The latest This Girl Can advert has set social media alight with well-deserved critical acclaim.
A celebration of women of all shapes, sizes, ages and races taking part in various sports, it marks the first time an advert has depicted a female athlete with a tampon string hanging on display. A small, insignificant shot for some, but for women like myself it’s a landmark moment.
Periods weren’t publicly discussed until a couple of years ago. Even tampon adverts never actually showed a tampon. Period blood was replaced with a much more ‘palatable’ blue gel and the product’s main selling point was always about discretion.
To see an advert that unashamedly portrays a woman exercising on her period, string et al, is cause for celebration.
Shame is a feeling that women battle with daily. We’re taught from a young age to feel shameful about our bodies, how they look, how they function on a monthly basis.
The links between period shame and exercise are entrenched in women’s sport. Boxing was once considered a male-only profession because menstruation was thought to cause havoc on a training program. Try telling that to Nicola Adams.
I was terrified of swimming at school. I have an awkwardly long body which is hard to cater for in one piece. We weren’t allowed to wear bikinis and the camel toe was real.
I started my period at 11 and was terrified of tampons. There was a lot of shame in my relationship with my body, especially my vagina. The act of putting a stringed wad of cotton up there I thought was sinful and would lead to an eternity in hell. Classic Catholic guilt, and I’m an atheist.
A school swimming trip was in the calendar, at the exact time I was due on my period. My mum helped fashion me some swimming shorts that had a compartment for an ultra-long sanitary towel. We tested it out. I almost drowned with the weight of it.
So, god bless my mother, she helped me to put in my first tampon. KY Jelly at the ready, I stood with one leg an on the toilet as she guided me on how best to apply it. Three attempts later and it was in… sort of.
But I was still so worried about the string coming out of the side and someone noticing and nicknaming me ‘twine’ for the rest of my school days that I told Mrs Ingham I was on my period and couldn’t join in.
She was furious, as it would appear half the girls in the year had synced alongside me. I wish we had an advert like This Girl Can to watch back then, maybe we would’ve actually embraced swimming instead of fearing it.
Even as an adult, I’ve felt exercise shame. Being the outwardly strong-minded feminist, some may perceive me to never really be matched up with the insecure chubby girl I’ve always felt like on the inside.
I feared going to the gym because I wasn’t already skinny enough. Oh the irony.
Friends would suggest going for a run or joining a gym together and I would make any excuse I could to get out of it. I feared being judged for not doing it right, getting the technique wrong, having an aneurysm after five minutes on the treadmill.
I told myself the gym was for the vain and felt smug as my bottle of Malbec depleted along with my fitness levels. Then the scientist in me took over.
I bang on to my friends, family and you lovely readers about the importance of maintaining good mental health whilst simultaneously turning a blind eye to something scientifically proven to boost my mood. Damn you science.
It’s not like I’m a gym virgin; I go through phases with it. But the longer I go without, the harder it is to go back. Like when you forget to reply to a friend’s text, and the longer you leave it the more elaborate your excuse has to be.
No more excuses. I sucked it up and went back to the gym, tail between my leggings.
I think women often worry about being judged at the gym. But hear me when I say… nobody gives a toss. People are either looking at themselves in the mirror, swiping tinder during a rest break, or thinking about their divorce settlement whilst punishing a punchbag. So just do it.
I ran for a bit, lifted some weights (probably in the wrong way, but f*ck it I was on a roll) and did some stretches on a stinky mat. And I felt great. Not skinny, not strong, not particularly fit, just great.
I hope the This Girl Can’ ad inspires other women to feel the same. I hate the term ‘real women’ – models aren’t robots – but seeing relatable bodies enjoying fitness in the ad was a big inspiration for me.
The cynical will no doubt critique the ad as woke tokenism. But they can get in the bin.
Campaigns like This Girl Can literally change lives. To see yourself in an advert is validating and gives women the confidence to get involved in sport, no matter their background or experience.
The campaign has encouraged over 4million women to get active since its launch, so it’s clearly doing something right.
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