Kiran Gandhi shocked the world when she intentionally left her sanitary pad and tampon at home and decided to run a marathon with menstrual blood oozing freely out of her vagina.
She had been training for almost year and was ready to take on the 42.2 kms London marathon. Only, there was one glitch. She got her period the night before she was supposed to run. She contemplated dropping out of the marathon, but then eventually decided to run — free-bleeding. Bloody photos when you continue: She said it was to encourage women not to be ashamed of their period and also to bring awareness to the fact that a lot of women have no access to feminine products. “I ran the whole marathon with my period blood running down my legs,” Kiran, who is a Harvard Business School graduate, said. She also explained that her period started the night before the race and knew that tampon would inconvenience her during the run. “I ran with blood dripping down my legs for sisters who don’t have access to tampons and sisters who, despite cramping and pain, hide it away and pretend like it doesn’t exist.”
On her blog she details every stigma and stereotype that is usually associated with menstruation, and describes how happy she was with her decision to run without a tampon. She told Cosmopolitan that usually her periods get very painful.
So the thought of running the marathon seemed like a terrible idea. But she decided to do it anyway flanked throughout the race by two of her very good friends. Even during the marathon, she encountered a period shamer who came up behind her, making a disgusted face, and reminded her, in a subdued voice, that she was on her period. Kiran had the perfect reply, of course: "I was like…wow, I had NO idea!"
In her interview with People Magazine, Kiran explained that she did this also to bring to light the age-long period-shaming and denigrating language “surrounding women’s menstrual cycles.”
“On the marathon course, sexism can be beaten,” she wrote on her website. “If there’s one way to transcend oppression, it’s to run a marathon in whatever way you want. Where the stigma of a woman’s period is irrelevant, and we can re-write the rules as we choose.”
Guys, What do you think of this?
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