#danielle rowley

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I'm On My Period' - Danielle, Scottish MP to Parliament

Danielle Rowley, Scottish Labour MP for Midlothian, apologised for being late to a House of Commons debate this week, telling the speaker: “I’m on my period.”

Here, Ms Rowley explains why women need to talk more openly about the issue.

A year ago next week I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons as Labour’s youngest MP, but on Thursday it seems that I did something even more momentous.

I became the first member to tell the chamber that I was on my period.

It’s good that this has had so much coverage, but the fact a woman has said she’s on her period – something that happens to half the population every month – has made such big news just shows how far we need to go to break the taboo.

I talk to my friends and colleagues about my period, just as I would if I had a bad cold. If any other issue caused so much pain, surely we would talk freely about it.

So yes, I did it to break a taboo. But I also did it to highlight just how much periods cost the average woman – if she is lucky enough to have the money to spend on them.

The truth is many don’t, and the loss of dignity which that entails for those women and girls is not something I think should be suffered in silence.

And it’s not just the direct monthly financial burden of being a woman that matters.

A report this week by Public Health England (PHE) revealed almost one in three women questioned had suffered severe reproductive health symptoms in the last 12 months, ranging from heavy menstrual bleeding and menopause to incontinence and infertility.

The PHE research also found that 35% of women have experienced heavy menstrual bleeding – which is in turn linked to higher unemployment and absence from work.

I realise a lot of this will come as a shock to men. Even to those who consider themselves to be switched on. But it’s not necessarily their fault when frank discussion about it is still such a taboo, even between women.

No woman should be forced to make such a public declaration in the workplace as I did about what we’ve been taught is an embarrassing issue. But the fact that fewer than half of the women who took part in the PHE study had sought help for their symptoms suggests that most simply soldier on in silence.

Clearly we have a long way to go before painful periods are treated with the same gravity as “man flu”. But speaking openly about them has to be the starting point.

It’s inconceivable that such a potentially debilitating problem would be dismissed so lightly if it affected so many men.

In my constituency office in Midlothian I provide free sanitary products out of my own pocket. Many schools now do the same. Meanwhile my Labour colleague Monica Lennon MSP’s member’s bill to end period poverty north of the border is currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament.

But direct action can only ever be part of the solution to period poverty when essential items like sanitary wear are still taxed as luxuries. In 2000 the Labour government cut VAT on tampons from 17.5% to 5%. That was a good start, but 18 years later it’s time to take the next step and zero-rate them.

It would be a fitting tribute to the women who, exactly a century ago, won us the vote if my generation of female parliamentarians could make that happen.