(birds chirping) - hmm, periods. hmm, periods. - my palms are sweaty. - i feel awkward about it 'cause it's really weird. like there's a reason if you like cut yourself, then it starts bleeding, but i don't really think there's a reason if you just start bleeding from your private. - i'm kind of nervous speaking about periods, to be honest. - well, i call my period my evil best friend because she always come on time, she give me a hard time, and sometimes i'm happy to see her, if you know what i mean, so she's my evil best friend. - i fucking hate having my period. sorry, if i can't say that. i hate having my period. i hate having my period. - i love talking about my period and i love sharing my period stories and i love hearing people's period stories. - i'm supposed to get my period any minute. - jamie, when do you think i'll start having periods too? - the second you get it, your mom goes, "you're a woman now, and that's disgusting." (audience laughing) ♪ mommy, daddy, look at me ♪ i went to school and i got a degree ♪ - every month a woman has this time when she gets very angry, at everything. ♪ i got the big d - menstruation should be a welcome phenomenon for women. ♪ i got the big d - menstruation is a blessing, stigma and life. ♪ is your muffin ♪ would you like us to send someone ♪ ♪ to button your muffin - it pushes it out! put the other tube in your vagina. look! it came out of the plastic, i'm holding it. - it's kind of the same thing. the tampons look the same. - do you change your life for one week because of that time of the month? - midol's still the same. - why feel bad when you can feel good with my midol? - there's gotta be a better way. (upbeat music) - knowledge is power. menstrual knowledge is power. - that's freak tonight. - i feel like a defective typewriter. - huh? - i skipped a period. - biology is destiny unless you know what it's doing to you. - if you're only gonna learn one thing about your cycle, it's you're most likely to get pregnant before you ovulate. - we have a history about not caring about menstruation. - i'm menstruating. why is that a big deal? - we don't need to hear about that, thank you. - we have a history about not caring of pms or endometriosis, so that's in our history. - it's just part of life and we have suppressed that knowledge and made it seem shameful or unusual or only for women to know. - stigma grows in the dark. ♪ on the chaise longue ♪ on the chaise longue ♪ on the chaise longue all day long ♪ - everyone is here because some woman didn't have a period, so periods are extremely universal. they're like butt holes. everyone has a butt hole and that's kind of beautiful. - i don't know how my day job's gonna feel about me once i start talking about my vagina. (naomi laughing) - are women scary in a way to society because we're so magical? - it's like quiet. you have stuff for cramps, quiet. we've given you stuff if you bleed too heavy. it's fine, just relax. - we menstruate and break open and heal and do it again and again and again. - we're out here running, bleeding, bleeding, creating, taking care of our babies, and then on top of that, we're supposed to be quiet? no! (upbeat music) - my favorite color is sparkle and cheetah print. (madeleine laughing) i have a very, very, very long period and i have a heavy period. i just always have. i used to hate it. i love my period now. i try and reconceptualize it as my superpower. anything you can do, i can do bleeding. i love going on a run in central park when i'm on my period and being like, yeah, like you're running, but are you running like me today? i am studying public health policy and i hope to eventually go to law school and work in reproductive and menstrual justice. period activism lights a fire under my booty every morning when i wake up. it's like wake up, menstrual equity. i think it's because it is something so natural to our bodies, like this is, i can't change it. like i can't change it, so i gotta learn to love it, and in learning to love it, finding out that i have to then pay a tax on it. - tampons are subject to sales tax in 38 states because they're not classified as medical necessities. no, yeah, but some dandruff shampoos, lip bombs and condoms are, so that means that there's no tax for a horny, flaky scalp, lizard-lip man. (audience laughing) yeah, but i have to pay an extra 9% to soak up my monthly nightmare on panty streak. - why this is unconstitutional is because one is being taxed for their natural bodily function and that breaks the equal protection clause because chiefly, though not exclusively, women are bearing the burden of paying for the tampon tax. that is just rogue to me. in michigan, there's a class action lawsuit going on to get rid of the tax on menstrual products. simultaneously, a bill has been introduced to also eradicate the tampon tax. this is an extraordinary situation that we're seeing in michigan and you need either one to pass before the other fails, so that's why we rally, that's why we have to mobilize. if michigan fails, this could set the menstrual justice movement back decades. - michigan may be the next state to eliminate what's known as the tampon tax. two democratic senators have introduced bills making menstrual products exempt from the state sales and use taxes. - it brings in millions of dollars every year, but that lawsuit contends those items should not be taxed at all. - what about it is unconstitutional? - well, the constitution says you can't treat women and men differently. there has to be some legitimate reason, and in this case, i think a strong argument could be made that tampons are like a medical product. - we live in a society where people who menstruate are not being treated equally and equal treatment is a guarantee in our us constitution. - the majority of people menstruate, but don't have access to the products that they need to manage that menstruation. access to menstrual hygiene really depends on your zip code. (upbeat music) - i like to say i'm a full-time student, full-time activist, both of those. i think the biggest thing that stands in the way of fighting period poverty is the stigma around menstruation itself and the fact that even today there are students who literally have to whisper that they're on their period in the hallways, make up excuses to go to the nurse's office because they don't have access to mensural products. one in four students miss class due to lack of access to period products in the united states. you don't have to have a phd in menstruation studies or be a lawyer to make an impact. i remember when i had this idea of starting an organization at the ohio state university. we had started a period chapter. so period is the largest youth-run women's nonprofit in the world. it says "period, the dream team" 'cause we're honestly a really small team, but we're a mighty one, you know. having a really diverse team, that was something that was very important to me when i was building my team at ohio state to really address period stigma and period poverty. okay, is it a place where we can set up a packing party? how about we do like a circle or something where like, yeah. - [student] these are regulars. - [anusha] so 'cause that's what each care package can have, four tampons, there's things, underwear, and this one we have candy lipstick. well, we get all of the products from product drives that we run at period. - goes to low income menstruators, typically people in shelters or other people who can't manage their periods, which is, you know, creates obviously a lot of psychological stigma and it keeps people out of the workplace. - i remember when i did did start like talking about it with my mom, she was like, "did you know like i couldn't even use pads like in india? we couldn't afford." - it's something that when i like started here at period, i didn't realize it really happened in america and i know that's such a privileged point of view. - [anusha] period poverty is the inability to purchase period products because they are too expensive. someone will go to the grocery store and literally have to choose between bread and tampons. - people tell stories about how their daughters in columbus don't go to school when they're on their period. i like that the products that we package go directly to our community. - there are two main tropes that portray menstruating women in popular culture. the first is that menstruating women are simply crazy. - when i think about pop culture and periods and blood in general, i mean i think about the movie carrie. - which opens with her being tortured after she gets her first period because other girls are pelting her with tampons in the shower. - [corinne] and they're like plug it up. - she doesn't know what's going on. she thinks she's dying. she goes home, her mother locks her in a closet and suddenly the protagonist has these dangerous powers. - so i mean i like that 'cause that's kind of like a heavy warning signal to other people not to fuck with women on their periods. - and the second trope that really drives a lot of popular culture narratives is that periods are disgusting. until the 1970s, you couldn't even advertise pads or tampons on tv even though courteney cox used the word period in 1985. - it can actually change the way you feel about your period. - most other ads were still not openly talking about periods. they would show pads with blue liquid. seemingly period blood's too disgusting. - feel this clean. - this trope is really underlined in the film "superbad." - is that blood? oh, fuck. oh my god. - i think when you look back at that, it looks outdated, terrible, insensitive. - then you get to 2015 when donald trump disparaged megyn kelly. - you've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. - you know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. - that same year in 2015, the musician kiran gandhi ran the london marathon. - i was at the start line of the london marathon and i realized i was about to get my period. i remember kind of analyzing my options. one of the main reasons why i chose to freely is because i didn't know what would happen to a person who runs a marathon while bleeding. i knew it was radical. i don't think i've seen people bleeding in the streets. i haven't seen people bleeding and so there are tightsal. when they're running, but to me i kind of was like what's gonna happen? nothing. women and people who bleed, trans folks, are waking up every day, all day around the world doing incredible things on our cycle. we're actually expected to hide it away in shame. it's the complete opposite and i'm glad the story went viral. there was so much conversation that came out of the symbolism of running a marathon free bleeding and i think humanity eventually always arrives at the truth, so i'm happy to be a participant in the truth. when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis takes you off course. put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when i wanted to see results fast, rinvoq delivered rapid symptom relief and helped leave bathroom urgency behind. check. when uc tried to slow me down... i got lasting, steroid-free remission with rinvoq. check. and when uc caused damage rinvoq came through by visibly repairing my colon lining. check. rapid symptom relief... lasting steroid-free remission... ...and the chance to visibly repair the colon lining. check, check, and check. