Farah, let’s start at the beginning. Why does the cause of period poverty resonate so deeply with you? Can you take us back to the moment Panties with Purpose was born? What sparked the idea and set it in motion?
In 2000 when I was working for the Aga Khan Foundation in Uganda, I learnt about how underprivileged girls were missing five days of school every month because of their period. They were forced to stay home because they did not have access to menstrual products, and their schools had poor or no sanitation or toilet facilities. It made me realise that while I had the luxury of a choice of menstrual products and carried on with life as normal during my period, poor girls were using leaves, cow dung, feathers, mud, and dirty rags and hiding at home. It took eleven years for the idea to ferment before my sisters and I took action.
In 2011, we started an informal campaign, Panties with Purpose in Kenya. Our objective was to raise awareness and help 1000 schoolgirls with menstrual products. In those days, the phrase ‘period poverty’ hadn’t been coined, no one was talking about periods. We kept our strategy simple: we would ask donors to give us new cotton underpants. We felt that if they had to buy a pair of underpants instead of donating cash, they would be more likely to talk about the issue. Also, as we were not a registered charity, this approach would make it easier for us to manage our operations.
Our plan worked. Within less than two months we had strangers writing to us from over sixty cities saying they wanted to support us. We also partnered with Kenyan artists and poets and hosted a series of ‘menstruation awareness’ workshops, concerts and parties where the entry ticket was a packet of pads or underpants.
Could you tell us about some recent projects or progress your organisation has made?
While our target had been to collect 4,000 pairs of underpants, we ended up receiving over 40,000. Since then, Panties with Purpose has distributed over 76,000 pairs of pants to more than 22,000 girls, and sponsored health education workshops across 185 locations across Kenya, including prisons, orphanages, women’s groups and schools. We have also assisted in making mosques, universities, schools, offices and sporting facilities ‘period friendly’ by installing vending machines to make access to menstrual products affordable and accessible.
It has been encouraging to see the gradual but perceptible difference in attitude. For instance, the Ramgharia Youth Sikh Association in Kenya, after an initial ambivalence, now includes menstrual products as part of the care packages they send to help the underprivileged. Moreover, younger people are increasingly involved in bringing about change. At their co-ed school in Nairobi, my nieces and their friends speak openly in assembly about the challenges of period poverty in Kenya. They also regularly fundraise from their peers, with the aim of supporting a less fortunate school with a menstrual health workshop. For schoolboys and girls to speak freely about periods and also take an active part in helping another school, is a big step forward.
We have also conducted ‘period art’ workshops across a variety of platforms, including in community spaces, universities and art galleries. Art offers the opportunity to enter the conversation through a different perspective- the creative imagination. Looking at period art, engaging in what it represents is deeply political, because it is embedded in who we are, our identities.
As Ursula le Guin, said, resistance often began with art. She also added that it was important for readers and viewers to have the freedom to interpret the art, because that was what made it, ‘…real art; it makes the work inexhaustible.’ Period art provokes us to reflect on our assumptions and biases about menstruation and the female body. It upsets the status quo. It helps us to understand ourselves and our own feelings about women’s bodies. It encourages us to appreciate the diversity of women’s bodies. It supports creativity around periods, whether through art or entrepreneurship. It makes us uncomfortable, prompts our imaginations, and elicits our sympathy. It teaches some truths about humanity at a time when women’s bodies and their freedom to make choices are being controlled, monitored and regulated by the state.
We’d love to hear about your journey curating Period Matters, the anthology on menstruation in South Asia. How long did it take to bring it together, and what challenges did you face during the process?
The idea came to me that the diversity of the experience of menstruation could best be reflected in a book which included every genre. I decided the anthology would move away from the conventional to a deeper and more honest cultivation of stories about menstruation. I asked myself: How could the different perspectives be best presented? Who would be the writers and artists to capture the diversity of representations? The answer lay in complete creative liberty. There would be no brief on genre or format, only an invitation to contributors to share their individual stories in their own way.
