Here's Why This Yogi's Brave Statement About Period Blood Shouldn't Disgust Us

Why This Yoga Instructor’s Powerful Statement About Period Blood Shouldn’t Disgust Us

This week, media headlines were overrun with images of a woman doing yoga in white active wear with a single, red patch in the centre of her crotch.

Steph Gongora, AKA Casa Colibri, is a yoga instructor with an important message about periods to share with the world.

She caught the attention of scrollers on Instagram with a video of herself performing yoga while bleeding. The video has already been viewed almost 350,000 times.

I am a woman, therefore, I bleed. . It's messy, it's painful, it's terrible, & it's beautiful. . And yet, you wouldn't know. Because I hide it. . I bury things at the bottom of the trash. I breathe, ragged and awkward through the cramps, all the while holding onto this tight lipped, painted on smile. . Tampons? Shhh. We don't say those words out loud. Hide them. In the back pocket of your purse, in the corner of the bathroom drawer, at the very bottom of your shopping cart (please let me get a female cashier). . Events or engagements get missed. I'll tell myself it's the PMS, sure, but it has more to with the risk of being "caught," at what...I'm not quite sure. . And I'm lucky. . Over 100 million young women around the globe miss school or work for lack of adequate menstrual supplies, & fear of what might happen if the world witnesses A NATURAL BODILY FUNCTION. . WHY? . Because hundreds of years of culture have made us embarrassed to bleed. Have left us feeling dirty and ashamed. . STOP PRETENDING. Stop using silly pet names like Aunt Flo because you're too afraid to say "I'm bleeding" or "vagina." Stop wasting so much effort hiding the very thing that gives this species continuity. . START talking about it. Educate your daughters. Make them understand that it can be both an inconvenience and a gift, but NEVER something to be ashamed about. Educate your sons so they don't recoil from the word tampon. So when a girl bleeds through her khaki shorts in third period (pun intended), they don't perpetuate the cycle of shame and intolerance. . This #StartSomethingSunday , I want to highlight @corawomen . . Cora Women is a 100% Organic tampon company. . But that's not all. They are also breaking barriers. Making it ok to talk about periods, even on social media. Providing personalized, delivered tampon/pad orders right to your door. AND for every box purchased, donating a box of sustainable pads to girls who can't afford menstruation products. . Fuck yeah. That's the kind of stuff I can galvanize behind, NO money OR product needed. Just a mission I support on a topic we should ALL be talking about. . THIS IS JUST A LEAK, NOT FREE BLEEDING ✌🏽

In the caption, she wrote an essay highlighting the shame that women feel about their periods, and the pressure to hide them.

“I am a woman, therefore, I bleed,” she writes. “It's messy, it's painful, it's terrible, & it's beautiful. And yet, you wouldn't know. Because I hide it. I bury things at the bottom of the trash.”

Most women might relate to the feeling of embarrassment that can come with your period. Who hasn't buried their tampons at the bottom of their shopping basket while they're doing the supermarket shopping? Or felt a pang of embarrassment when a tampon accidentally rolls out of their handbag?

And it's true that Steph’s video is certainly confronting. Your initial reaction might be even be disgust.

And in fact hundreds of comments have described it as exactly that, calling it ‘disgusting’ and ‘unnecessary’. One commenter said, "dude what the heck that's nasty", while another commented, "this is the definition of cancer".

And this is why Steph’s message is so important. She encourages women to normalise their periods (albeit in more subtle ways), and encourage education for both sons and daughters to end the shame we experience and put on other women.

“Educate your daughters,” she writes. “Make them understand that it can be both an inconvenience and a gift, but NEVER something to be ashamed about. Educate your sons so they don't recoil from the word tampon. So when a girl bleeds through her khaki shorts in third period (pun intended), they don't perpetuate the cycle of shame and intolerance.”

Steph’s video isn’t the first time women have tried to normalise period blood on social media.

Artist Rupi Kaur famously posted a menstruation-themed photo series on Instagram which was later removed as sensitive content. Instagram has since apologised and allowed it to remain on the site.

thank you @instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique. you deleted a photo of a woman who is fully covered and menstruating stating that it goes against community guidelines when your guidelines outline that it is nothing but acceptable. the girl is fully clothed. the photo is mine. it is not attacking a certain group. nor is it spam. and because it does not break those guidelines i will repost it again. 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 your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified. pornified. and treated less than human. thank you. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ this image is a part of my photoseries project for my visual rhetoric course. you can view the full series at rupikaur.com the photos were shot by myself and @prabhkaur1 (and no. the blood. is not real.) ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ i bleed each month to help make humankind a possibility. my womb is home to the divine. a source of life for our species. whether i choose to create or not. but very few times it is seen that way. in older civilizations this blood was considered holy. in some it still is. but a majority of people. societies. and communities shun this natural process. some are more comfortable with the pornification of women. the sexualization of women. the violence and degradation of women than this. they cannot be bothered to express their disgust about all that. but will be angered and bothered by this. we menstruate and they see it as dirty. attention seeking. sick. a burden. as if this process is less natural than breathing. as if it is not a bridge between this universe and the last. as if this process is not love. labour. life. selfless and strikingly beautiful.

A hashtag also took off in 2015 called #LiveTweetYourPeriod to encourage women to share their struggles on Twitter.

Importantly, Steph clarifies that this video wasn’t ‘free-bleeding’ - it was actually just a leak. Her message isn’t one against sanitary products, which empower women to do activities they were once prevented from doing in the past. In fact, the whole intent of the message was to promote Cora Women, a 100% organic tampon company who donate a box of free pads to girls who can’t afford menstruation products.

So here’s why we need to move past the feeling of disgust.

Periods happen. Accidents happen too. At the end of the day they are a natural bodily function that almost every woman goes through in her life.

If you're a feminist that doesn't feel compelled to be as... open about your period as Steph has been, tearing down her cause is not productive for anyone. Feminism has a history of shaking up cultural norms, and this is no different. Offering our support to a sister for her bravery will go a lot further.

The sheer fact that this video has drawn so much negative attention indicates that something has to change. And it starts with us.