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin cancer; death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach or intestines occurred. people 50 and older with at least 1 heart disease risk factor have higher risks. don't take if allergic to rinvoq as serious reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. put uc in check and keep it there with rinvoq. ask your gastroenterologist about rinvoq and learn how abbvie can help you save. 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(vo) this black friday weekend, turn any iphone in any condition into a new iphone 15 pro with titanium, and ipad, and apple watch se, all on us - that's up to $1700 in value. only on verizon. in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to be smart, efficient, savvy. making the most of every opportunity. that's why comcast business is introducing the small business bonus. for a limited time you can get up to a $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. yep, $1000. so switch to business internet from the company with the largest fastest reliable network and that powers more businesses than anyone else. learn how you can get $1000 back for your business today. comcast business. powering possibilities. - when i was growing up, we did not speak about it. comcast business. powering possibilities. i read books about it. i think there was a judy blume book that maybe my mother threw at me and said, "here, read this." - it is the scariest thing to me because you're bleeding out of your downstairs. - like teenagers, they bleed out every month and then they can have babies when they're like 20 or 23. i guess that's still a teenager, i guess. - growing up in my house, i never had like the period talk with my mom or my dad. i just remember like my mom buying me big pads. - no, i don't know why it's happening. i just know that you get it every 28 days and stuff. - i wish i would've learned anything in school about menstruation. i'm from the midwest. there's a lot of taboo topics and menstruation is one of them and i think my lesson in menstruation was my mom handed me a tampon and shut the door and said figure it out. (soft music) - when i got my period at 10, i had such a huge support group like i had, i got the period talk when i was nine and i got it from my mother and my auntie, everybody else who already had their period. they didn't tell me i was gonna bleed until i was 50 though, and i'm like, "all right, i'm done, i did it, i did my five days." and they're like, "all right, well, okay, next month sis, it's coming." i had such a great experience having a support group. i want that for other people. i want that for girls that look like me, especially. a lot of us don't have the privilege, we don't have the freedom to just know about our bodies. we don't even have the access to just love our bodies. sex ed is not mandatory here in america. schools are not teaching their students about periods, even though it's clear that they have students who menstruate. - so our students, when they come in in ninth grade, they take a health class and in that health class there is units in regards to to sexual education, certainly, and then as well as they have biology, which the freshmen take as well, but it is not a specific course in regards to sexual education. i definitely think that there are politics at play and people have a different feeling in regards to menstruation. some things could be private. - for us, with happy period, with our programming, we are filling in that gap. plenty of seating here. we're actually going into institutions and challenging them to really be allies for their students. does anybody here know exactly what a period is or menstruation is? who knows what a period is or what menstruation is? okay, who has a period? oh okay, so some people who have a period don't know exactly what it is. - "why on earth do we menstruate?" is a very good question and there is no absolute answer to that. only 4% of mammals on this planet menstruate. (upbeat music) - [narrator] hey, i'm a uterus here to explain human embryos require a lot of resources, so unlike other mammals, i prepare my lining before anything has the chance to attach. this is how. when the strongest egg is ready, it sends out a signal and then waits for the perfect match. that's when my walls start to get thick, creating the coziest spot to potentially grow an embryo. but if the egg doesn't find the right match, i simply shed it all. this monthly reset allows me to maintain control so i can be ready when the right match comes along. - so the menstrual cycle is this very complex, very well-integrated and orchestrated discussion that tells your brain to release hormones. it lasts anywhere from 21 to 40 days, depending on the person. - i like to almost think of it as like the brain is the orchestra conductor and it's just kind of training the ovaries. it's a stronger and stronger signal. that starts stimulation of the lining of the uterus. - the uterus kind of grows along and if you could think about that, it's like your lining. - the menstrual cycle is a dance that will continue to go on probably for the next 40 years of that woman's life. - i think it's super important for us to really make sure that we are teaching sex ed and menstrual health all in one. tampon inserts in the vagina, but what do you call outside of the vagina, like the actual face? when you actually look at yourself, where your pubic hair is, that is not your vagina on the outside. it's called a vulva. and this is a huge reason why i kind of encourage you to look at yourselves in the mirror down there because the only way you would know what you look like is if you actually look. - the truth is we aren't given enough information in sex ed. the us is notorious for really shitty sexual health education and so by the time someone comes to see me in the gynecology office, i'm not surprised if they don't understand their body. the sooner you understand when you ovulate, what ovulation is, the sooner you also understand different things that happen in your body as it relates to sex. when people start becoming sexually active, if you know when you're gonna ovulate and you you know that that means i am fertile, i don't wanna get pregnant, you're more proactive with how to prevent it. and i think that's sort of at the crux of why a lot of this information is kept down in a lot of these states. people say it's a funding issue, we can't fund proper sex education, but the truth is knowledge is agency and if you give people, specifically women, more knowledge, more agency, then you have less power for the people who used to be making decisions. - okay, so who can tell me what ovulation is? - during the menstrual cycle, the ovulation phase, which is about a week, is the only time a woman can get pregnant during the month. every woman has her own normal. it can happened anywhere from day seven to day 14 after menstrual period. - when we're talking about teen pregnancy, we're just showing them abstinence and here's a condom. when we're talking about reproductive health, it's always centered on abortion. religion is thrown in there and the state is thrown in there. honestly, like i tend to just stay in my lane when i'm talking about sex ed. my lane is the menstrual health part of it. - there's a lot of things we don't know about fertility, ovulation in general, women's health in general. - extending back the medical establishment was really, really male-dominated. women were excluded from it for a very long time. we're coming from a place that was very wary of women's bodies, pathologized women, pathologized menstruation specifically. really-entrenched stigma is hard to shake entirely. - so the word hysteria comes from the word hystera, which is greek for uterus because people started to say that women were crazy because their uteruses were wandering all over their bodies. women are sick if they don't get enough penis inside them. hysteria was not taken out of official manuals until 1980 and it was just this catch-all term that doctors used to let themselves off the hook for diagnoses they were having trouble making. - the first-ever encyclopedia written by pliney of the elder in 77 ad had an entire chapter devoted to menstruation. he said that menstruation could drive a dog mad, that it could kill crops. if a man had period sex with a woman, he might die. but it was also if you didn't get your period, that also made you crazy. basically anything that happened with your period made you crazy. - patriarchal logic is a bit contradictory because on the one hand, right, patriarchy values women as breeders, as producers, right? their fertility is what is valued. at the same time, we devalue menstruation. - multiple like respected scientific journals that are still in existence today would run articles arguing that periods caused women to be mentally, physically weak and inferior to men. - the ideas that the male body is the norm and any difference in the female body is an exception. - i think women's bodies are political and everything that happens with with women's bodies are political, so i think the period is part of that. a lot of the studies before in the research before has been done by men on men, so there hasn't been a lot of female-specific studies when it comes to sports and exercise and training. we try to do every single thing that we possibly can do would be the best and i think tracking our periods was a big part of that. any little gain that you can have puts you in a better position to win. - four world cup championships overall, back to back, do you like that word dynasty? - yeah, i think. (audience laughing) - for sports specifically, there's a misconception