Every woman remembers her first period—-where and when it happened, who, if anyone, she told, even what she was wearing. And yet, despite vivid memories of this momentous occasion, almost no one talks about it. Why? Because first periods are an awkward subject. The taboo of menstruation is embedded in our religions, culture, and history. In ancient Rome, the philosopher Pliny the Elder wrote that contact with menstrual blood “turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees falls off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled…” Today, Pliny seems ridiculous, but discrimination and ignorance remain. The problems go well beyond being told to sit out during gym. In Pakistan, eighty-seven percent of girls haven’t heard about menstruation prior to their first period. Indian women are exiled from their own homes. And then there are the various African tribes who mark a girl’s first period as the date for genital mutilation. We need to change these perceptions and practices now. Despite the fact that half the world menstruates, most people overlook the serious economic repercussions of a worldwide lack of sanitary supplies. The reason? Most people don’t know that it is a problem. Others find the subject embarrassing. Even those who do understand often think there are more pressing problems at hand. Why spend money on pads when AIDS remains to be solved, when countries desperately need infrastructure? Because it turns out that providing pads does much more than prevent leaks. In developing countries, the lost human capital due to menstruation is significant. According to UNICEF, ten percent of school-age African girls miss school because of a lack of access to sanitary products. In Rwanda, it’s much worse. According to a new study by Sustainable Health Enterprises, 36% of Rwandan girls who miss school, do so because sanitary pads are too expensive. For women, 24% miss work—up to 45 days per year—for the same reason. This limits girls educational and women’s professional achievement, and leads to a collective economic loss for nations. With a simple solution, we can change the standing of women across a continent.

For the last five years I have been collecting stories from women around the world about the experience of their first period. What started out as a high school project has become something much bigger. This collection of almost 100 stories has just been published by Hachette Book Group. My Little Red Book is both a bedside companion and manifesto, a literary call to arms for all girls who read it to reclaim their history. The mission is twofold: one is to eradicate an anachronistic taboo and replace it with a healthy dialogue in which girls learn an important part of their family history and appreciate their own development. Second, I want to ensure that women, regardless of their economic and cultural circumstances, are not handicapped by their periods. The project is more than a book. It is a growing community, via an interactive website (mylittleredbook.net) that invites women to share their story and submit video oral histories. This project taps the power of storytelling, and its viral possibilities. To help address the lack of sanitary supplies, I have raised awareness of the problem in the book and on the web. And I decided to direct all of the book’s royalties to women’s health charities. Several address the specific problems I discovered from contributors: distribution of pads, construction of women’s toilets, and better health education. Others speak to the larger message of the book, women’s empowerment, storytelling, and promoting a dialogue between parents and their teens about what it means to grow up, in advance of the more difficult conversations about sex that are about to come. I am following up with the recipient organizations personally. I spent two months volunteering with Seva Mandir, a recipient organization in rural India, interviewing widows on their livelihood and daily struggles as outcasts. Back home in New Haven, I am currently facilitating an afterschool workshop called Digital Sisters. We meet three afternoons a week to train inner city teen girls to make documentaries. Along with learning the technical skills of camera work, editing, and production, these teen girls are learning to hear their voice. Their project is to produce a film on first periods with women in their family or women they admire. I am also collaborating with Real Life/Real Talk. Next month, I will address their teen leaders at their national convention in Houston. At the local level, I will speak to some of their parent sex-ed classes about how first period stories can open up intergenerational conversations that lead to healthy discussions about teen sexuality. In each of these cases, it is very much about a transformational process that will lead to newfound attitudes towards periods. Hopefully, these parents will talk to their daughters in ways that their mothers never did, girls will be more open about their stories, brothers and fathers will be more educated, and we will break the silence. I see the importance of this communication in my own life; talking about first periods has transformed my lunch-table conversations from gossip to discussions of women’s rights. By airing our own stories, we open channels of communication between women—mothers and daughters, sisters and aunts—and turn a taboo into a cause for celebration.

I am donating 100% of my book royalties ($85,000 so far) to charities that support women's causes so that the book can also help women who don't have a chance to read it. One example is the Health and Water Foundation, an organization in Kenya that supplies sanitary supplies to girls to help keep them in school. Here in the US, I am speaking to schools, clubs, libraries, even Rachael Ray (March 16th). My own experience giving a presentation to 1,000 of my classmates shows that students can get over the awkwardness and change their perceptions. The New Haven Dept. of Public Health introduced me to Digital Sisters, an after-school media program for urban teen girls. I am helping them make short digital documentaries about their coming-of-age experiences. Encouraging girls to record and share their first-period stories is how we can turn an idea into a community-wide movement.

So far, over one hundred and fifty women have shown courage in contributing their story. Girls and moms are invited to share their story at http://www.mylittleredbook.net. The dialogue has already begun. Continuing it is up to you.