The Unfiltered Flow | Ep 2

Anjali, the Director of Research for Menstruation Redefined, spoke about her work as a menstrual equity advocate. She discussed disconnecting societal norms from the scientific reality of menstruation and the struggle to gain credibility for her research. Anjali introduced the concept of "biological empathy" and shared her experience of needing to disclose her period to maintain professionalism. She also talked about expanding the organization's team and the difficulties of ensuring sustainable menstrual product distribution. Anjali emphasized the importance of understanding people's lived experiences and cultural barriers to find long-term solutions. The goal is to remove the shame and secrecy around menstruation and promote awareness and access to menstrual products. Welcome back to the Unfiltered Flow. If you didn't catch the last episode, Menstruation Redefined's Director of Research, Anjali, spoke about her work as a menstrual equity advocate for the student-led nonprofit organization. She built on the menstrual taboos idea of hygiene and cleanliness by disconnecting societal norms definition from the scientific reality. In this episode, Anjali will go to depth of the struggle in gaining credibility for her research on menstrual equity by research ethics to the barriers in ensuring menstrual products are equally distributed. Biological empathy continued to be the clear view. First, I will highlight a key takeaway from my interview with Anjali, introducing me to the term biological empathy, understanding the naturality of the process of menstruation and the menstruator. Okay, like, I'm on my period. I'm not going to go tell the patient that, but I did later tell the physician. I was like, I'm so sorry for stepping out during this thing. I appreciate that you brought me in. And he's like, I'm sorry for keeping you standing. I was like, no, no, no, it's just that I'm close to my period. And then I get a little more. It's just that I was feeling a little bit of a flush sensation or almost like a hot flash, and I needed to handle that. And he was perfectly fine with it. We could see his daughters as well. But it was that one interaction that I was worried as someone who's a professional coming in. But it was just something that I knew I needed to do from a place. And I was like, I hope he had some biological empathy. Luckily, he did. But, yeah, that's what I mean by tolerance, where I have to monitor sometimes what I'm experiencing and, like, perhaps disclose that, I find, just to be able to maintain my professionalism. Because I want to be just so normalized that we don't talk about this, that it is just like, oh, here's the absorbency. Make sure to put a pad on, right? It just wasn't something I was even able to question because there was nothing to question about it. No one brought up those ideas to me. I didn't even think twice about what I was seeing. One, it's supposedly educational. It's not outright telling me to do something that I thought was completely wrong. Yeah. Biological empathy is clear in Anjali's goal as a menstrual equity advocate through her acknowledgment of the multiple identities and intersectionalities of menstruators, as well as the understanding of the menstrual cycle as a natural process. Despite the goals of the organization and their research work, Anjali struggled to gain credibility for her already done research. The organization trying to, like, get that credibility to be able to get research ethics. I would have had to, like, gone through my university, have someone there support me, and then do it through, like, through an institution. But then it doesn't stand, like, well, how am I supposed to get that for all of the Canadian post-secondary institutions? Or even just in Ontario. I was trying to logistically understand that. I decided to do instead, like, push more so on, like, the ambassador chapter side. Oh, okay. So we have ambassadors. And we had, I think, at most we had 15 chapters, but I don't know how many there are right now. So we had several chapters, and the idea was to, like, have this presence within post-secondary institutions. Have them lobby out. And then perhaps we can introduce the survey that way. Expanding the team was the solution to their problem. Gaining other students ignited to break the barriers of menstrual inequity. Angela's role as director of research offers support to the sexual education team while overseeing the research team, collecting data from multiple Ontario universities to combat the lack of access to menstrual products on these campuses. Great literature in a way. It's not, like, formalized research. Yeah. But, like, the tacit knowledge, the implicit knowledge that lives within these institutions and the people who, like, walk through them, that was the idea, to be able to understand better who are the people interacting. Like, would schools have more pads and tampons? Which ones don't? Because some individuals have people who have lobbied and have gotten it. I think Laurier is the most, like, progressive where I've, like, met them all. Following their initial research process, the difficulties of ensuring sustainable menstrual product distribution came about. Where if you're, if I just say everyone experiences menstruation in this way, it's very much not true. It neglects so many experiences. And then it's really hard to, how do we get products to these people in a way that's sustainable? It's really about approaching the communities that they're part of. And I think taking that sort of approach and really understanding people's lived experiences and the barriers and cultural barriers that they're facing can really help in cutting to a more long-term solution. Here, the feminist analysis I conducted comes to light and paired with the remission advocacy work of Adelaide. To have biological empathy, it is more than being compassionate and understanding that the menstrual cycle is a natural process of the body. Biological empathy in connection to menstrual equity removes the veil of shame, where conversations and awareness on access to menstrual products and experience itself are encouraged. Thank you, Anjali, for taking the time to share your story of advocacy work. To use your free time to take the necessary steps to overcome the menstrual taboo a log type of team of menstruation redefined cannot be undermined. By working towards solutions for the barriers instead of giving up, the cold becomes closer to reach. Listening to Anjali share her story of advocacy work further educated me on menstrual inequity and what it encompasses. The work of menstrual advocacy is to remove the expectation of having the menstrual experience a secret and to have what Anjali calls biological empathy. Thank you all for tuning in to today's episode of The Unfiltered Flow.