that females can't perform when they're on their menstrual cycle. where in reality, if you are being proactive with the intervention, can actually be a really good thing. - you ask for chris wicker to come out and give you a little physical therapy as well. - it's that time of the month. i know the ladies watching are really like, "yeah, i got you." - yes, you're gonna have a menstrual cycle, yes, you're gonna bleed. it's a good thing. it's a sign that you're healthy. your body's in an optimal condition. - really people think about it like, "oh, it's just one week in the month," but it's really sort of like something that you're kind of thinking about all the time. there's only like a short period where you're really not affected by it at all, so whether you're ovulating or the weeks before your boobs are getting a little bit sore. - we use technology to really kind of tell us what phase of their cycle they're in and at that point we can treat each player individually. - am i gonna need more sleep? maybe i need to do a little bit more recovery on top of that or eat a little bit more, make sure that my iron is right, the high-antioxidant diet. - when we're talking to the players, we usually break into first half versus second half, so first half where if we were talking from a nutrition's perspective, we know that carbohydrates are to be utilized in that period versus the second half of cycle where we know that's useful. - just because we bleed every month doesn't mean that it has to be this horrible experience. alice loves the scent of gain so much, she wished there was a way to make it last longer. say hello to your fairy godmother alice and long-lasting gain scent beads. part of the irresistible scent collection from gain! he hits his mark —center stage—and is crushed by a baby grand piano. you're replacing me? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ - [female narrator] they line up by the thousands. each one with a story that breaks your heart. like ravette... every step, brought her pain. their only hope: mercy ships. the largest floating civilian hospital in the world. bringing free surgeries to people who have no other hope. $19 a month will help provide urgently needed surgery for so many still suffering. so don't wait, call the number on your screen. or donate at mercyships.org. i think i'm ready for this. heck ya! with e*trade you're ready for anything. marriage. kids. college. kids moving back in after college. ♪ finally we can eat. ♪ you know you make me wanna...♪ and then we looked around and said, wait a minute, this isn't even our stroller! 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(upbeat music) - the activism i do is very focused in policy. i believe you have to both change it from up top and at the bottom to then finally get that result in the sweet spot in the middle. i'm trying to make tax law sexy. i'll literally just land in a state. the first thing i think, "oh, do they have a tampon tax?" and if they do, i'll go to the nearest place, buy the products, go to the website, fill out the form, send it all in, and then you can just keep following up. you don't have to be a resident of the state because it's a sales tax. it's not an income tax, it's not based off where you live. it's a sales tax. anyone who goes to indiana, west virginia, kentucky, tennessee, per se, and buys a menstrual product, it doesn't matter, you're gonna be taxed. i have initiated lawsuits in four different states and i currently have two pending in which i will go to a court hearing because i plan to undo these really bad laws. someone has to and it will be me. these papers are my life. these papers are copies of any receipt, petition, appeal, reappeal, that i have sent to various state governments requesting a refund on the tax that was imposed on a menstrual product i had bought. and you know, i've also worked my way up to getting court hearings. so for example, this is the west virginia office of tax appeals that are officially giving me my court date because i have gone through all the motions and i have asserted this is not an administrative error, this is not a fluke, but this is me trying to overhaul your law. - i hate tampons, but i have to wear them because my clothes are tight and a pad is weird, it's like a diaper, and i won't put a cup inside of me because i don't wanna touch my own body. - it's just not talked about enough like, "oh, i'm gonna go to the bathroom to like pee." no one says like, "oh, i'm gonna go to the bathroom to like change my tampon." - i get the extra large pads that don't even fit my body because i just wanna be super safe. i am one of those. my sister be looking at me like, "girl, you don't need that thick pad." so i'm still walking around with like a pamper booty. - changing my tampon when i was in high school and how scary that was for me. and to be honest, i like couldn't really focus on school those days. you're like so afraid of someone seeing or someone knowing and if someone knows then they will just kind of say your whole transition is like a joke. - i definitely was a tampons gal, but everything changed when i started using menstrual cup because menstrual cup is literally like a chalice and you get to see your blood when it comes out of you and it's not like icky tampon that's soaked in the brown liquid and weirdly smelling and it's nor the pad, which is pretty gross-looking, let's be honest here. - my relationship with tampons is that they shouldn't exist. it's unethical, in my opinion. why would you put a wad of chemicals up your most sacred part of yourself just to pull it out where it feels like cats scratching on the side of a couch? no, thank you. - people have been creative with their attempts to control, manage their menses since the beginning of time. back in the day, people would use whatever they had. they would use leaves, they would use linen, whatever they had on hand to sort of sit on or collect the blood. - i grew up in virginia and i would go to historical williamsburg, virginia, a lot and i do remember a demonstration of one of the women making a tampon from like the 1600 is you would take cloth and roll it up really tightly and stick it up her. - oh, i didn't know they were doing tampons. - her vaginal canal. - maybe it was like more chill back in the day. like even though people understood it less, maybe they were just, they could just roam around, you know, dripping a little more. - in terms of our evolutionary history, it's very unlikely that most women have menstruated the way modern women do. why? because she was pregnant or breastfeeding most of her life. - [corinne] which seems like the ultimate curse. - [krystyna] yeah, yeah, that's a fun thought. - [corinne] imagine always being pregnant. - oh. - it's in the late 19th century that you really start to see innovation around period products. the first pad was invented during the first world war when nurses on the front lines realized that the bandages they were using to help wounded men stop bleeding were more absorbent than the rags they had been using. - if i could fix this guy's bleeding hole in his forehead, surely i could use this for my bleeding hole in between my legs and then you stick some glue on it and then you got a pad. - after the nurses invented the pad, kotex came in and put its manufacturing and advertising muscle behind the product. - you would strap the pad on with with strap around your waist and it was this tortured-looking device initially with a belt. - but it was still used discreetly. it was not a product that was advertised widely or displayed in the store and you still had to use safety pins back then. there was no adhesive to it. and if you were going to the store to buy kotex, it was hidden behind the counter in a brown paper bag so you would just put the exact amount wordlessly on the counter and the cashier would give you the kotex package. it was almost like a drug exchange. the first commercial tampon appeared on the market in the 1930s and it was invented by a man, a physician named earle cleveland haas. has he filed a patent for a tampon with a cardboard applicator. i think his wife invented it and he just took the credit. honestly, do you really think a man knows what even happens? like of course not. his wife probably said, "this is what i need," and he was like, "all right." and because nobody granted patents to women, he put it on his name, but there's no evidence, i don't know. he later sold the design to a german business woman who started the company tampax. since the invention of the pad and the tampon, those two products completely dominated the market for decades. and if you fast forward to the 1980s, proctor and gamble introduces a tampon called rely, which is supposed to be super, super observant. - the rely is made of two materials, each has advantages of its own, but combined, they're even better. - it used a blend of synthetic materials that no one had used in a tampon before. - you can use just one tampon for your entire bleeding cycle. turns out that's not very healthy. it was linked to toxic shock syndromes. - [news announcer] after researchers discovered a connection between rely tampons and toxic shock syndrome, a newly discovered rare disease. it strikes about 30 out of every million women of menstrual age. about one in 12 cases is fatal. - no stains, no leaks, no mess, no fuss, right? that is indeed what the consumer wants and the consumer wants that because we socialize the consumer to want that. single most important thing about her menstrual cycle is to make it seem as though it doesn't exist and so there's industry ready to oblige. they did so though irresponsibly, they did so by introducing a product that was unsafe and it literally maimed and killed users of the product and then denied responsibility by saying that it was the consumer's fault because they didn't use it properly. they wore it too long, for instance. proctor and gamble was sued, actually paid out something like 58 million. - there has never been any long-term testing of these products to see the effects on women's bodies over the course of 40 years. - when i had toxic shock, the symptoms came on so quickly. i was literally at the beach and then having lunch. i was relatively fine and then by that evening, i was projectile vomiting, could barely make it to the bathroom. - a lot of these products are made of cotton, which is known as the dirtiest crop because it's sprayed the hell out of with pesticides and that's taken and bleached. - the fda considers them medical devices, so