A New Perspective: Menstruation Documentaries For Dads, Brothers & Sons Too

Two Short Films You Need To See

Jul 11, 2024

“She’s on the rag.” Those four words, so ugly when woven together, have been hurled as insults. Menstruation has long been a vehicle for oppression, as well as physical, emotional, economic, and social pain. What if we changed our perspective and viewed menstruation as a powerful cycle that has connected humans since the beginning of our existence, not something to shame and malign?

Two Short Documentaries - 100% Worth Your Time

Dearest Dads, Brothers & Sons - Please watch these. You’ll learn something, guaranteed.

I added two short films to our 5th grade sexuality education calendar; I invite you to watch them too. These films, each under 30 minutes, will enlighten all people… but they will be especially illuminating to dads and men who avoid even the thought of menstruation.

The Long Line of Ladies

Academy Award-winner Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandiin Tome collaborated with Pimm Allen and the Native American community to make a film about 13-year-old Ahty Allen's IHUK ceremony.

The IHUK ceremony of the Karuk people is a coming-of-age ritual for girls who start their periods. The entire community embraces this young person. At one point in the film, her dad shares that he told his boss he had to leave work early when he got a call saying his daughter had started her first period. Can you imagine?

When I saw this celebratory short film, I was reminded (again) of the wisdom lost with the horrifying decimation of Native American people. Can you imagine a community embracing a young person with dancing, food, art, community, and love because they started their period? Talk about a paradigm shift.

American social conditioning tells us that such a radical act of love and support is weird. My heart tells me that there are dads out there who would leave work early to greet their daughters with a loving hug and unconditional support — if we weren’t culturally trained to align menstruation with a rag.

Period. End of Sentence

This film by Rayka Zehtabshi and Melissa Berton won the Acadamy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2019. It illuminates the stigma and oppression of menstruation in India. The women install a machine and start a business selling pads throughout local villages. The facial expressions of every person, young, old, male, female in this film tell the story.

One male director in Hollywood said he would not vote for an Oscar film because periods are ‘icky.'

Welp, they won!

Periods are just periods. A simple bodily process experienced by billions of people on the planet.

This film started a movement called The Pad Project. The Pad Project started with Kickstarter campaigns and bake sales to help increase access to menstrual supplies and menstrual hygiene management education throughout the world.

Let’s Change the Cycle

It’s time for menstruation stigma and oppression to change. I have a vision for a world where menstruation is normalized, where people who menstruate understand their cycles, symptoms, and bodies, where we revere the human body process that is essential for creating life, and where public bathrooms are generously stocked with menstrual products. Last week I was on Hurricane Island and all the composting toilets were stocked with menstrual pads and tampons - yes! Change is happening.

Let’s think about how we can empower and celebrate young people as they come of age. Let’s open the conversations at home, stretching our conditioned comfort levels. Include all genders in the conversation. My goal is to raise my boys with deep respect and comfortable empathy regarding menstruation.

Always Learning….

I can’t seem to get through my pile of resources and vet each one before sharing. So, I have decided to share tidbits and maybe we can keep learning together.

This collection of short stories by BIPOC authors is on my “I’d like to read list.” Calling the Moon was edited by Alda Salazar and Yamille Saled Mendez. If you read it first, will you let me know what you think?