It is okay to talk about anything in the world but the moment anyone pops the question of periods that is the moment when all the judgemental aunties and the annoying uncles and almost everyone will shun you for what you have done. Women have been considered to be weaker sex ever since the dawn of civilization and the reason behind that remains very vague to most of us. It is a woman who goes about wearing a tight bra the entire day to support her breasts, which would otherwise attract a lot of “undue” attention; it is a woman who pushes life out of her vagina, and it is again a woman who has the capability to bleed each month and carry it off with much fervour. And even then, the woman is the weaker sex. We wonder why!
However, thanks to a lot of things that finally a few idiotic taboos are being done with. Although the matter of periods is still a hush-hush affair, the scenario has altered from what it was even a decade ago. The dot-com industry has come up with an amazing plan to let the world know that it was about time that menstruation was treated like a normal phenomenon. Come March, and your smartphone will have a new emoji which will be a tiny drop of blood. This tiny drop of blood will definitely lead to some magnanimous conversation and some heavy finger pointing as nowadays even the older (not necessarily wiser) generation is also a part of social media.
We are thrilled to announce that we are actually getting a #PeriodEmoji!
It is through your support that we can now celebrate that the @unicode have announced that we will get our first ever #PeriodEmoji in March 2019 ????
Find out more here ▶https://t.co/dKd4WwEShX pic.twitter.com/CdyG5fapAx
— PlanInternational UK (@PlanUK) February 6, 2019
If it weren’t for the UK girls’ right group Plan International the #PeriodEmoji would have been a distant dream. The world is progressing at every step so it is only fair that the stupid stigma associated with menstruation be eradicated. Women do not have to be ashamed or afraid of something that brings life on earth. People do not feel ashamed while suffering from fever or from common cold. So there should be no reason for any woman to feel ashamed of their periods.
A mere emoji will not normalise what the society has so successfully ingrained in the minds of human beings who choose to be deliberately unaware of the science behind periods. However, it is a big step which will help women all over the world to at least normalise the conversing about periods. It will also drive home the fact that it is pointless to shut women up about periods. It is also equally pointless to use euphemism and not spell out the actual word. It is like the world would crash around the people if they say p-e-r-i-o-d-s, so people choose to bank upon phrases like “that time of the month”.
Image Credit: glamour.com
This emoji will also enable women to turn down those party invites without having to type out the whole thing, as periods makes most women very cranky. So they can just tap their finger on the blood emoji and the message will be clear. It is the need of the hour to let the population know what women go through every month. It is time that the people realised that they deserve to discuss periods openly instead of hushing it all up. It was not for nothing that on a poll, the period emoji received 72000 votes.
The sooner the world recognises the “bloody” affair, the lesser destruction there will be. So it is time for the world to open their eyes as well their minds.
