Boys, Meet Aunt Flo!
We’ve been hearing enough about why it is important to introduce men to our little secret. We’ve been working under the assumption that men don’t want to have anything to do with that crazy time of the month when their sisters suddenly can’t go to the temples, their wives can’t enter the kitchen and their girlfriends become ridiculously cranky. But here’s the thing – men want to know.
This realization dawned upon me the other day when I was on a coffee break with a few coworkers – one female and two males. I work in advertising, so discussions about awesome or stupid ads are a regular feature around here. One of the guys mentioned a tampon commercial he’d watched and found it absolutely amusing.
He went on to describe it, and asked us girls if there was any validity to the ad from a female perspective. And here’s when something amazing happened. The two of us women in the discussion – who had spent a good twenty minutes cribbing about menstrual cramps in every cycle, just stopped and stared.
Not out of offense. Or disgust. We just didn’t know how to react. I suppose we’re so used to hiding that part of our lives from men, that we didn’t know how to respond. We looked at each other – feeling the silence grow longer and weirder with every second we didn’t offer an opinion… until the other guy said, “That was sufficiently awkward!”
And then we laughed. We laughed long and hard, finally relieved. And once the ice was broken, we stepped up and gave the guys our perspective on our monthly visitor. And you know what? They weren’t disgusted. They didn’t even think we were weird. They were listening. And they seemed to understand.
Maybe it’s going to be a while before I can call my Dad and ask him to buy me pads on his way back from work. But the younger guys? They’re willing to listen. They’re curious. And even though they can get all the information they need online, hearing it firsthand is obviously better. So instead of trying to change the mentality of the older generation, why not start off with the young?
It’s time.
Boys, meet Aunt Flo.
Author: Chandni Kukreja is a copywriter with an advertising agency in Bangalore. When she isn’t working, reading or generally being geeky, she enjoys daydreaming and dabbling in nail art.
