The Shame of Girlhood

I can’t remember the first time I felt ashamed of being a girl, but I do remember the first time I realised I was supposed to be.

I grew up in a house full of girls, where periods were never whispered about or hidden. They were just normal. The same at school. In an all girls environment, nothing about it felt off limits, and I never thought twice about speaking openly.

So when I was fourteen, standing at swimming training joking around with one of the boys, I didn’t think twice. He asked why I was off my game that day, and I laughed and said, “I’m on my period.” At that point, I had only recently gotten it, and it didn’t feel like something that needed to be hidden or softened. I didn’t expect a reaction at all.

But everything about him changed. He stopped joking, paused, and said, “That’s gross,” before ending the conversation entirely.

And suddenly, I felt it. This wave of embarrassment and shame that hit me out of nowhere. I remember not being able to explain it, even to myself. Nothing about what I had said had felt wrong just seconds before, and yet somehow, it had become something I wished I could take back.

That moment stayed with me, not just because of what happened, but because of what it quietly introduced.

Because for something so biologically ordinary, the way we experience periods has never just been personal. It’s cultural.

For a long time, periods weren’t just private, they were practically invisible. They weren’t spoken about openly, rarely acknowledged directly, and almost never shown for what they actually were. Even when they did appear in advertising, they were disguised. Blood became blue liquid. Language became vague. Everything about it was softened, filtered, and made more comfortable for everyone else.

There was an unspoken understanding that this was something to be managed quietly. Something you dealt with, but didn’t bring into conversation. Not because it was inherently shameful, but because it had been positioned that way for so long.

Female empowerment has seemingly come a long way. But has there really been that much more pioneering since Courtney Cox said the word “period” on American television for the first time in 1985?

At the time, it was considered groundbreaking. Not because of what she said, but because she said it at all. A single word, spoken plainly, was enough to mark a shift. And yet, decades later, it still feels like we’re navigating that same boundary between what can be acknowledged and what still feels slightly off limits.

Even now, while we might be more open on the surface, the discomfort hasn’t entirely disappeared. Periods are still something to joke about, to whisper about, or to quickly move past. There’s an unspoken understanding that while it can be acknowledged, it shouldn’t be dwelled on.

And you see it clearly in the language we still use. Aunt flow. The crimson wave. That time of the month. There are countless ways to avoid saying what it actually is, as if the word itself is too direct, too real. As if “I’m on my period” is something that still needs softening.

It creates this quiet contradiction. We grow up being told to embrace womanhood, to feel empowered in it, and yet one of the most defining parts of it is still treated as something that needs to be managed carefully in conversation.

And while moments like that were considered progress, they didn’t erase what had already been ingrained.

More than forty years later, that same hesitation still lingers.

Not in the same obvious ways, but in quieter, more subtle ones. The language might be more open, the conversations more visible, but the underlying discomfort hasn’t entirely gone anywhere. It’s just evolved.

You see it in the way periods are still softened in conversation, even among women. In the way it’s often brushed off quickly, mentioned in passing, or turned into something lighthearted before it has the chance to feel too real. There’s still a sense that it’s something to be handled carefully, something that can be acknowledged, but only to a certain extent.

And while there’s been a visible shift towards empowerment, it often feels curated, polished, and safe. The kind of openness that fits neatly into what’s socially acceptable, rather than something that challenges it.

Because the reality is, shame doesn’t disappear just because something becomes more visible.

It fades when it’s fully normalised, and I’m not sure we’re quite there yet.

There’s still an instinct to filter, to adjust, to read the room before speaking. To decide how something will be received before deciding whether to say it at all.

And maybe that’s the real reason it lingers.

Not because we don’t talk about it at all, but because we’re still deciding how it should be talked about. Still adjusting, filtering, reading the room before we speak. Still learning, in subtle ways, what is easier to soften than to say plainly.

It’s not always obvious. It doesn’t always feel like shame.

But it shows up in the hesitation. In the instinct to rephrase. In the small moments where something natural is treated as something that needs to be managed.

And those moments don’t just stay in girlhood.

They follow us.

Because the girl who is conditioned to think she shouldn’t bring up her period turns into the woman who goes through menopause behind closed doors.

And I think about that fourteen-year-old version of me sometimes. Standing there, completely unaware that what she said was supposed to be something she kept to herself. Saying it plainly, without hesitation, without second-guessing how it might be received.

There was nothing wrong with her. Nothing inappropriate, nothing to hide. The only thing that changed was how the world responded.

So this month, I want to encourage you to filter yourself a little less.

To notice the moments where you soften something before you say it. Where you instinctively rephrase, or hold back, or decide something is easier left unsaid. Not in a dramatic way, but in the small, almost automatic ways that have been learned over time.

And maybe, just for a moment, question it.

The word period doesn’t need to be censored. Your feelings don’t need to be censored. And most importantly, your experience as a woman doesn’t need to be censored.

You don’t have to perform it more softly. You don’t have to make it more comfortable for everyone else.

And maybe, in doing that, you honour the version of you who didn’t yet know she was supposed to feel ashamed.

The version of you who spoke freely, before she learned to filter herself.

You’re allowed to come back to her.

With love,
Ava