Try typing the phrase ‘period in geosciences’ into Google. Go on.
When we did this, Google gave us ‘divisions of geological time’, and went on to define how we divide ancient earth time into eras, periods and epochs. This makes sense.
In geology we learn about this in the first year and again in every subsequent year of training. We are both geochronologists, specialists in telling geological time, so this is a topic we are deeply familiar with.
But we are also both women. To us, and every other cis-gendered woman in the world, period means something else too.
Ask any cis-gendered woman who menstruates in geosciences, in either academia or industry, and they will have experienced at least one menstrual period in the field, predicted or not.
Given the composition of most undergraduate classes, at least half the students are likely to experience menstruation during field training. Yet, this issue remains unspoken of at best, taboo at worst.
So unspoken, in fact, that neither of us had ever talked about getting our period in the field, planning for it, or managing it. We had never talked about it with our peers or classmates, let alone mentioned something like this to the lecturers and staff running field training trips.
But, as unmentioned as menstruation is in the field, it's not unique to our experience. It is a global issue of silence.
We know this because once we started talking to each other, we started to dig around. And while we did find some very useful and practical guidelines and policies, like this field-teaching primer on toilet stops in the field, we found very little written on this topic.
This is remarkable, we think, given how many people it affects and how intrinsic field training is to our broad discipline of human evolution.
Starting the conversation
At HERI, we have never been afraid to speak out about and tackle difficult topics. So, we decided to run an informal survey, during HERI’s annual All Womxn Field Camp in August 2022.
We had 22 participants ranging from undergraduate, to postgraduate, and staff. Participants came from UCT and throughout Africa, and all were involved in the study of human origins, drawing on the disciplines of geology and archaeology.
On the second night, after everyone had a chance to get to know each other and relax into the setting, we looked at each other and said, “Let's do this”.
Starting the conversation was not easy. But we were surprised that it took very little for every single woman to speak up.
Our participants all reported experiencing menstruation at some point during their field training. They all expressed issues of discomfort, pain, and anxiety which affected their ability to work optimally. Many indicated the inability to openly communicate with lecturers or demonstrators about menstruation-related issues due to the surrounding stigma.
Cocreating better spaces
No one had a positive experience or good story, but everyone had a story. Truthfully, this didn’t surprise us. But hearing all these stories was confronting nonetheless, as we realised just what a huge issue this is. The silence was broken.
We asked the group to brainstorm solutions, ideas, and suggestions for how menstruation in the field could be better handled. We quickly switched from venting to co-creating the spaces we’d all like to work in.
Following this discussion and referring to best practice guidelines elsewhere, including this source written by some of us from the UCT Department of Geological Sciences, we propose including sanitary wear in all field camp packing lists provided to students.
We then put together emergency period kits to accompany undergraduate field excursions run by that department. These contain a range of menstrual products, pain relief, sanitisers, and other essential items, as well as a note of sympathy and encouragement to anyone needing the kit.
We further recommended that bathroom breaks should be planned for and made frequent throughout all field excursions. Finally, we advocated for open communication about this issue and hope that the emergency period kits can help facilitate this.
Working with ‘geology and society’
We also took the menstruation-in-the-field discussion to the Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA) 2023 conference. For the first time that either of us remember, the conference program included a ‘geology and society’ session for which we submitted an abstract.
We made a poster and on it included the list of menstrual products we had workshopped on the field camp, along with a QR code encouraging visitors to comment, tell us their stories, and add items to our list.
From the very beginning our poster caught people’s attention - even the guys in the print shop were surprised and a bit uncomfortable. Putting up the poster and watching people react and respond to it in different ways was truly an eye-opener. How people of different age groups responded to it was striking.
Perspectives were verbally shared and some physically expressed by mere reactions. Other universities, a major funding body, and an American-based drilling company all expressed their interest, support and intent to roll out similar initiatives.
We got a lot of nods and smiles from the young women at the conference but, to our surprise, it was the younger male attendees that expressed interest in having the conversation. They acknowled that they had never considered a request for a bathroom stop from their female counterparts could mean more than what they thought.
Why did we do this?
The biggest question we got was, why did we feel the need to do this?
The truth is the awkwardness and stigma that surrounds menstruation needs to be tackled head on. This is a big, global issue that affects more than half of us. We want to work in more inclusive, safe spaces and if the only way to see a change is to be the change, then that’s what we will do.
HERI has never shied away from topics which make many uncomfortable. We have talked a lot, publicly, about how dominated human evolution is by white men, and why this is a problem. Maybe we are getting comfortable with disruption?
Ultimately, we hope to see more academic spaces beyond HERI and the Geological Sciences and Archaeology departments at UCT adopt the idea behind menstrual kits. We want them to engage in important but sometimes uncomfortable conversations, and even openly address the topic of menstruation.
Really, it’s all about seeing and being in more equitable workplaces.
We encourage all lecturers, demonstrators, and PIs to actively participate in this endeavour to ensure that all geoscientists have a fair chance to engage optimally in field settings.
We invite everyone - from UCT and beyond and across the gender spectrum - to share their thoughts with us as we continue this conversation? Click here and let’s talk about the geological period no one talks about.
This article was written by HERI Co-director Dr Robyn Pickering from the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and HERI #AdvancingWoman PhD candidate Rivoningo Khosa from the TAMS Department, NRF iThemba LABS