Photo courtesy of Afripads

Madeleine Shaw had been making reuasable cloth menstrual pads for six years when she met Suzanne Siemens at a community leadership course in 1999. The women instantly clicked over their shared goals around business and social change, and together, they decided to take Shaw’s pad project to the next level.

“When I was in university, I became an activist and I thought I’d end up as a social worker,” says Shaw, a women’s studies student at the time. “But becoming an entrepreneur gave me a whole new set of tools to create change.”

Years later, their Vancouver-based company Lunapads is still growing. Their product, reusable pads, is aimed at tackling the host of problems associated with feminine hygiene products: the ongoing cost and environmental waste, and for many women across the world, inaccessibility.

Since 1999, Lunapads has sold one million units, and as of September 2016, select Target stores across the United States were fully stocked with the reusable goods. And while business is thriving, so are their international charities, including Pads4Girls and One4Her, two programs that donate pads in developing countries. Because of their work, 20,000 people in countries such as Uganda, Cambodia, and Jamaica have been given nearly 100,000 pads to help them continue going to work or school while on their periods.

“The typical girl in Uganda, for example, is so embarrassed to take the risk of going to school and soiling herself that she will stay home,” Siemens says. “When they don’t go to school, their grades drop, and they often drop out.” That girl may then be forced to marry and become pregnant, Siemens adds. In effect, access to menstrual pads has the remarkable ability to change the course of one’s life for the better.

This dedication to business and social change helped Lunapads secure a portion of $500,000 in 2016 from SheEO’s #RadicalGenerosity campaign, an initiative that encourages female entrepreneurs to loan money to fellow female founders to help grow their businesses.

As Lunapads moves into the next growth phase, Shaw and Siemens are focused on educating customers on how to use their products for light bladder leakage, making their language and products more gender-inclusive, and publishing a graphic novel-style booklet for Lunapads users in Africa—all while staying committed to their core values. “Every business can do something to be more socially inclusive and environmentally responsible,” Siemens says.

To mention menstruation is to mention … the vagina. And we are taught that vaginas are gross.

Vaginas are so awful, many of us can’t even say the word, opting for pretty nicknames like “flower” instead. If referring to a part of our body as a symbol of beauty was a thing of pride, that’d be one thing. But these nicknames are used because—gosh—we can’t actually say vagina in public.

There are a whole bunch of other nicknames out there too, to emphasize that having a vagina is a terrible thing. Pussy is used to call out someone, usually a guy, for being passive or cowardly, in other words, unmanly. Cunt is used as the worst insult ever against a woman (in North America).

“Think about ‘Fuck you’ or ‘Go fuck yourself,’” Erin McKelle writes on everydayfeminism.com. “We may not always actively think of it this way, but think about what this literally means: You are telling the person on the receiving end of this exchange that to be fucked, to be the one receiving penetration, is shameful and so much so, that it’s insulting to suggest that one be in this position. Because this role is usually associated—in our heteronormative, cissexist culture—with women, saying ‘Fuck you’ translates to ‘Be the woman and the vagina in sex.’”

“Girls are told bleeding is a bad thing, an embarrassing thing, a secret thing that we should hide and remain discreet about come hell or high water,” writes Inga Muscio in her book, Cunt. So instead of learning about our bodies, we worry about being discreet (thankfully, Tampax thought of that!) and making sure our vaginas don’t offend anyone with their overpowering unhygienic ways by buying unnecessary and potentially harmful products to make sure we smell like Febreeze. There’s also the peskiness of making sure our vaginas are pretty enough.

“It’s amazing how much misinformation is out there about the vagina,” writes Dr. Lissa Rankin writes in her article “20 Things Every Woman Should Know About Her Vagina.”  “Given how fascinated our society is with the female body, you’d think we’d be a little more informed.” A lot of us don’t even know what a vagina actually is! 

Practice saying “vagina” if you need to in order for it to be comfortable. Stop using it as an insult. And if you have period cramps or need to borrow a tampon you can say so, as casually as the person next to you speaking at great length about it being sunny in the summer.