How important is Menstrual Health and Hygiene day? Image: One.com
Today, May 28th, we are celebrating Menstrual Health and Hygiene Day. It means a lot to us, not only because Menstrual Health is one of our niches but also the business world is tailored to men’s needs, while women’s health is often ignored.
Our menstrual health and menstrual cycles determine our productivity.
- During the follicular phase, especially after our bleeding days, women are generally more productive and creative, our memory capacity improves, and we feel like we can eat the world (wait, don’t we do so all the time?).
- During ovulation, our sexual desire and appetite increase considerably, and we feel like we can attract new opportunities.
- Some may also think that we tend to show up more to the world during these days, like if we were made only to procreate, but that’s not the only thing women can do (and not what every one of us wants to do!)
- We might be a bit calmer during the first half of the luteal phase, but in the second half, we tend to get tired more quickly and often struggle to remember everything if we don’t note things down. Also, these days are better to do tasks that don’t require much creativity, like invoicing and bookkeping.
- Finally, during menstruation (begining of a new cycle and thus, a follicular phase), some of us may need to take a couple of days off because of painful periods, cramps, headaches or even vomits.
Why is menstrual health so important?
Menstrual Health is often overlooked or considered as “not a real issue”. Also, on many occasions, women face comments such as “you’ve got to cope with it and focus”.
But, would men be able to “cope” if they had a sharp knife-like feeling in their lower abdomens or lower backs for 4 to 7 days every month? Probably not! So, why do women have to ignore it and pretend that it does not happen?
In some countries, women are forced to leave their houses or are banned from touching anything because they are “impure”, which is totally unfair.
In a world where women live longer than men in most cases (75.6 years as the life expectancy versus 70.8 years for men), one of the possible reasons for this to happen is women’s menstrual cycles and hormones. Yet, women are often ignored and overlooked in the business world and have access to fewer opportunities precisely because of our capacity (which is not the same as our desire) to procreate. But why should women have to risk facing poverty because our bodies prepare us to have children that we may not even want?
“Wait, what’s the link between menstrual health and a translation business?”
Glad that you asked!
There is a critical link because we are a women-owned business, and to achieve our best results, we’ve got to learn to listen to our bodies.
Running a business does not mean that you have to be productive 24/7. In fact, that’s far from professional because your body (no matter what your gender is) will resent the stress that you put it under sooner or later, and you will probably regret it.
Also, precisely because as women, we understand this process of change, we want other women to understand it too and to live healthier cycles that they can understand and interpret to support and empower other women.
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