A recent study from Plan International Australia has brought to light that one in five (19 per cent of) boys and young men aged 16-21 across the country believe women should keep their periods secret.
Geopoll ran the study on a global scale on behalf of the charity and found that across Brazil, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Uganda more than one in three boys (37 per cent) think periods should be kept a secret.
In Indonesia, more than half (58 per cent) of those surveyed do not think girls and women can go to school or work while menstruating, and 73 per cent believe they can’t visit a place of worship.
In Uganda, 55 per cent of respondents said they do not think it’s acceptable for a girl to stay unmarried after her first period.
The survey, which focused on male attitudes towards periods, also revealed nearly half (49 per cent) of Australian boys said their education on periods was poor or non-existent, with just under one third admitting that talking about periods made them feel uncomfortable.
This increased to 53 per cent in the youngest respondents, aged 16-18 years.
When asked what words they associate with periods, 58 per cent said ‘messy’, while almost a quarter said ‘embarrassing’ and ‘dirty’. Four in 10 boys admitted to having witnessed bullying around periods.
Sadly, 15 per cent of those surveyed believe periods are “impure”, and over four in 10 young men said they had witnessed another man making a negative comment to a girl about her period.
“I feel uncomfortable talking about something that I do not fully understand,” said an 18-year-old man from South Australia, while a 19-year-old man from Victoria said he was uncomfortable “because I am not a woman and male involvement with this topic is usually seen as perverted and unnecessary”.
While these findings are cause for concern, they also reveal a solution – the need for earlier and better education for young men about periods.
The polling revealed that 70 per cent of those who described their school education on periods as “good” also said they felt very comfortable discussing periods. Some of the words these boys associated with menstruation were “natural” and “healthy”.
Plan International Australia notes that this demonstrates educating boys on menstrual health can have a positive impact on ending period shame and stigma, and normalising periods from a younger age.
The studies were conducted in the run-up to Menstrual Hygiene Day that was held on 28 May, a day dedicated to breaking taboos and stigma around menstruation.
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