Menstruation – a normal fact of life

Yesterday I attended a webinar arranged by the World Council of Churches, Norwegian Church Aid and International Partnership on religion and Sustainable Development. One reason was that the International day of menstrual hygiene was observed on Saturday. The webinar was well attended and included many good speakers. Mostly women, who spoke about how important it is to talk about menstruation. To break the silence means to reduce stigma. When we can speak about menstruation, we can also find solutions to obvious problems. There is for instance a lack of hygienic facilities in many schools in the world. This means that young girls experience hardships during their periods and often decide to stay at home. We need to find ways of making pads available to all. And clean water, decent toilets with doors that can be closed.

There were altogether nine speakers. Eight women and one man. The three concluding contributors represented Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Rev Nicqi Ashwood represented the Christian family and took her point of departure in the narrative about the women who touched the cloak of Jesus. I prefer not to say, “the bleeding woman”, since she is much more than that. Rather point out that she had agency and did something about her situation. But of course, the women had “been subject to bleeding for twelve years” (Mark 5:25 – according to New International Version). New Revised Standard Version translates this with “who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years”.

Nicqi chose the story about the woman and said that she was regarded as ritually unclean due to her bleeding problem. Nevertheless, she approached Jesus. This would have made him unclean to. Jesus acted against this and asked who had touched him. This broke the silence and made it possible for the woman to tell her story. Nicqi concluded and said:

Silence about menstruation must end now. Period.