Let’s talk about menstruation

Wholesome Chats—Episode 2, WeAreBloodyGreat Team

This article serves as a hybrid of a script and list of questions from episode 3 of my podcast, Wholesome Chats. You can either read through the questions or listen directly to the podcast episode.

Covered in this episode:

• Menstruation

It’s been a while since the first wholesome chat episode, in that time, I’ve been thinking about what the purpose of this podcast is moving forward.

An idea that came to me when I first started this podcast was to bring along guests that have taught me something important, not to talk about the things which they taught me specifically but to explore how they think and discuss pertinent subjects.

Our episode today has not one, but four brilliant women as very special guests.

These four women have spent a great deal of time and energy, researching, creating and publishing content on the internet related to menstruation and the intricacies of what it means to be someone that menstruates.

They are the creators, curators and masterminds behind the rapidly growing Instagram page, We Are Bloody Great.

Our guests are here today as humans with an opinion on a subject, they are not medical doctors or scientists in any fashion and none of what you are about to hear is medical advice. If you need medical advice, please see a professional.

Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today, Ana, Jess, Varsh and Dani. In your own words could you tell us who you are, and why you believe it’s important that we speak more about what it means to menstruate.

I wanted to start by talking about the efforts of Bloody Great as an initiative:

• How would you describe the purpose of Bloody Great?
• What motivated you to start this project?
• If you had to pick one single thing for this initiative to achieve what would that be?

I grew up with three women in my household, but what surprises me when I think back to my childhood, is that I was only educated about the various aspects of what it means to menstruate very briefly from school.

On the subject of menstruation:

• Do you believe that there is enough information out there to help young people to better educate themselves on the subject?
• What would you say are some of the universal truths about menstruation? Facts that are likely to be mostly true for everyone that menstruates?
• What would you say is more likely to be subjective, relative to the person that menstruates?

My memory of having conversations about menstruation is a layer of awkwardness surrounding the subject, even from the women that raised me.

When it comes to conversations around menstruation:

• Do you think that it’s a subject that comes up enough in everyday conversation in your personal experience?
• If you don’t believe it’s discussed enough, why do you think that might be?
• For those listening to the podcast today that would like to contribute toward normalising this subject, how can they better educate themselves? How can they further the cause?

Varsh, Ana, Jess, Dani it’s been a real pleasure talking to you today, I always appreciate any time I get to have wholesome chats with you. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Before I let you go, I have a question I ask all of my guests on this podcast:

• What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your life, that is worth sharing? (something unique to you)