(RNN) - A woman on her period ran in the London marathon without a tampon to bring awareness to women who don’t have access to sanitary products.
Kiran Gandhi, a 26-year-old Harvard grad and drummer for M. I. A., started a debate when she chose to let her period flow during the run in April.
According to the Huffington Post, Gandhi stated after one year of training to prepare for her first marathon, she realized she would be on her period during the run. Instead of backing out of the race, she decided to free-bleed, a popular feminist trend.
Social media users spoke in support of her decision and some spoke against it.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan, Gandhi said she didn’t have good information on what happens when you run on your period. "They tell you that for men, their nipples will bleed because of the chafing between their shirts and their skin. I worried that a tampon might have the same effect."
Gandhi believes rules would be different if men had periods.
“It’s intelligently oppressive to not have a language to talk about it and call it out and engage with it. I really can’t think of anything that’s equivalent for men, and for this reason, I believe it’s a sexist situation,” she said.
Gandhi finished the marathon in 4:49:11, hand-in-hand with her best friends, and raised $6,000 for Breast Cancer Care.
“We ran the whole way without stopping. London is one of the world’s best marathons because so many people come out for it. The sidelines are packed for the entire 26.2 miles. There are crazy people running without shoes and with 40 pounds on their back, and there are dance parties along the way. If I had to summarize though, the marathon for me was about family and feminism,” she said.
In a feminism post Gandhi wrote, “On the marathon course, sexism can be beaten. Where the stigma of a woman’s period is irrelevant, and we can re-write the rules as we choose. Where a woman’s comfort supersedes that of the observer. I ran with blood dripping down my legs for sisters who don’t have access to tampons and sisters who, despite cramping and pain, hide it away and pretend like it doesn‘t exist. I ran to say it does exist, and we overcome it every day. The marathon was radical and absurd and bloody in ways I couldn’t have imagined until the day of the race.”
Cosmopolitan asked Gandhi if she thinks she’ll run another marathon.
“I’d like to and my friends are both trying to get me to. They’re already signed up. I’ll have to see. Maybe if it’s not on a period weekend,” she said.
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