companies aren't required to disclose their ingredients. - if these were categorized as cosmetics, we would get labels. - i think it's very important that you know anything that goes into your vagina is a direct shot into your bloodstream, so pay attention to your tampons. use chlorine-free tampons, use raw-cotton tampons because it's important. - [demonstrator] so here we have two tampons. one is a conventional high-street brand and the other is a natracare tampon. you can see after just a minute that the conventional brand begins to shed its fibers. if you leave the tampon in for a few hours, the fibers fall away from the tampon in greater quantity. - clearly they wouldn't put an ingredient in here that would be bad for us. - i don't trust them for a second. - smells like a cheap-ass candle. - polythylene, polypropylene titanium dioxide, calcium chloride, petrolatum, fragrance. - harry pottersville. - it just literally says fragrance and then it has an asterisks connects to it and then you go to where the asterisks is and it's like 3a, four, five, six, seven, 7a. adding the fragrance alone, as i hypothesize, is all this extra shit up against your vagina all week long. - it says, "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. if not satisfied with the performance of it, send original receipt and you," i kind of wanna call them and tell them that my vagina still smells despite these scented pads. what do i do? (corinne laughing) i have active psoriatic arthritis. but with skyrizi to treat my skin and joints, i'm feeling this moment. along with clearer skin skyrizi helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. and is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. there's nothing like clearer skin and better movement-and that means everything! ask your doctor about skyrizi today. learn how abbvie could help you save. hey, you should try new robitussin honey medi-soothers for long-lasting cough and sore throat relief. try new robitussin lozenges with real medicine and find your voice. you know? we really need to work on your people skills. ght as i'm leaving ovulation and find your voice. and entering the premenstrual, nobody can fuck with me. - most things just sort of make me cry. things make me emotional that don't typically make me emotional. one day i was chopping up an avocado to put on some toast and i dropped one of the avocado slices on the ground and i just started bawling. - even when the the breeze hits my face in a certain way, i just start to get emotional. - i start feeling kind of moody or emotional or angry five days before my estrogen shot. - everyone lock your doors if i am pmsing because i am in a full rage. - i cry for three days and then i bleed for seven. (beat music) - for about 14 years, i had a really toxic relationship with my period. i was in a lot of pain, i had the heavy bleeding, i had the cramping and i felt really nauseous more than not when it comes to my menstrual cycle. you can be educated, empowered, and equipped naturally with information from your body. we are cyclical beings and i think more often than not we forget that, but we actually need to pay attention to that. - [interviewer] where in your cycle are you now? - i'm ovulating right now. (laughing) - i really grew up with the notion that this is not something to be talked about. i wanna learn more about the different phases of the menstrual cycle. i even heard that you can hack them. - this is the work i'm so passionate about. well, i'm more on the policy side, but i really don't know much about this cycle itself. a thermometer. (women laughing) - do you know which phase of your cycle you're in? (women speaking over each other) if you were using an app, go ahead and look at your app. menstrual cycle has four key phases. phase one of our menstrual cycle, which is your period. we have phase two, post-period, pre-ovulation. follicular phase, and we have phase three, which is ovulation. and then we have phase four, which is your luteal phase. what are your hormones and how they're relevant to your cycle and your energy? they are the chemical messengers of the body. they're getting signals constantly and that's what our hormones are, estrogen, progesterone, those things are key hormones throughout the menstrual cycle. this is menstruation. do you see how all of these lines are pretty much chill? there's nothing going on. low energy levels. then post-menstruation, you'll notice, okay, the hormones are starting to rise. i'm feeling social, i'm coming out of my shell. - we call it the follicular phase. women are at their most verbal, the increased in sociability and flirtatious. women are kind of at their best cognitively during that follicular phase and during ovulation, can most easily maybe win an argument at that time or ask for a raise. it's kind of a body hack to be able to know that. - [berrion] 'cause when you're feeling good, your skin's glowing, you're looking good, that's what you need to know. basically what we wanna do is support the gut as much as possible and aid the body in the processing of estrogen. probiotic yogurt, your sauerkraut, crucifer vegetable, turn up the intensity of your workout a little bit. get on a spin bike or go boxing. - so what happens is, is that at the moment that the estrogen peaks and ovulation starts to happen, boom, out the egg comes and then progesterone starts to come out. - but i always say two weeks of high energy, two weeks of low energy. kind of this dip in estrogen will be a dip in mood or a change in your mood, but if your progesterone levels are high enough, you're actually gonna feel really cozy. - then we switch over to what's called the luteal phase, l-u-t-e-a-l, luteal. - if you're moody and testy during this time, it makes sense and here's way. when there's a dip in your estrogen, some research shows there's also a drop in your serotonin. there's a drop in your endorphins. - pms is premenstrual syndrome, the bloating that's associated with the mentees coming. - more irritable than usual, so fingernails on the chalkboard feeling. - just all around discomfort. - so about 85% of women complain about pms. - most of us are walking around with lower levels of progesterone and so we might feel a little bit testier. - so one of the cool things about progesterone, it is what we call natural valium. it's time of just kind of snuggling down in the corner of your couch. - we wanna make sure those progesterone levels stay higher and the best thing is this is the time to really nourish that body, iron, magnesium, and zinc. so in terms of your workout, we need low intensity, lower-impact related things. you can track biomarkers to identify where you are in your menstrual cycle. first thing you can track is your actual cervical placement. stick your finger out really quick,, okay. your cervix moves throughout your menstrual cycle. the closer you are to ovulating, the further in your finger will actually go. have you ever felt your cervix? okay, so for those of you who have not, if you are close to ovulating or you are ovulating, it's gonna feel like your cupid's bow. touch your cupid's bow, top of your lip. if you're further away from ovulating, it's gonna feel like the tip of your nose. touch the tip of your nose. but you're gonna notice stark differences at least once a week, so yes, finger into the vaginal canal, kinda like this, okay? but who knows what a wap is? ♪ seven days a week ♪ wet as pussy ♪ make that pull out gate - hear bout a wap, right? (women laughing) so here's what we're looking for. if you wake up in the morning, have you ever noticed that there's discharge in your panties? okay, you're checking your panties, right? now, when you're ovulating, it's going to be translucent, it's going to be clear and it is gonna be a little bit tacky, okay? but if you're not ovulating, then it can look creamy, it can kind of be sticky. the last biomarker is your temperature. when you have ovulated, there'll be at least a one to two degree increase. i think a lot of times we just kind of feel so disempowered by our menstrual cycles or what it means to be a menstruator and there's so much power in it, we just have to take time to understand it. (carolers) ♪ iphone 15 pro, your husband deserves it! ♪ (mom) carolers? to tell me you want a new iphone? a better plan is verizon. (dad) no way they'd take this wreck. 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[dog barks] no it's just a bunny! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ my husband and i have never been more active. only pay for what you need. shingles doesn't care. i go to spin classes with my coworkers. good for you, shingles doesn't care. because no matter how healthy you feel, your risk of shingles sharply increases after age 50. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. shingles doesn't care but, shingrix protects. shingrix is now zero dollars for almost everyone. ask your doctor about shingrix today. - hmm, oh like you know that one myth about like the shark attack or like you can't go into the ocean with a tampon? - there is a myth that menstruation attracts bears. i for one have been a camp counselor majority of my life. i've bled in hundreds of national parks, never been attacked by a bear. - i heard that if you make spaghetti and then you put period blood in the spaghetti and then you feed it to the man that you like that he will fall in love with you and that's like a new orlean's love spell, so i never did it and i ain't gonna do it, but it probably works. - i heard of someone watering their plants with their period blood and i had one that was dying and i was like, like why not? i'll try. and the plant did not die. - i actually like to gift my menstrual blood back to mother nature just because it's literally the most valuable thing i have to give. - so if it does fall on a full moon, i usually like, like to do like a like a solo like sex ritual, which i basically like bring myself to like the magic o, which is like, you know like an orgasm to like manifest like my dreams. - [narrator] let me spell it out for you. women have always been mothers of invention. we knew our bodies and their rhythms we knew which plants could heal. we celebrated our wisdom, and were revered for it. but times changed and the stories we passed down were deemed dangerous they were surpressed, outlawed, and forgotten. these stories now beg to be retold. - every major religion in the world sees periods as impure and they have their own versions of restrictions on menstruating women. - something like 54% of the