Woman Runs Marathon With Menstrual Blood Flowing Down Her Legs

 

26 year-old Kiran Gandhi prepared for the marathon for nearly a year and just so happened to get her period the night before. However, she still participated–menstrual cramps, bleeding and all. But she went without a tampon and on purpose. According to Gandhi running the 26.2 mile-long race with a tampon would have been uncomfortable, so she decided to embrace her womanhood and bleed freely during the race.

“I ran the whole marathon with my period blood running down my legs,” she wrote on her personal website. “I ran with blood dripping down my legs for sisters who don’t have access to tampons and sisters who, despite cramping and pain, hide it away and pretend like it doesn’t exist. I ran to say, it does exist, and we overcome it everyday.” You go, girl!

Gahdi completed the race in four hours, 49 minutes and 11 seconds with a smile on her face. She even posed for pictures with other runners. “I felt kind of like, Yeah! F–k you! I felt very empowered by that. I did, ” Kiran told Cosmopolitan.

Kiran’s decision is not the first time I have heard about women speaking out on sexism by using items that “humanize” and embrace the female body, reminding people that a womans anatomy is not just an object with which to be sexualized. Earlier this year in March a young artist named Elonë took to the streets of Germany and displayed (clean) menstrual pads on street corners with a goal of “putting social issues into perspective.” One of her pads went viral: “imagine if men were as disgusted with rape as they are with periods.” While I understand Gadhi’s perspective, I would never mimic her same sentiments. I embrace everything that is natural about my female body, menstrual cycle included. But would I bleed freely in a public place to advocate for it? No. However, I won’t shame her choice either. I just happen to prefer to not have blood inconveniently dripping down my leg, you know? To me, using a tampon is for sanitary purposes, not a gauge on whether or not I am embarrassed by my womanhood or embrace it.

“If there’s one way to transcend oppression, it’s to run a marathon in whatever way you want,” Kiran wrote. “Where the stigma of a woman’s period is irrelevant, and we can re-write the rules as we choose.”

What do you think of her choice?

Source: Madame Noire, Image Credit: Kiran Gadhi