LOVE YOUR PERIOD CAMPAIGN by Natalie McCulloch and Molly Fenton
Growing up is not an easy process with so much to learn and so many obstacles to face. Life situations fluctuate, relationships alter and bodies go through a tremendous amount of change at every stage. Things which can really be a lifeline, and often a saving grace, are education, advice and support and that’s exactly what women’s health campaigner, Molly Fenton, strives to achieve for Wales! Molly explains that her campaign, ‘Love Your Period’, is seen as a big sister community “because its about being the ‘big sister’ which everyone needs, which I wished I had had and wished I could’ve had the knowledge to be there for my own little sister, Tilly”. Don’t be fooled by the title of the campaign as, ‘Love Your Period’, is far from being about just female menstruation and is certainly not just one ‘for the girls’. It’s about raising awareness, challenging stigma and targeting taboos around periods, sex education and pretty much everything and anything facing young people growing up. Molly explained something which, I feel, many will relate to, the sense of ‘feeling I should know more about sex
34 cardiff-times.co.uk
and my body’, ‘feeling scared by the unfamiliar changes my body was going through due to hormonal changes’ and a sheer ‘lack of sex education, contraception advice or basic education on period hygiene’. Molly feels it is especially poor for females “In school we were taught several times how to put a condom on, but not once how to insert a tampon, or even which sanitary product to use when” she goes on to explain about some of the myths which circulated her teenage years such as “tampons take your virginity”. Molly feels passionately that as a nation we have been falsely taught to NOT talk about these things, that they are ‘taboo’, “…we now need to stand up and question what for years we have shut up about!” So why call it ‘Love Your Period’? One of the main target areas of the campaign is bringing Wales up to speed with the rest of the UK in terms of sanitary product provision. Did you know that only in 2019 did the Welsh Government provide free period products for schools? According to PHS, who Molly works closely with, “25% of girls told us they had to make do without period products during their period” and “36% of girls felt there is a lack of education over matters such as periods and
