Accursed

Oh god. More of that cis privilege we rejoice in:

A schoolgirl in Kenya has taken her own life after allegedly being shamed in class for having her period and staining her uniform.

The 14-year-old’s mother said her daughter hanged herself after being humiliated by a teacher, Kenyan media reported.

Kenya passed a law a couple of years ago making sanitary pads free in schools, but not all schools have implemented it.

The girl’s mother said a teacher had called her “dirty” for soiling her uniform and ordered her to leave the class in Kabiangek, west of the capital Nairobi, last Friday.

“She had nothing to use as a pad. When the blood stained her clothes, she was told to leave the classroom and stand outside,” the mother was quoted as saying in Kenyan media.

She said her daughter came home and told her mother what had happened, but then when she went to fetch water she took her own life.

She was only 14, she was new to it. It’s all too easy to feel ashamed and embarrassed when you’re new to it.

In Kenya, as in other countries, many girls cannot afford sanitary products such as pads and tampons.

A UN report in 2014 said that one in 10 girls in sub-Saharan Africa missed school during their period.

Some girls reportedly lose 20% of their education for this reason, making them more likely to drop out of school altogether, the report said.

Isn’t that just fucking great.

Why do girls and women do this every month? Because their bodies are where human beings are made. All human beings throughout history were made in the bodies of female humans. Women are the source of human beings – yet they are also shamed and called dirty because of the very processes that enable that to happen. Menstrual blood isn’t Ew Gross Stuff, it’s the life support system for a fetus if the woman gets pregnant. Humans wouldn’t exist without it but girls are tormented for having it.

It’s not fair. None of it is fair.

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