The anthology highlights over fifty different perspectives. It opens up the conversation around menstruation to make it more inclusive and provides a glimpse into the way menstruation is viewed by people from different genders, backgrounds, religions, cultures and classes. For instance, Period Matters highlights how menstruation is experienced by people with disabilities, the trans gender community, those who are homeless and incarcerated in Pakistan. It carries stories of factory workers in Bangladesh, nuns in Bhutan, and activists in Nepal. It highlights entrepreneurial efforts, the Menstrual Rights Bill and the debate around period leave in India. It explores cultural and religious menstruation rites in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. It also illustrates how menstruation and menopause can also be a time of creativity, rest and rejuvenation.
My decision to focus on South Asia was motivated by two events. The first is when I was stopped and asked if I was menstruating as I was about to enter a Jain temple in India. The second is when I picked up a packet of sanitary pads while shopping at a supermarket in Pakistan, and a male shop attendant rushed over and told me to hide them in a brown bag to avoid being humiliated at the checkout counter. I found both incidents disturbing – being questioned about intimate details of my body by a stranger and having my behaviour in a public space controlled because menstruation was associated with shame. I realized once again how much I had taken for granted.
What inspired you to weave poetry and art alongside essays in the anthology? Tell us about your creative vision for the book.
I became interested in art depicting aspects of the female body experience while working on the compilation of Period Matters. Over the span of three years, I thought about how the diversity of menstruation experiences could be conveyed in the most authentic way. I realised it was only by putting the storyteller at the centre of the narrative. Each contributor should have creative liberty to tell the story in their own way, whether it be through writing or art.
What does an artist strive to achieve in their work? What particular aspect of life do they seek to highlight and why? What does their art say about the times they lived in? In an interview Deborah Levy remarked, ‘…I don’t think art is there to explain away complexities, explain away contradictions, explain away enigma.’ Maybe art is not supposed to provide answers, but only illuminate realities. Maybe our responses to art conveys to us truths about ourselves. When I use the term art, I am referring to paintings, sculpture, films, photographs and other forms of creative expression which is not writing. There are many examples of art, from different cultures, which depict the feminine and the female body as a positive force. However, universally, the female body is regarded as a site of domination, struggle, and shame. It has become the battle ground of hatred and violence. At the core of this is how the menstruation experience has been stigmatised and ritualised to keep women oppressed.
Aside from interviews, fiction, poetry and essays, the book includes visuals of eight mediums of art: acrylics from Anish Kapoor, embroidery from Rah Naqvi, photos of murals made by young people in Jharkhand motivated, crayon drawings from the first ever menstrual workshop conducted in conservative Balochistan, iconic photographs from Rupi Kaur, a neo-miniature from Shahzia Sikander, and a beaded headdress made in a Bashali or menstrual home, by the Kalash women in Chitral. The book also has a QR code for a dance by an artist who interprets her cycle through Indian classical dance forms and music. The cover of Period Matters is a detail derived from an artwork painted with menstrual blood. The artist was inspired by a dream where she saw herself in the same pose as the 6th century sculpture of the bleeding goddess, Lajja Gauri.
Period art, or menstrala, can excite, inspire, disturb, anger and even frighten. Does it matter who makes it? Are there distinctions between the male, female and trans gaze? What do our reactions to period art reveal, and why is it significant? One conclusion is that responses to period art depend upon context, and it varies from one individual to the next. How a person reacts to period art is both subjective and political. What is certain is that it strikes at the core of a person’s identity. And how can it not? Every person is here because their mother had a period.
What are some key insights you want readers to take away from your anthology?
The reactions to Period Matters have ranged from awe and confusion, to disgust and anger. Some have vowed never to touch the book – art work made of menstrual blood, was a step too far. It is telling how the ‘ick’ factor around menstrual blood, even for those who consider themselves broad-minded, is generally a given. Menstrual blood is stigmatised, and this has been accepted as the norm. Women’s reproductive health is woefully understudied and underfunded. One of the best sources of biological material for studying women’s reproductive health is menstrual blood, but because of its stigma, menstrual blood has rarely been studied in detail. The only way to take away the shame around menstruation and menstrual blood is to normalise conversations around it, wherever they take place in the home, at schools, in workplaces.
If the book contributes to facilitating a more open dialogue about menstruation which is more inclusive and diverse, away from a normative, normalised understanding of what it is, to recognising it as an intersectional experience, intensely personal and universal at the same time, I think that would make me feel like all the contributions in Period Matters helped make some difference.
