16 August, 2015: Kiran Gandhi , 26, ran Marathon in London without tampon on her period to break stigma about mensuration. She ran a marathon in April to raise awareness and period shaming. According to her, she ran blood dripping down her legs for those who don’t have access to tampon and other mensuration products or who are compelled to hide their periods regardless of crampon and pain.
Kiran is a musician and a Havard graduate. Her story has gone viral in social media with mixed response.
Under heading, Feminism, she writes, “If there’s one way to transcend oppression, it’s to run a marathon in whatever way you want,” she wrote on her personal website. “Where the stigma of a woman’s period is irrelevant, and we can re-write the rules as we choose.”
After a year of training, she got her period a night before marathon. Â She chose not to miss marathon because of this with her mission to transcend oppression.
She says, “I have this vision that if men had their period, because we are in a male-privileging society, that rules would be written into the workplace, rules would be written into the social fabric that enable men to take a moment when they need to or enable people to talk about their periods openly,”
The marathon was organized for breast cancer awareness. Taking about her experience with Cosmopolitian, she said that she didn’t want her father and brother to feel annoying but they only cared to hug her after she completed 26.2 miles in 4:49:11 time.
