How social entrepreneurs helped break taboos around menstrual health

In 2015, while studying abroad, Maria Carmen Punzi read an article that would quietly redirect her life and career. It described a practice in western Nepal where menstruating women are banished from their homes and forced to sleep outside, sometimes in sheds with livestock. 'If you’re menstruating, you’re considered impure,' she recalls. 'You have to isolate yourself. You cannot cook, you cannot sleep in your own bed'.

What struck her most was not only the severity of the practice, but the framing. 'I remember thinking: this is a matter of gender equality,' she says. And yet, menstruation was rarely discussed in those terms. That realisation marked the beginning of a parallel journey: learning more about menstrual health academically, while also rethinking her own relationship with her body. 'The personal and the professional really connected,' she reflects. 'That’s a red thread in my life' (See also her Instagram @periodswithmariacarmen)

Learning to hide (a vital sign)

Punzi’s research shows that extreme practices like menstrual exile are part of a much broader pattern of social censorship. In many countries, menstruation is something girls learn to hide from a very young age. Growing up in Italy, she remembers classmates whispering in school corridors, checking each other for blood stains. 'There’s such an embarrassment about the idea of not being able to manage menstruation that the most important thing is to conceal it,' she says. Even within families, silence prevails. 'I learned to hide it from my own brothers, even though I was never explicitly told to', she adds.

This concealment comes with consequences. Menstruation is often framed as dirty, disruptive or something that makes women unpredictable. 'It’s interesting,' the researcher notes, 'because menstruation is actually a vital sign, like heart rate or temperature'. Ignoring it means missing early signals of health problems. Yet culturally, it is dismissed as something to endure quietly.

The role of brands

A central insight of Punzi’s PhD research is that businesses have played a powerful role in reinforcing this stigma. For decades, mainstream menstrual product marketing revolved around invisibility. 'The promise was: we can help you hide that you’re menstruating,' she says. 'If you wear our product, you can be bleeding in white pants while doing cartwheels in a flower field. Anyone who has ever had a period knows that’s not realistic.'
 

Chemicals are not for pussies

Humour played a crucial role in opening that conversation. Some social enterprises deliberately use playful or provocative campaigns to make menstruation visible without pointing fingers. Punzi points to examples where brands used irony, memes or slogans like "chemicals are not for pussies" to disarm discomfort and invite discussion, rather than shame or silence.

When scandals or controversies around social enterprises occur, customer reactions are far more intense than they would be toward large corporations. 'People feel heartbroken,' she recalls. 'They say: "I trusted this brand'. She points, for example, to a US-based period underwear company where testing revealed the presence of harmful chemicals. Customers were not just angry, but personally disappointed, because they had actively promoted the brand to friends and felt emotionally invested in its mission.

Not all social enterprises survive. Over time, Punzi identifies three main trajectories. Some close their doors, declaring their mission accomplished. 'The taboo is mostly broken,' they say, "the market looks different". Others professionalise or expand into related areas such as menopause, sexual health or fertility. And some are acquired by larger competitors. Together, these paths tell a broader story. Menstrual products are not just products and the companies behind them are not just neutral actors. They shape how people relate to their bodies and what people perceive as normal. As Punzi puts it: 'menstrual health is a structural condition for gender equality.'