OPINION:
Disney and Pixar's new film, Turning Red, tackles periods in a refreshingly honest way – a fact of life we shouldn't brush under the carpet.
We have only a few rules in our house, which probably explains why we are in a state of constant, cluttered chaos: we don't hide tampons up our sleeves; we don't snigger when someone talks about mooncups; and finally, we don't ignore the reality of living by a menstrual cycle. And by 'we', I mean 'I', given that I live with my husband and eight-year-old daughter.
It's because of her that I insist on being so open about periods: I do not want her to have the experience I did, when, aged 12, I woke up one morning thinking I was dying (when my mother told me I had 'the curse', and that it would happen from now on until I was an old lady, I can't say I was any more comforted). Almost 30 years later, I – like so many other women – still deal with the strange internalised shame that comes from that hush-hush approach to a very normal process that affects half the population. Is it any wonder so many women experience confidence issues when we are taught from the get-go to be embarrassed by our bodies?
This is why I was thrilled to sit down with my daughter and watch Turning Red, the new Pixar movie that came out earlier this month. Like all the best children's films, it is ostensibly about a girl who turns into a giant red panda every time she gets over-emotional, but is really about something else entirely: namely, the awful hormonal experience that is being a 13-year-old girl. When Meilin first transforms into the panda, she locks herself in the bathroom to hide from her parents. Her mother, believing she must have got her period, drums on the door, brandishing a box of sanitary towels.