world's population today is either jewish, christian or muslim. everybody is aware of the curse of eve because of the original apple-eating incident. we have an image of women as cursed and everything that's happened in the past several thousand years for those communities that are influenced by that conversation is shaped by the conversation. - we have strange pathologies, we have stigmas. some things are hidden because they're sacred, not because they're shameful. - it's me or the dogs, come on. all right, come, here you go. ssh. all the chickens love my mom more. i don't understand it. she's the chicken lady. (chicken clucking) ssh. come get your chicken. your grandma boo. go to your favorite. aah! see, chicken lady. - a s lakota women we are seen as equals with our male counterparts. our menstruation was never seen as a nasty, dirty, shameful thing. it was seen as a beautiful, sacred time. - [daughter] can you throw a tipi up on your moon? - yeah - okay, couldn't remember. - most of the native american ceremonies were banned or outlawed in the united states. we didn't get our right to practice our ceremonies until 1978 with the religious freedom act. lakota people have a four-day ceremony tied to a girl's first menstruation. a girl learns the lakota womanhood teachings. lakota women, they are the backbones of their family, the backbones of their community. i mean they come into their power, you see it, they come into their power. i was given my lakota name during ceremony and i actually have that tattooed on my arm. so it's ta-shu-go-long-lashu which means her beautiful horse woman. our ribbon skirts. and so my mom made both of these for me. i feel like it goes well with my lakota name. like my womb is here and beneath like inside the skirt, i have that connection, that personal space where i am solely connected with unci maka, or mother earth. during ceremony, we were encouraged that during that time when you're on your moon, you take that time for yourself and while you're resetting, you're creating. - when you're on your moon time, you have to speak good things, think good things, and carry yourself in a good way. as women, we have a direct link to the creator, especially when we're on our moon time. we have seen girls that come through becoming a woman ceremony, come out as young women. they carry themselves differently. they stand taller, they walk prouder and they're doing things in their community. - the tipi belongs to the woman, the house belongs to the woman, and so we put up our houses. - the work that we're doing in our communities, we're helping our young women to change their future. we're creating historical trauma cycle breakers. the big picture is all are women, elder women on cheyenne river supporting each other, taking care of each other. female sage is female medicine and used monthly it helps regulate your menstruation. and in the fall when it's mature, it changes a different color and it's used to help women who are going through menopause. so if any woman feels that they need to go on a camping trip, come see me. (laughing) if you think about the moon phases, every woman follows the moon. i can always count on my moon time to start on the full moon. - i'm lili, i feel accomplished. - right, you wanna catch our last lili of the night? - okay. - so this is trilling. i don't know if you've heard of women trilling. you do it when you're happy. (women trilling) (women laughing) when you smell the amazing scent of gain flings... time stops. (♪♪) and you realize you're in love... steve? with a laundry detergent. (♪♪) gain flings. seriously good scent. have heart failure with unresolved symptoms? it may be time to see the bigger picture. heart failure and seemingly unrelated symptoms like carpal tunnel syndrome, shortness of breath, and irregular heartbeat could mean something more serious, called attr-cm a rare, underdiagnosed disease that worsens over time. sound like you? call your cardiologist and ask about attr-cm. doesn't your family deserve the best? eggland's best eggs. classic, cage free, and organic. more delicious, farm-fresh taste. plus, superior nutrition. because the way we care is anything but ordinary. ♪♪ honey... honey... nyquil severe honey. powerful cold and flu relief with a dreamy honey taste. nyquil honey, the nighttime, sniffing, sneezing, couging, aching, fever, honey-licious, best sleep with a cold, medicine. sleep more deeply. and wake up rejuvenated. purple mattresses exclusive gel flex grid draws away heat relieves pressure and instantly adapts. sleep better. live purple. right now save up to $900 off mattress sets during purple's black friday sale. visit purple.com or a store near you today. what causes a curve down there? who can treat this? stop typing, and start talking. it could be a medical condition called peyronie's disease, or pd. you're not alone, there is hope. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose and treat pd. visit makeapdplan.com today. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose and treat pd. - cramp feels like you've been kicked from the front, from the side, from the back. - i had to take a lot of like tylenol and advil, sometimes eight to 10 of them a day just to manage the pain at work. - the cramps were is so bad where like i actually passed out like from the pain and then woke up because of the pain. - so they sent us to a fertility specialist and they found that i had fibroids in my uterus. they said that this could also affect, greatly affect my menstrual cycle. - they actually found out that i have a three-centimeter cyst located on my left ovary so that kind of sums up like my whole pain. - [woman] we tried a period cramp simulator. (women laughing) - my cramps are 10 times worse. - we're often taught that, yeah, periods are supposed to be painful, just deal with it, but the truth is you don't have to. - the thing that causes the pain is like all of the little arteries down into the uterus that are actually being told to like close off everything to kill off lining of the uterus 'cause lots of pain signals to go back to the brain. but if you can get yourself an advil right when that starts, you may be able to break the cycle. - your period should be present, but not very painful. - the three most common things that i see people coming to the clinic for are fibroids, pcos, endometriosis. as we get to midlife, the majority of us will actually have fibroids. - fibroids in and of themselves are going to wreak havoc on the menstrual cycle. african american women are disproportionately plagued with fibroids. why do african american women suffer more with fibroids? we don't know. so is it environmental or is it hereditary? pcos is a hormonal disorder insulin resistant and we have excess circulating insulin and with that excess circulating insulin, we develop a lot of problems, fatigue, cravings, weight gain, excess testosterone, not enough estrogen. lot of women live a lifetime of infertility, obesity. it's associated with depression and anxiety as well. - endometriosis is when endometrium grows outside of the uterus. - it can grow on the lung, it can grow on the bowel, it can grow on the bladder, but it comes outside of the uterus. - endo is a common condition that is chronic. that means when you get endo, it doesn't leave you. there is no cure for endo. - so it's the morning after my surgery for endometriosis. doctor found 30 spots of endometriosis to your boob to your appendix. i didn't even know the word endometriosis and it's like one in 10 women has it and it's really painful and debilitating. - most annoying feature is that it takes on average seven to 10 years to diagnose. for endometriosis in particular, this is like a classic staple of treatment is to give birth control pills, but the problem is it's not that great. - gynecologists fail because they treat endometriosis and pcos as an issue of the ovary, so they're quick to use birth control pills, which really don't do anything other than prevent you from calling the gynecologist every month with the problem that they're not fixing anyway. - birth control pills were designed back in the '60s and they were designed using much higher doses. - it was farmers way back when that were breeding animals that realized, "oh, we can't get a pregnant animal pregnant." and that is exactly what scientists used generations ago to come up with the birth control pill. if you can't get pregnant when you're pregnant, what kind of hormones can we give to a woman to fool her body into thinking she's pregnant even when she's not? - but when they were designed, the pioneers of them basically said, "how are we gonna convince women to use birth control pills? if we just give them a pill every single day, they aren't gonna get their cycle and that's not natural and they aren't gonna be okay with that." so they specifically designed the pill to have a withdrawal bleed just so it would mimic a normal menstrual cycle. there is no reason you have to have a withdrawal bleed and oftentimes what we'll do is we'll have people skip that withdrawal bleed and just keep taking the next pack. it's not dangerous. - so the blood that you see when you menstruate is not the same as if someone just did a blood test and took blood out from your arm or somewhere else. you're really seeing debris of cells, seeing things are in your uterine lining that are coming out and you're seeing stem cells. - they're critical because some of them are left behind when the endometrium is sloughed left off and those stem cells can regrow the entire endometrium in less than two weeks. - what other part of the body is freely shedding magic stem cells? - those endometrial stem cells can be used for wound healing, for nerve regeneration. - menstrual fluid is potentially healing fluid. - there is a sample type that only women have that is giving you cells naturally shed from your reproductive tract that we're not currently using and so couldn't we build a base of diagnostics on that sample type. - right now as a gynecologist, there's nothing that can be done to assess the actual character of the blood that will help with any diagnosis. - i think that we need more female researchers. i think that would change things. - [ridhi] nextgen jane is the smart tampon company. your body is giving you a natural biopsy every single month. - you see that there's many different colors. these all come from different women, different times of the month. - menstruation as a biological sample could be used as a substitute for an invasive biopsy of the uterus. you