, she inspires me. I laugh in joy at the memory of her unfathomable bravery for being so honest about an experience that society has deemed irrevocably private and shameful with a total stranger. I am also grateful, as through her brazen witchy-ness she prompted me to think about my own relationship with menstruation. And it shows, that by discussing menstruation and experiencing it without self-reproach, we can unlearn patriarchal norms, and become more intimate with ourselves. Moreover, once we learn to accept - even love - our menstrual experiences, then we can begin to witch-cackle laugh in the face of patriarchy’s fear of powerful femmes.
