Przemysław Pohrybieniuk: I buy tampons and menstrual cups for my daughters. I am not ashamed to talk about menstruation

Are you embarrassed?

In Poland, a public conversation about menstruation is rare, not to mention a conversation about it with a man. However, I am not embarrassed.

That's a lot, because the Kulczyk Foundation’s report shows that menstruation is still a taboo subject, even among women.

This is true. I think that Dominika Kulczyk, for whom the subject of menstruation is extremely important and who devotes a lot of time and energy to it, also hired me at the Kulczyk Foundation to show that solving women's problems does not have to be an activity only for women. Together, as both men and women, we must break down all kinds of stereotypes and taboos present in our culture, especially those related to the intimate sphere. Many of them are based on myths and superstitions, in many cases men say, 'These are women's matters, it's none of my business.' We also have the phenomenon of mansplaining, treating women's matters in a superior way or trivialising them. Take, for example, the tendency to blame things on female hormones or attitude towards PMS. I wonder if men really understand what PMS is.

Did anything strike you when you read the Foundation's menstrual report?

Yes, that 33 percent of women are ashamed of the fact they menstruate and act in such a way as to hide it from others.

I also paid attention to this. And then I realised that although I am a feminist and am 42 years old, it was only about two years ago that I stopped hiding sanitary pads in shame.

42 percent of women also did not talk and do not talk about menstruation at home. This is appalling. Our goal is not only to combat period poverty, but also to normalise the phenomenon so that menstruation is no longer a matter for consideration.

When I was a teenager, in gym class, when you were menstruating, you would say, "I'm indisposed."

Exactly, speaking vaguely, as if the word 'menstruation' was wrong, even though it is not. This is still the case today – it has become the accepted way of communicating this. We do not think about the fact that by using the word 'indisposition', instead of accepting girls' physiology and their potential discomfort, we sometimes make them feel ashamed. When we add to this potential mockery from colleagues, apart from shame, it can also be unpleasant and negatively affect self-esteem."

If you don't talk about menstruation because of shame, then the lack of money for pads or tampons becomes the more embarrassing topic, because it itself causes shame.

Women in Poland and in the world, unfortunately, often have to decide which of their needs is more important."

Sanitary pads or two packs of sausages for a child.

Exactly. And let’s think of homeless women or prisoners, as our report shows that they often receive insufficient hygiene supplies. And girls in orphanages? There are hundreds of thousands of people who have this problem. But we believe that the mere lack of hygiene supplies is the tip of the iceberg built on the taboo and lack of education of the public. Half of the society menstruates, so it's a matter for society as a whole.

In Poland, it is enough to become a single mother to fall into poverty.

Period poverty, among other things, means a condition in which you cannot afford to buy menstrual hygiene products. It does not have to be permanent. Our research shows that some women experience it for some time as a result of various life circumstances. This could be a divorce or a job loss, for example. The problem also affects women in relationships where there is economic violence, where the husband or partner says, 'I won't give you any money.' Our data shows that every fifth Polish woman has a problem with buying appropriate hygiene products."

You know what my little private mission is here at the Foundation? Making fathers true companions not only for their wives and partners, but also for their daughters. That they would go down this path from absent father through awkward father to supportive father."

Is this the way you are in relations with your three daughters?

I try to be. We celebrated the first periods of two of them with a family dinner. And recently I bought tampons for one of my daughters and a menstrual cup for the other. First, I asked her what it was. She explained it precisely to me, adding that the choice of the menstrual cup for her is important for environmental reasons. I put it in the cart at the chemist's and had no problem with it. I think it is a matter of how my wife and I have been talking about it and raising our daughters together for years.

How did the Foundation take up this topic?

The mission of the Foundation is to support women and children in increasing their potential and building independence. We operate all over the world, we have carried out aid projects in over 60 countries. While working with one of the organisations in Kenya that supports girls living in the largest slum in Africa, it turned out that some of them from time to time do not attend ballet classes due to the lack of sanitary pads. This perhaps trivial lack of a sanitary pad can negatively affect the future of these girls. Because they won't go to class, they'll miss a couple of days at school. They will gradually be excluded from society. We don't want to allow this any longer. Dominika Kulczyk decided to deal with the issue of reducing period poverty both in Poland and throughout the world.

How are you going to do this?

At the moment, with our grant program, we support small organisations that on a small, local scale provide pads and tampons to schools and universities. We look where the biggest problems are, and there we try to act alone or through other organisations that have their own ideas for solutions. Our dream is to bring about what recently happened in Scotland, where it was decided that hygiene products would be widely available in all public places.

We want to be an organisation that does a lot in this matter, but also enters into various types of partnerships: with institutions, media, producers, because only this kind of behaviour will allow us to operate on a large scale. We have already approached Scottish Labour Party MP Monica Lennon to find out how they reached the current state.

Do you think there will be a space for the subject of period poverty in this world so troubled by the pandemic?

I think that, paradoxically, it will be easier for us to deal with it now, because the pandemic confronted us with such difficult challenges that this topic will no longer seem as strange and unusual to people as it did before.

Natalia Waloch talks to Przemysław Pohrybieniuk

Photo: Karolina Jaunzems

Interview was published in "Gazeta Wyborcza” on 23 December 2020.