know, part of the motivation early on was like, what do i need to understand about my reproductive health? female bodies experience so many things that are terrible and terrifying and don't have answers. whether you have endo or fibroids or polycystic ovarian syndrome, pelvic inflammatory disease, endometrial cancer, like there's so many reproductive pathologies. - so we think there will be a day in the near future where women actually bring a sample of their menstrual effluent that they collect at home to their gynecologic checkup. we're really hoping that it becomes a revolution. we are entering into a world where technology is now entering the period product space. - it's exciting to me that tech and all these new cycle-tracking apps are giving people sort of a structure in which to observe their bodies and to input this data. at the same time, it makes me very uneasy that it's just another source of data about our bodies that these tech companies are getting. - a new report finds that some period-tracking apps, like the apps that track your menstrual cycle, maybe sharing private health information. in some cases the data begins transferring to third parties from the moment the app is opened. - even though these apps are considered health apps, they're not protected by the federal privacy law known as hipaa. hipaa only applies to information that you share with your doctor, nurses, or insurance providers, not these apps. - what a shit world for women to be living in. think about like you need to use your phone for everything, especially period-tracking or where you're gonna find an abortion clinic. like how are you gonna search for abortion pills without google? - i think it's important that people realize there have been past court cases where online searches for abortion pills or abortions services have been used to prosecute. - these companies promise that they won't share your data, but it's really hard to know because they're not regulated. femtech is driven by the same motivations as any for-profit business, which is they need to grow and scale and make money. i wanna see a world in which femtech companies are driven by a noble aim of helping women. that would be a more feminist thing for them to do. - so what would be like our dream vision for 2022 of the states that flip or that we think could budge a little? - texas because we've been working on them so long and because we've won over the controller. - anything women's rights or social justice related in texas i think says a lot and could also be good momentum for anywhere in the south. everything's bigger in texas, so. - well, and texas collects the most money annually. i think about 25 million from a tampon tax. we need to, you know, get boots on the ground and they've asked me to basically proffer grassroots activists and i said, "i can do that." - i can get a new shot on it. tell me about the active period chapters and maybe we can do a literal caravan of people road tripping around. it would create such an awareness of okay this huge group of students is going to travel from state to state to state to literally just buy products and file petitions. it is more of an inconvenience for the government to have to deal with the noises we're making than to keep this tax they probably know tacitly is unjust. - check out this map. this is a map of states that are certain to have abortion bans. - that's fascinating and there's a lot of crossover here. - if we keep working in these states, we are talking to a lot of republican men about women's bodies. - right, so when we're talking about abortion bans, do we think that will make them more likely to like the idea of a tampon tax as like a win for women's rights in a more moderate point of view in their eyes, or do you think that they will just hate it flat out because it's more about women's bodies? - [laura] well, that's what we'll find out. (soft music) - i'm like writing down names of lawmakers to call, see if they're interested in supporting the repeal of the michigan tampon tax. this is called billtrack50. you can search for legislation and i search for keyword in different states and this is how i track it all across the country. if michigan were to fail to pass this legislation, then that would send a message to the rest of the midwest and other red states that this is not common-sense policy. i'm nervous that this bill may not receive the support it needs to pass. we need to put pressure on our lawmakers. i think a lot of people don't realize that they are there to work for us. i'm gonna do jeff yaroch, michigan republican. (phone ringing) - [woman on phone] thank you for calling representative jeff yaroch's office. - my name is anusha singh and i'm an activist and organizer. i was calling you regarding the michigan tampon tax. try like a democrat presented felicia brabec. i was interested in speaking to you about the michigan tampon tax. quite frankly, legislators having been voicing out about this for nearly 10 years and this bill has failed time and time again when it was introduced. i'm not sure if it will receive bipartisan support. (phone ringing) my name is anusha singh, so i've worked with like other states as well that have passed this policy such as utah. is this a policy that he may be interested in supporting in the future? (phone ringing) i wanted to talk to representative thomas albert about the tampon tax in michigan. - [woman on phone] well, i know that he reviews legislation as it's introduced and, you know, definitely considers lending his support. he takes that all into account before determining how to vote on something. - there's a lot of interest in michigan. i know there's a lot of grassroot support for this, so i just wanted put it on your radar. i also wanted to share information about our upcoming rally in michigan. - [woman on phone] all right, well yeah, thank you for sharing that, we appreciate it. - thank you, thank you so much. - my favorite thing is like telling people like what isn't tax, like chainsaws, minor league baseball tickets and memorabilia, sorority and fraternity catered meals, pixie sticks, golf club or a gun club membership, more necessary. like that's ridiculous. yeah, i can't believe there's taxes on this crap. it's stupid! - yeah! it should be free if anything. yeah i definitely support it though. i love this cause. - yeah! - it's a human rights... - yeah, it's exactly human rights. - [anusha] thank you, guys. so we have a bunch of ohio students going tomorrow on a bus leaving at like 6:00 am. - [anusha] yeah, it's a four-hour bus ride and we're going to the rally to really show solidarity to michiganders. - [student] good luck. - i've lived majority of my life really embracing my menstruation and to have to say goodbye to it, i'm gonna have to look up some ceremonial stuff because i'm gonna be very sad. - that month that i turned 40 in november, my period was late for a whole month and i went out and bought like five pregnancy tests 'cause i was like, "oh, shit, i'm pregnant." i went to my gynecologist, he was like, "no, girl, you're not pregnant. there's no eggs or anything going on in here." - my period comes on and then it leaves for a couple of months and then she's back on. - i had my first hot flash the other day, had no idea what was happening to me and all of a sudden i had to take off my jacket in the middle of a store while i was buying something. - you just wanna snatch the wig off and everything. like what the heck is going on? - i've never had back fat before and all of a sudden i get back fat. - if you wanna look your best during the menopause, you gotta do a little homework. you gotta figure out, "what do i need to make my body look good? what do i need to make me look good?" - the best way to describe it is bark juice. it's so nasty, but it works because i don't get hot flashes anymore. if i could just put a label with my face on it, i would, but i don't know what's in it. all i know is that it's eastern medicine and it works. - i can't wait to go through menopause because the idea of not having my period sounds amazing. i fully intend to dress like diane keaton in every nancy meyers movie for the rest of my life. - eat some avocados, girl, that is a avodeciac, i'm telling you. it helps your skin keep everything wet and moist down there. everything is just so amazing and it's good for your skin and your hair so avocado is the secret for menopause. - i mean i started getting very vocal about being in menopause at 50 because i somehow felt like it was suddenly okay. even though i knew i was skirting around menopause way before 50, i was just sick of keeping it secret. - currently as physicians, if we code for a menopausal visit, we do it under a specific code for genital urinary diseases. now, excuse me, wait a minute, is menopause a disease? - i think like most women, we think of menopause as something that happens to someone 10 years older than us. - definition of menopause is being without a menstrual cycle for 12 consecutive months and consecutive is the key word because you can go 10 months with no period. if you start a period, you have to start all over again with your count. once you have been 12 consecutive months with no period, you should never see a period again. average age of menopause is 51, but you can usually look at going through menopause within a couple of years of when your mother did. it's a natural transition. - we get into a very interesting phase that i call the transition, but it's typically called the perimenopause. sometimes it's called puberty in reverse. it is rock and roll of hormones and also in puberty you kind of skip cycles. your whole system isn't like on that nice routine that you get in your 20s and 30s like clockwork. - [narrator] you see, i was born with all the eggs i'll ever have, about a million of them in fact, but by puberty only half are left and a few years before menopause, i've nearly run out. my cycles become unpredictable. i might go months without seeing an egg. but just when i think i'll never have another period again, we have another party crasher. enough with the kids' stuff, i'm ready for some me time. - so when the follicles run out, what happens? 