If you could amplify one heartfelt message from those you’ve met who need sanitary aid, what would you want the world to hear?
Simone de Beauvoir said in The Second Sex that it is only when a woman is away from the male gaze that defines her as Other, that she can recognize herself as subject among equals.
This quote makes me think of the Bashali which is the sacred maternity home of the Kalash community that lives in Chitral, North Pakistan. The Bashali is where women retreat for a few days during their menstruation or childbirth. It is a house with many rooms, a haven of rest, contemplation, solidarity, and rejuvenation where women go to be with other women also on their period, away from their domestic obligations and the family. In the Bashali, Kalash women participate in rituals of care and sisterhood that honour their bodies. It is a space in which they create and curate.
The Kalash women remind me of a hymn we used to sing at the convent school which I attended growing up in Kenya, ‘it only takes a spark to get a fire going’- and I wonder, maybe by drawing inspiration from such ancient practices as that of the Kalash women, there is the possibility of a revolution for laws that support menstrual dignity and liberation.
The Indian Supreme Court recently recognised menstrual health and hygiene as a Fundamental Right and mandated free pads in schools for girls in grades six and above. However, the court rejected a petition for menstrual leave for women and students. Can you discuss the politics of menstruation, where there is support for sanitary aid but not enough recognition of the lived experience of menstruation for millions?
In Radhika Radhakrishnan’s essay in Period Matters, she makes a case for paid period leave at the workplace. She argues for equity rather than equality, and that period leave ought to be institutionalised to make it easier for women who are unable to negotiate their workplaces individually, because of the stigma and shame associated with menstruation. She notes that period leave acknowledges and makes visible the pain that women endure while on their cycle. Due to cultural conditioning they have been told to ‘put up’ with and tolerate. She states that institutionalising period leave would be a positive step towards restructuring the ‘toxic capitalist’ workplace making it more equitable and healthier for menstruating women rather than prioritising their productivity.
Radhika also notes there are a number of counter arguments, including that there will be increased discrimination and a backlash. But more importantly, she points out that the provision of period leave is likely to benefit privileged working women, while the majority of Indian women working in the informal sector, who are the most oppressed by taboos, do not have access to clean running water or private toilets.
As both a human rights lawyer and a widely published writer, does your legal background shape your writing or influence the stories you choose to tell?
The law is an octopus; its tentacles reach out to police and colonise even simple conversations about menstruation. In temples, universities, offices, homes, schools, government buildings, supermarkets, and places too small for maps, there is tyranny around menstruation, with unfathomable consequences on women. As a lawyer, I cannot but help having a legal lens on menstruation.
The narrative around menstruation has long been used to control women. Laws and rules regulate the boundaries of how, where, and when periods can be mentioned, indicating how, explicitly and covertly, women’s bodies are manipulated by patriarchal structures of power, religion, culture and politics.
Women’s bodies are always on the menu: what they do, say, and wear. Menstrual blood, deeply intimate and personal, is also intensely political. Even a drop sparks horror, disgust, fear, and shame. Menstruating women are managed, regulated, and categorised and anything said about menstruation is monitored. I mention some examples here.
An article in the Economist, November 2025, considered menstruation to be a legal issue in the ‘un-Islamic marriage’ of the former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi. According to Sharia Law, iddat, or the mandatory waiting time after a divorce before remarriage, is based on the number of menstrual cycles. To establish if Bushra’s iddat was completed, the court scrutinised the personal details of her menstrual cycles, including counting the number of days. The court found the couple guilty, sentencing them to imprisonment. Women’s activists argued the interrogation was a ‘grotesque intrusion’ into Bushra’s privacy, others were disgusted that politicians had stooped so low as to use menstruation to humiliate and incarcerate Bushra and Khan, while still others mocked Khan for being jailed over his wife’s menstrual cycle- the ultimate in period shaming. This must be one the few times a man has been publicly period shamed. Even so, what the legal debates really revealed was the blatant religious, political and legal manipulation by those in authority over the menstruation discussion- and hence women’s bodies. Deliberately maintaining the stigma and shame around menstruation makes it readily available as a tool to control and disgrace.
