An Interview with University College Freiburg’s Period.Box.

Why talk about menstruation? Menstruation is an act that involves many factors. The most important of which being hygienic products. Many women and other menstruating bodies often stress when in public and suddenly starting their period. Meant as a project to normalize menstruation and its place on university campuses, University College Freiburg’s students started the Period.Box. project. They wanted to make menstruation a topic that was actively talked about by students, staff, and professors. The following is an interview conducted with Nathalie Kornet, one of the project’s founders, about the nature and motivation for starting this project around menstruation.

MR: Can you explain what Period.Box is and its goals?

NK: Period.Box. is a student-led project with two main goals: On the one hand, we want to distribute free menstrual products in university toilets (both women’s and men’s). It can happen to everyone that their menstruation suddenly starts and they need a pad or a tampon. These products, as well as menstrual tea, can be found in the Period.Box. and are an immediate help. I would call it a public and material statement of menstrual solidarity – especially because menstrual products are expensive (and taxed as luxury goods [in Germany]).

On the other hand, we want to make menstruation visible on campus, take the taboo and the shame away from it and make it appear in the overall university discourse. Around half of the students menstruate and suffer from diverse effects connected to menstruation and no one talks about it. Menstruation is considered something to be ashamed of and something one shouldn’t talk about.  It is still not ok to skip class or a trip because of menstrual cramps for example. By publicly showing that yes, many of us menstruate, we hope to bring the topic to everyone’s attention.

MR: What made you start this project? Did it arise out of need?

NK: After spending a year abroad in Canada, I saw how little the University of Freiburg was doing concerning menstruation: namely nothing! In most Canadian and American universities that I visited, you could either find a little box or a little vending machine with tampons and/or pads in the washrooms. In my university [in Canada] one could even buy Divacups for very little money. Menstruation was somehow present in the daily university life and the topic was not connected to shame or awkwardness, as it is here. And of course, it had happened to me many times that I did not have a tampon or my Divacup with me and my menstruation started.

The actual idea came during a social entrepreneurship class, when some of us connected over the different and usually more positive experiences we have made abroad or in feminist venues concerning menstrual hygiene and menstrual justice.  We thus decided to start this project, first in theory, as a class project, then in practice, outside of the class context. An important inspiration was also Liv Strömquist’s graphic novel “Fruit of Knowledge”! 

MR: Before the project, how did you look at the University of Freiburg’s attitude towards the needs of menstruating individuals?

NK: Before going abroad, I was not aware of the university’s blindness towards menstruation.  I was always happy when I saw that a café had tampons in their washroom, but I considered it to be something exceptional, not something that should be present everywhere. When I came back [from Canada], I found it frustrating and sad to see that menstruation was simply invisible here.

M: What was the response to this project? (Also, how wide is this project? Across programs and their buildings on campus?)

NK: The overall response was positive. Many people, especially women, were happy that someone would finally respond to their needs. However, some people considered it to be inappropriate, as they saw menstruation as a highly intimate and private topic, which did not belong in the university context. There is still a lot of awkwardness and shame around the topic, unfortunately. Additionally, a lot of students also did not understand why we considered it important to put a Period.Box. in the men’s toilets, namely to give trans*people access to menstrual products and to make menstruation visible to [non-menstruating] men.

We are currently planning on having about 30 boxes on all different campuses of the university. We asked the different student’s councils of all study programs and we were told what toilets were the most used by them. At the moment, we are struggling with some bureaucratic issues concerning fire protection, but we have a sponsoring partnership with a drug store, which gives us the menstrual products for free.

M: Do you see a difference to students’ attitude towards menstruation and its products through Period.Box?

NK: Yes. Especially once we explained what we wanted to do, people seemed more open to talk about their experiences. But to me it seemed that in general, especially in our study program [Liberal Arts and Sciences], menstruation became more present, more talked about. Already a (small) success! I am excited to see what the reactions will be when we set up all boxes. So far, we had just provided a few prototypes. The university has been very supportive as well, many professors like the idea and are happy that we are doing something about the topic.

You can find Period.Box. and their current projects on Facebook.