'cause follicles make estrogen. if you don't have any follicles, you're not gonna have any estrogen. but the pituitary in your brain doesn't know that. its job is to scream at the ovary to make more estrogen if it's not making enough. the ovaries sometimes will respond with grabbing a bunch of follicles and squeezing out a whole bunch of estrogen so sometimes the estrogen will go, you know, from a level of 10 or 20 to like 400, you have like these spikes of estrogen during perimenopause and then bam, crash down. then all of a sudden have a feeling like you're pmsing the whole month sometimes. - that's why we're feeling the stuff of hot flashes. that's why we're feeling different. - there can be up to 200 symptoms. the amount of symptoms, the severity of symptoms, what symptoms vary per person. - you know 60% of women have something they need to see a doctor about. - that means that hot flashes, clarity of thinking, mental cloudiness, forgetfulness, not being able to rest well. - become dry, you lose moisture scalp to vag. having your libido go flat. night sweats, changing your t-shirt. - it could be in one month of a cycle and then for two or three months you're back to being normal again, so it's not like you go into this deep dark tunnel and it's gonna be like that solid. perimenopause lasts between two and nine years. it's gonna be intermittent. - i've definitely taken a new appreciation level for my garden, which my mother said i always would. yeah, she said, "that's when you know your sex life is over when you go to the garden." she's wrong, though. she's definitely wrong. i'm naomi watts. wait, should i look at the camera? never, right? i already did that. i'm fired. i'm naomi watts, i'm an actor. my cycle, it came late and it ended early, but 36 seemed super early and there were all these women having babies in their late 40s. but i did go to the doctor and he said, "yeah, it looks like you're getting close to menopause." now, there was no mention of perimenopause. there was no, i don't even think that word existed. there was nothing said to me about it in the doctor's office, certainly no friends were using that word. i would crack jokes about having estrogen dips to sort of see if how, "oh, i'm having that too, you know, let's just see if that sparks up the conversation." and it was sort of met with crickets, nothing. my friends were clearly either not there in that phase of their life or they weren't willing to talk about it. what makes it difficult is the suffering alone and not knowing waking up one day and not feeling yourself. you don't know whether that self is returning. you don't know if you're losing your mind. suddenly the way someone turns their pages, suddenly the way someone speaks, the perfume that they're wearing, all of these things your sensory overload is just like that. and then there's no one to talk to about it and that's why we kind of need to get a bit shouty here to create some kind of movement so that your generation is able to benefit from our learnings. - the symptoms associated with menopause, how do we ease those? how do we help those? yes, we can handle those with omni bio identical hormones but also naturally too. - knowledge is power. staying physically fit, de-stress as much as you can. if you could do anything to help yourself, it's to de-stress. find some way to be able to do that. eat well. - it helps with depression, it helps with anxiety, it's going to help heart health. and as you increase your hydration, we see that it also helps with your libido and your sexual health. making sure your vitamin d levels are stable, your vitamin c levels are stable. different things that we can kind of pick up holistically. - i appreciate women who do not wanna put any hormones in their body. i'm saying this as a postmenopausal woman who takes hormone replacement therapy. estrogen is what helps your symptoms and it's not just taking pills. there's gels that seem to have fewer side effects. - i love to talk about it. i love to fix because the leaps and bounds we made i think are pretty extreme. we are reversing the vaginal dryness. like women are getting wet in five minutes instead of 25 minutes wanting to have sex all day. - the desire comes just for you. so i always say, you know, closed for business, but open for pleasure. (naomi laughing) - so women are reversing, resting, the clarity. we're taking you from age 51 back to 28, 30, whatever you were, i mean women are having a great time. - once those eggs are gone, you don't have that fear of getting pregnant. you know, it's not your hormones going, ooh, i need to make babies. all of that is gone. - women wake up and all of a sudden all of the nurturing hormones, the estrogen, the oxytocin, all of those things are quieted down for women at this stage is a reevaluation of their whole life can be a realization of their relationship. there's a big increase in divorces at this stage and there's taking on new careers. it's a very exciting time for women. - you care less about offending people or you know, you just find your path. let's get rid of stigma, you know, and make it intergenerational. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ [bell ringing] and doug says, “you can customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual.” he hits his mark —center stage— and is crushed by a baby grand piano. are you replacing me? with this guy? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache! oh, look! a bibu. 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(vo) this black friday weekend, turn any iphone in any condition into a new iphone 15 pro with titanium, and ipad, and apple watch se, all on us. only on verizon. ma, ma, ma— ( clears throat ) for fast sore throat relief, try vicks vapocool drops. with two times more menthol per drop, and powerful vicks vapors to vaporize sore throat pain. vicks vapocool drops. vaporize sore throat pain. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up, i've got symptom relief. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements. skyrizi is the first il-23 inhibitor that can deliver remission and visibly improve damage of the intestinal lining. and the majority of people experienced long-lasting remission at one year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ♪ now's the time to ask your gastroenterologist how you can take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. - so we're going to michigan and we have a whole rally planned to really put that pressure on lawmakers to act and pass the bill to repeal the michigan tampon tax that michigan becomes the 24th state to repeal this discriminatory tax. - when we are passionate about something, we want to make our voices heard. we're not okay with this sitting silent in the corner. - i hadn't really had experience with coalitions. i definitely come from more of, oh my god, i love reading like a good legal memo. anusha definitely takes the cake. she is an icon, a hero and the brain behind that education, service, grassroots organizing level. anusha and i have co-organized this for a long time now. and so when we come together it creates this beautiful bond and i mean we're just one example of kind of coalition work and there are plenty of people also doing that sandwich method, but she is like my counterpart and i just, i enjoy her so much. (upbeat music) - surfing the crimson wave. that is good, okay, i like it. - thank you so much for all your support and all this organizing, coming together to abolish sales tax on these medical necessities in our state. - woo! (group clapping) - for too many years, menstruators have shouldered the burden. someone should not have to choose between buying groceries and buying menstrual products. state governments need to become involved to financially support their menstruators. - the house bills will not only exempt feminine hygiene products for taxes, but it will increase access and provide equity for women. - it's an illegal tax on essential items. michigan law says that they don't tax essential items so now we should get with the program. - if your idea of reproductive justice does not include trans and non-binary people, then i am so glad i am here to speak to you all today and this stigma surrounding healthcare and menstrual products, this is what makes it so hard for trans people to access this care. - time is now that we've put an end to this outdated gender discriminatory luxury taxation of menstrual products. you are the menstrual movement and you have the power to be the change. - one, two, three. - pass the tax. - woo! - so what i'd like to say to the gen z menstrual activist is that there is a history to this movement. - no other social movement of this century has had greater impact than the changing status of women. with us this morning is one of the names that will always be synonymous with the '70s, the decade of women, gloria steinem, from "ms. magazine," also an important articulate leader of the women's movement. - i mean there was a a general cultural repression of conversation about menstruation because it was female and therefore inferior, so the women's movement and the idea that we are all human beings came along then no doubt it was easier to discuss. - gloria steinem published a satirical essay which first ran in "ms. magazine" in which she paints a world where men menstruate. - "what would happen, for instance, if suddenly magically men could menstruate and women could not. - hey dad. - yeah bud. - i think i got my period. - "the answer's clear. menstruation would become an inevitable boast-worthy masculine event. men would brag about how long and how much." - "boys would mark the onset of menses that longed for proof of manhood with religious ritual and stag parties." - "and would convince women that intercourse was more pleasurable at that time of the month." - "sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. politicians and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation, men-struation, as proof that only men could serve in the army. - "street guys would brag, i'm a three-pad man, or answer praise from a buddy, 'man, you're looking good,' by giving hi-fives and saying, 'yeah man, i'm on the rag.'" the fact that it's written in 1978 and it's been 40 years and that feels so timely and edgy and not done in a way is pretty devastating. and like also to be honest, showing blood in "pen 15," i mean is a drop in the bucket like next to you know, an essay like that, you know? and yet that was meaningful to just show blood on our show. "pen 15," you know, deals with the shame of it 'cause it's year 2000 and you're 13 and what is this r-rated time that we're not supposed to talk about? and one of those things is the period. we were doing a scene where maya gets her period for the first time and it's on her underwear. we're all giving notes about what it looks like and there was this kind of moment of us all realizing