Period.. Emma Barnett

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ our opening statements in front of each other before recording, but for this topic, we decided I should do it on my own, to keep it fresh. The hilarious thing was that everyone apart from me – the camera crew, the producers in the gallery and the editor – were jittery and on tenterhooks about my big reveal. Especially as one of my co-hosts was my faux adversary, the masterful broadcaster Nick Ferrari. Off air, I love Nick and he is a very good pal, but on air we pretty much disagree about everything, especially gender issues. It was a subject that had the potential to generate fireworks and Nick certainly didn’t disappoint. From the minute, I began describing my painful clotting flow, he slowly lowered his head into his hands, muttering: ‘Why, oh, why did we need to talk about this, Emma?’

      His cheeks were bright red and he looked like he might vomit.

      He wasn’t alone. Both my female and male colleagues – including journalist Rachel Johnson and international footballer Graeme Le Saux – were howling with shock and dismay. Intelligent adults howling on national TV. They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But, because I’m a good humoured kinda’ gal, wanted a proper debate and loved my fellow Pledgers, I swiftly helped my colleagues through the shock of ‘Woman Admits Period on Live TV’ and attempted to move them on to the issues at hand.

      The irony was of course that, by attempting to lead by example and not be ashamed of talking about my own period, we never really fleshed out the debate. I was genuinely trying to start a conversation about whether menstrual leave was an appropriate response by company bosses, or whether it was a policy ripe for enforcing the age-old idea of women as the weaker, less capable sex. Instead, the laughter-filled conversation became more about why I felt it was necessary to make a big deal of periods. Put simply, my co-panellists couldn’t make it past the fact that I’d mentioned my own pulsating uterus on TV.

      But what was even more striking was that the reaction of my female panellists was just as strong as the men – they too argued that this cone of silence should continue. I ended up feeling terribly alone, as their shock – and I believe, embarrassment – drove them to giggle and sneer about the whole discussion. Trust me, this isn’t a group who shock easily, but they couldn’t get over the fact that periods were being discussed out loud, on TV. And when other women aren’t setting the tone for men to follow, it’s hardly a surprise that my male co-hosts couldn’t bring themselves to go beyond some gentle scoffing and a few end-of-the-pier jokes.

      Interestingly, once we were off air, one of the lovely female panellists said to me in the make-up room: ‘Perhaps I should have been a bit more supportive of you out there on second thoughts, but there we go.’ Rachel Johnson, one of the most open and outspoken journalists I know, had turned period pink with an uncharacteristic bashfulness, over something so natural.

      Several weeks after the programme aired, I was thrilled to hear that one of the women in the editing gallery (often a male-dominated space) was suffering from particularly painful cramps, and when asked if she was OK, gruffly replied, ‘I’ve got what Emma talked about’.

      I was also cheered by the reaction of viewers at home, with messages of support for my efforts pouring in on social media. Men revealed that their female partners never spoke to their colleagues about their discomfort. Women thanked me for my candour, realising how rare this kind of honest conversation was – and their response has stayed with me ever since.

      A few months later, a woman stopped me in my local fruit and vegetable market, clutching at my arm with fervour that was slightly alarming. She was a lawyer and told me that she’d seen The Pledge episode – it had been a lightbulb moment for her. Close to tears, she recounted how her heavy period had flooded on the bus on the way to work one time. Ashamed and panicked, she’d desperately scrubbed and dried her suit in a coffee shop loo in case her colleagues noticed. Sadly, it wasn’t an isolated incident and she was diagnosed with fibroids – her monthly downpours forced her to quit her full-time job, turning her into a part-time shift-worker so that she could manage her working life around her cycle. She’d never spoken about this to anyone and wanted to thank me for speaking out about periods without shame – it was this that had really struck her, how simply I had admitted I was menstruating and in pain on national TV.

      It was like I had started to unleash something people hadn’t known needed releasing: the shy hunger to talk about periods. It dawned on me that enabling others find their voice on periods and engaging in this forbidden conversation could be an important step in helping women stop judging and shaming themselves in all walks of life. Stories of pain, shame and hilarity have followed me around ever since.

      Sitting in that glamorous, shiny-floored studio, what I didn’t realise was that I was about to be diagnosed with endometriosis – a common but often poorly diagnosed menstrual condition (where tissue similar to the lining of the womb starts to grow in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes) that causes millions, yes, millions, of women colossal amounts of bone-grinding pain every month and can have serious consequences for fertility. It turns out those painful early periods I’d had weren’t normal or acceptable. Me, the one with the big mouth and period pride, actually had a proper period illness all along. One I’d never heard of, couldn’t spell nor explain.

      I soon underwent the most painful forty-eight hours of my life, as a surgeon lasered my insides for nearly three hours. Although it’s estimated at least one in ten women in the UK have endo (as it’s called by those in the painful know), it takes a scandalous seven and half years on average to be diagnosed with this progressive illness. It took me nearly twenty-one years to get my diagnosis – and even that came down to pure luck.

      By chance, I’d opened up about the pain I was in every month to a doctor mate over Sunday brunch, and she’d tentatively suggested that endometriosis might be a possibility. I’d had over two decades of medical appointments in which I complained repeatedly of severe menstrual pain, but I’d still failed to convince my doctors to take my period pain seriously. I’m someone who thrives on bashing down doors and demands answers for a living, yet I still hadn’t got anywhere – so what hope was there for others?

      To be frank, I am fucking furious that nobody knows what causes endometriosis – mainly because it’s a ‘woman problem’ and there hasn’t been enough investment in scientific research. And people, even gobby folk like me, walk around ignorantly ill because no one takes our complaints of abnormal pain seriously, so we just stop talking, afraid of looking like we’re moaning.

      As I hobbled around for three months recovering from my debilitating op, I felt as if the rug had been pulled from beneath me. But it meant that periods were back at the top of my personal news agenda, and I felt bloody foolish.

      Back at work and intrigued by the silence and ignorance surrounding our periods, my team then commissioned a study for my radio show. Over 57 per cent of women who told us they had period pain (which was 91 per cent of the total number of women polled), admitted it affected their ability to work. But only 27 per cent of them told their employer the real reason they felt poorly, with most preferring to lie, often opting to say they had stomach problems. Interestingly, many British women were open to the idea of menstrual leave.

      Before presenting the findings in our programme that day, I was invited onto BBC Breakfast to discuss the results – an invitation I happily accepted. Here’s how The Sun decided to write up my calm and measured conversation with my BBC colleagues: ‘Woman Sparks Furious Debate About Menstrual Leave on BBC Breakfast – BBC Radio 5 Live’s Emma Barnett Has Sparked a Sexism Row.’

      Now who’s hysterical eh? And people still wonder why women lie about their periods, preferring to tell their bosses (of both genders) they have the shits. Go figure.

СКАЧАТЬ