In India, where menstruation is widely cloaked in myths of impurity, and not openly talked about, there are also examples of how the law extends its arm into the conversation. In 2018, two women went to the Supreme Court asking that the ban on menstruating women entering the Sabarimala Temple be lifted for being unconstitutional. Suddenly, the topic was right there in the open, in a legal debate. The court ruled the ban illegal and treating women as impure because they menstruate was discriminatory, and a violation of their constitutional rights of freedom of movement and worship. Alongside large-scale protests, the ruling was appealed on the absurd, and sexist basis that the rights of the celibate god in the temple ought to be respected and further menstruating women should not be allowed in the temple, in case they tempted the male pilgrims. Women who supported these demonstrations claimed they were ‘Ready to Wait,’ in reference to the menstruation age rule. The ruling sparked counter-protests with the Kerala government organising a Women’s Wall to demonstrate solidarity with women’s rights and challenge menstrual stigma. The matter has still not been decided, and awaits a nine-judge bench to hear the case. Nevertheless, it highlights how menstrual myths allow the state and religious authorities, easy if contradictory, control over women’s bodies.
The menstrual leave debate similarly demonstrates this. While there are no provisions under consideration by the Indian government for mandatory paid menstrual leave, some states, like Bihar, Kerala, and Karnataka have enacted menstrual leave policies which offer one paid leave day a month, per year, for women working in any sector. The political debates around whether one day of leave is enough, by male MPs, highlights the irrational, legal mansplaining of periods which probably occurred. While it is both tragic and comical, the question remains, why is it that it is men who are deciding how much or how little, menstruators should be ‘helped’?
Another example, which made me balk, was a report in the Indian Express, November 2025. The Haryana Police in Chandigarh booked university administrators after some women workers complained they had been forced to take photographs of their private parts and soiled pads to prove they were on their period. Is it showing that women’s testimonies are not enough, and men need evidence to believe that a woman is on her period? Or does it reveal a much darker intent, rooted in dehumanisation, grotesque fantasy and perversion? Nothing is private or sacred, unless men say so.
Across different spaces, the law exists to uphold patriarchy and keep women subjugated, and menstruation offers a never-ending opportunity. When working on a programme to implement a vending machine for menstrual products at the women’s hostel at a university in Lahore, I reached an impasse with the university administrators. The reason given was that because male attendants would need to replenish the machines, and it was the university’s policy that males were prohibited entry into women’s hostels, the project could not go ahead. This was supposedly to ‘protect’ the women. The mind-boggling extensions of connection between menstruation, the controlling of women’s bodies and spaces, and restrictions of freedoms is a straight line.
In Bangladesh, rules favouring menstruation discrimination are more blatant; there is a legally sanctioned employment bias by the Ministry of Law (pdf). Women are prohibited from serving as marriage registrars because of their so called ‘impurity’ during menstruation. The connection between menstruation and the ability to do a statutory office job is not clear, but the ban still prevails, despite activists protesting about the unashamed gender biased attitude of lawmakers.
Digital applications too, impose bars on women’s autonomy. This is most evident in the US where the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion (pdf) is a chilling illustration of the ongoing colonisation of women’s bodies through menstruation. Menstrual blood data is especially sensitive, especially because period-tracking apps are evidence permissible in courts so that women’s menstrual cycles can be inspected in detail. The data is being used to identify and prosecute any woman who seeks to terminate a pregnancy. The message is clear: women who shares her menstrual data on an app is not secure. However, there is hope in Europe where the Commission confirmed that EU funds could be used to guarantee access to safe abortion care, particularly for vulnerable women irrespective of where they were in Europe.
In domestic spaces which are supposed to be safe, there are instances of male family members exploiting the effluvia of their women for bizarre purposes. In Maharashtra, India, there are cases where families have been prosecuted under ‘black magic and anti-human sacrifice laws,’ for forcing their daughters-in-law to collect and offer their menstrual blood for rituals. Where women choose of their own freewill, to relinquish their blood for whatever reason is one matter, but being coerced into doing it, is quite another. That there is control and violence over a single drop of menstrual blood shows the extent of misogyny.
We would love to know what you’re working on next.
I am still writing and editing. I have a short story collection coming out soon and looking forward to extending my projects.