that our periods look the same because it's not something that you ever get real reference to, you know, with a friend or something and that was really normalizing and nice. the just showing it felt like a big statement because we've been told on some level to keep it to ourselves, it can feel very isolating. so the more we talk about it and and show it, i think the more it will be normalized. - hey jesse. - what? - oh, i think you sat in ice cream. - very recently, there's been a shift in how the media is portraying periods and how we're talking about it and literally just seeing blood on screen being kind of momentous and something so simple being a little bit shocking is sort of sad to me but it's amazing that it's finally happening. - we have pain on a cycle for years and years and years and then just when you feel you are making peace with it all, what happens? the menopause comes, the fucking menopause comes and it is the most wonderful fucking thing in the world, and yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares, but then you're free. - in a lot of traditions, there are rights and ritual that you are not actually allowed to participate in if you're still menstruating, you know the power of the administration, the power of what's happening inside of your uterus does not allow for you to access certain spiritual work or healing work, but once your womb, once your uterus ceases menstruating, there's a whole nother world available to you around healing. i think that we've been separated from that wise woman wisdom because of colonization. we've been separated from that wisdom because of slavery. my own mothers, part of my blood lineage, have something to offer me and so i think that when we invite ourselves to tap into that wise woman energy, healing's possible. love is possible, justice is possible. it's the wise women who take care of the family, they take care of the community. they understand what liberation means. when a person finds themself on the menopause path, i want them to know that they're not alone. there is a community waiting for them there. the black girls guide to surviving menopause is a multimedia project engaged in culture and narrative shift work around menopause and aging and we do this through centering the first person's stories and experiences of black women, women identified and gender-expansive people. where is the conversation about agency, advocacy, bodily autonomy as it relates to an aging body, as it relates to a body that is menopausal? i think that that is a missing part of the conversations. we started doing these intergenerational conversations, which i think is at the crux of this plot twist, right? wisdom is not bound by age. so if you're in your 50s and you're in your 30s, you get to address the same question. meet me outside, let's go. come on y'all, let's go. if you by yourself, find a table. and then you get to talk to each other about how your body changes, how your life changes, what questions you have, what are you curious about, what are you confused by? what are you scared of? - i'm gonna be 64 in september and my workplace is in a transitional period and so it's possible that i may not have a job soon and so i have been thinking that i am not credentialed enough to be hireable at my wisdom age. - wow. the universe may be providing you as an opportunity to do your own thing and that's an amazing gift, sis. - i think it's good to kind of get out of your comfort zone. that's how i started snowboarding and i love it. - really? - yeah, yeah, yeah. - snowboarding. - snowboarding. - yeah. - i mean, i can sing. - i heard you sing. - i have a voice, but i get unnerved thinking it. - people looking at you. - we could like all join in. so you wouldn't be doing it by yourself, but you would be singing in public. - i can't do it right now. what about a door? - oh my gosh. (women singing) ♪ love to you ♪ you are my honey one (women laughing) - moving in the world with an intersexual identity that has been marginalized is that your voice is taken from you. whether it's the workplace or at the doctor's office or sometimes inside of our own families, we walk with internalized oppression and so i think it's really important for black women to feel like i can tell my story in a space and someone says to me, "i absolutely believe what you're saying, beloved. i hear you." hey, you should try new robitussin honey medi-soothers for long-lasting cough and sore throat relief. try new robitussin lozenges with real medicine and find your voice. you know? we really need to work on your people skills. why choose between a longer life or quality of life? you deserve both. and with kisqali, a treatment for people with metastatic breast cancer, you can have both. kisqali is a pill that, when taken with an aromatase inhibitor is the only treatment of its kind shown to both help people live longer and improve or preserve quality of life. because you shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other. kisqali can cause lung problems, or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. avoid grapefruit during treatment. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills, or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. live longer and live well. ask about kisqali, and long live you. - hello, my name is anusha singh ask about kisqali, and i'm the national campaigns lead at period nonprofit. if you are interested in showing your support for the state of michigan as it tries to repeal its tampon tax, please swipe up to watch the hearing. - speaker recognizes representative damoose. - these bills were first brought to my attention by my colleague, representative brixie and by my colleague, representative cooper. so i went home and i talked to a friend of mine and he said, "oh, don't do those bills. it's just a big liberal cause." so i'm proud to stand with representative brixie who has poured her heart from both a practical standpoint and from a symbolic standpoint that we acknowledge and respect the needs of girl's and women's of all political persuasions. this is something we should all celebrate and let's all take a win on this one. - the question before the house is the passage of the bill. a record roll call is required, all those in favor, please vote i, those opposed nay. the clerk will open the board. (bell dinging) - [clerk] there are 94 i votes and 13 nay votes. - a majority of the members elected and serving having voted, therefore, the bill is passed. - oh my god, we did that. - i'm gonna cry. - this is so emotional. - onto the next one, onto the next one. - onto the senate floor. at the end of the day, i'm glad that both parties were able to join together to make this happen. historically, that's now always been the case. this is a really big moment for women's healthcare. are you thinking about like using michigan as like a national model for other states? oh my gosh, y'all, were all here out here. watch the governor of michigan, governor gretchen signed. - she's gonna sign the senate bill, woo! - so pumped for this. and after today, michigan is officially a 24th state to repeal the tampon tax, let's do this. (group applauding) - the bill that i'm signing today is part of the bipartisan package to repeal the tampon tax. today we're making our tax code more equitable and more just. we've been trying to get this done for a decade almost. i never dreamed, number one, we'd get it done, number two, would take this long to get it done, and number three, that i'd be the one who gets to sign this bill into law. (group applauding) - we really need people on the ground making noise and we will replicate what we did in michigan. we will have the legislative action days, we will have the rallies, we will work closely with our state advocates. - it's so important to make policy change and you know, the tampon tax is really the tip of the iceberg. our next stop is really make a permanent systemic change. please drop it in the group chat. - yes, open all of these. i understand that this journey i'm on doesn't end when the tax ends and i'm in it for the long haul. i want to see it illegal in all 50 states and we will get there. it's gonna take a lot, but we will get there. hi mom. - hey, how are you? - laura and i have had some conversations lately and we have some plotting plans in the work, so i'm gonna have to do some more driving. - you need advocates. if you want to make a difference, you reach out and collaborate. that's where activists like madeline come in. - trail lays down the appalachian highway from ohio to west virginia. you are my sweet warrior. - there is so much work to be done. - menstruation is almost just a microcosm of some of the larger issues we're fighting today. - massive change is about to occur, which is so necessary. - there are lots of ways to pay attention to menstruation. that's not just about whether or not people have access to a pad or whether how much the pad costs, we can also think about the safety of products, menstrual health education. - body positivity is i think more than just you liking what you see, but i think it's also knowing how your body works and getting really comfortable with yourself. - this dam has been broken. understanding the nuances of a period, understanding that it's a something that everyone experience is differently. parts of it are incredible. parts of it are really annoying and that's just the truth. my daughter, i want her to know that it's funny and sacred and interesting and something to be talked about on every level. - your period is a vital sign. instead of saying, "oh god, here it comes again," take it as an opportunity to kind of assess your health. - we are fighting for the ability to define what is normal. - what can we all do? anything we fucking well please. - you want to be part of taking them period stigma. grab your tampon, hold it in your hand and walk to the bathroom holding a tampon. (phone ringing) - [man on phone] hello, representative albert's office. - my name is anusha singh and i'm an activist and organizer. i am calling about the texas tampon tax. (rock music) ♪ bad time, that time of the month ♪ ♪ 'cause i woke up early and i got a hunch ♪ ♪ gonna head on down to the beach today ♪ ♪ surf all my problems away ♪ 'cause all i wanna do is ride ♪ ♪ ask mother nature why, why, why ♪ ♪ listen to the bands on the stereo ♪ ♪ turn it up ♪ oh oh, surfing, surfing the wave ♪ ♪ all the girls are surfing the wave ♪ [digital sounds] director:all right, sir jackalot, if you were making a filmabout wallstreetbets,