Over the past 10-plus years of being a menstruating female, I've discovered various ways to transport my tampon to the restroom. There’s the take-your-bag-with-you, which I stopped doing at work because inevitably a coworker would ask me where I was headed. There’s the back-pocket tuck, which can produce a suspicious looking lump if you’re wearing tight jeans, so you dash to the bathroom, looking over your shoulder to see who might have caught onto your cycle. And there’s my personal favorite, the sleeve trick, in which you place the tampon in your sweater sleeve right above your wrist, and scuttle to the bathroom with your arm pinned at your side so it doesn't fall out. (This one always reminds me of when I would sneak chocolate into summer camp by securing it underneath my jeans to my ankle using a hairband. I was a very hungry and industrious child.)
I’d given up the whole bring-your-purse-to-pee charade a while ago, but the other day after seeing a colleague take her huge bag to the restroom for period purposes, I thought, Who is this really fooling? And: I can’t believe you brought your laptop into this. I work in an office that's 95 percent women; why are we all pretending we don’t get our periods? Sneaking tampons into the bathroom like we're on a top-secret mission? Is it for our benefit or for the benefit of men in the vicinity? Because I have a hunch that dudes know that the women around them get their periods. And if they don’t, they probably have bigger issues to deal with.
In an age when women are ferociously fighting against period stigma (hello: bloody Instagrams, Thinx underwear, and free-bleeding marathon runners), why is hiding our tampons still a thing? It’s a small act of period shame, but it still proclaims, “Keep you dirty period to yourself! Being a woman is embarrassing! I’d rather not have my period at all!” And those just aren’t messages I can get behind. So last month, after seeing my coworker drag her whole tote to the bathroom for the sake of a small piece of cotton, I decided that I’m not hiding my tampon or going out of my way to be discreet about carrying it anymore.
Since then I’ve openly carried a tampon to the restroom through the halls of Condé Nast, through some trendy restaurants in the Lower East Side, and once through the gym. I can confidently say that no one has noticed or cared—and even if they had, well, they can just look the other way. I’ll still be toting around my OBs with pride.
