She opened with the statement: “It’s a radical notion realizing that on a marathon course you don’t have to worry about how you look for others”.
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It may not be the most elegant and sophisticated reaction, but I felt it so powerfully in my gut that I was compelled to call it for what it is: nonsense. Twinkle Khanna in fact wrote a thought-provoking and light-hearted piece about our feudal and puritanical mind set about menstruation – the most natural of all bodily functions we are created to perform.
Kiran Gandhi – Harvard graduate, part-time drummer for M.I.
“As I ran, I thought to myself about how women and men have both been effectively socialized to pretend periods don’t exist”, she writes “By establishing a norm of period-shaming, [male-preferring] societies effectively prevent the ability to bond over an experience that 50% of us in the human population share monthly”. She explained in the post that millions of women face financial, societal or other barriers when they have their periods.
Gandhi took to her website and updated her followers of her accomplishment in finishing the marathon while helping to empower women on their periods. F-k you! I felt very empowered by that.
Not only did Gandhi finish the epic race, she scored major cool points for sticking two fingers up to societal norms that constrict women every damn day. I did, ” Kiran told Cosmopolitan. And for those that do, the marathoner wants childbearing women to embrace their periods. One of her pads went viral: “imagine if men were as disgusted with rape as they are with periods”. I just happen to prefer to not have blood inconveniently dripping down my leg, you know?
If theres one person society cant eff with, its a marathon runner. I think people are already aware of periods and I think she is a vulgar capital V [sic]’. Those are the things that allowed the pain to subside and for me to just run. Where the stigma of a woman’s period is irrelevant, and we can re-write the rules as we choose.
Gandhi wrote a special message to her family and friend who supported her unconditionally.
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Social media reaction to Kiran’s story has, however, been mixed.
