Like fake eyelashes, Perfect365 and inspirational Instagram quotes, periods are one of those ‘girl things’ that, no matter how hard you try to explain them, men will never fully understand. Some people are better at articulating their innermost thoughts than others, though, and that’s why the women participating in the #LiveTweetYourPeriod movement on Twitter are amazing.
While some of us might find it hard to explain to the men in our lives that our ovaries feel like they’re being scraped out with a knife, the beauty of Twitter (and hiding behind a keyboard and screen in general) is that you feel you can speak more freely.
The hashtag was created by Buzzfeed employee Tracy Clayton, who said on Twitter yesterday: “i never brag about starting trending topics but im so proud of #LiveTweetYourPeriod, its the most important thing ive done (sic).”
According to Buzzfeed, Clayton used the hashtag for the first time back in May, but it has been revived due to a recent New York Times Magazine article by Jenna Wortham. In a poignant piece entitled Our Bodies, Our Feeds, Wortham argues the importance of the #LiveTweetYourPeriod hashtag, considering that, more often than not, women are portrayed as “hypersexualised” online.
Wortham believes we need to become more aware of an obvious gender bias in the world of social media.
She says: “Why is it that Facebook users are mostly fine with certain kinds of imagery (bikini-clad spring breakers, say) but often offended by others (a mother breast-feeding her child)? To activists, such double standards reinforce the notion that women’s bodies are primarily sexual objects — and that very little has changed since the days of old media. Perhaps posting about taboo topics in public, right alongside the quotidian details of our lives, helps normalize, desexualize and destigmatize women’s reproductive health — a topic shrouded in shame for far too long.”
Images via Paramount Pictures / Twitter
