Menstrual advocate and friend are just a couple names to describe the founder of Ruby’s Red Wash. We are honored to have had her support as both a guest and participant in our tweet chats with You ARE Loved over the last year.

In a special post about #PeriodTalk, she writes, “As someone who thinks and talks about menstruation and tries to bring to light the imbedded cultural shame of it every single day, the significance of these regular, public talks on periods has not gone unappreciated by me. Though I am regularly immersed in the topic of periods, the experience of talking openly about menstrual bleeding on a public forum was a bit surreal at first. One does not normally talk about such things, right? And, especially in such great detail and with such candor.  (Gee, I get to type the word “blood!”)  The rules of the culture say that you are supposed to work out the details of bleeding on your own, maybe have a brief conversation with girlfriends every now and then, and then rapidly just move on. So, it has been refreshing and utterly liberating to actually speak ‘out loud’ (as best as one can on Twitter) about what it means to menstruate—lightly or heavily – with a pad or with a cup –as a pre-teen girl or a peri-menopausal woman—to have survived Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS)—or to tragically know someone who has not.  All of this storytelling, talking, divulging, inquiring, confessing, and “chatting” amount to real, human ideas and experiences and are part of what it means to be female.” To read the full blog post, click here.