Period. End of Sentence.

Documentary (Short), 2018

Premise - A twenty-six minute documentary on the Pad Project, an effort to increase access to sanitary pads in India. A man creates a machine that can easily build biodegradable, absorbent, and cost-effective pads by the thousands. Women are hired to work the machines, earning wages, while also creating pads that will help women and girls become less debilitated by their periods.

Review - This won the Oscar for best short documentary - a category that I don't care one bit about 99.99% of the time. This time, I cared, because I care about this particular topic. As always, I'm still not a huge documentary fan, but this one was short and sweet and very empowering.

When I think about feminism and which women's issues I care about the most, it all comes down to global sex education as a means to empower women. There's nothing I find more frightening in the world than when men don't know what a period is, or that women know what it is but don't know why it's happening to them. It may be taboo, but I am wildly passionate about sex education when it comes to menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth. There are times when I question my entire life's purpose and career and think I should jump ships and just pursue this instead.

But how can we provide sex education, if women are being prevented from having an education in the first place? (Not that we don't need to educate men about menstruation as well. All those men not even HEARING of a period is terrifying). I saw this NPR article after watching the documentary that said there are no studies that directly link menstruation to dropping out of school. "The girls could drop out of school because of pregnancy or early marriage," the article explains, WHICH TO ME IS SO MUCH WORSE. That's not an excuse to say menstruation doesn't matter, that's the opposite!! These are all related phenomena. So before we even get to the formal education part, we have to work on public health and prevention projects - increase sanitation for menstruating women, and provide birth control. This documentary focuses on the former.

The documentary really is just about this pad machine, and the new pad brand "Fly" that is very affordable and effective. When talking about the impact on women, it really just narrows its focus on the machine - it provides pads and jobs making the pads. It also talks a bit about reducing stigma around the concept, especially when considering selling the pads in local markets. I found that the documentary is much less about what implications this may have on girls' education, but hey, they only had 26 minutes.

My main complaint is that it was dubbed in English. I was so distracted the entire time and would have preferred just subtitles. Also, it's a documentary, and I never rate those very high. (71/100)

Quote - This quote isn't from the actual documentary, I believe, but during the acceptance speech at the Oscars the catchphrase was quoted, "A period should end a sentence - not a girls' education."

What to watch for - All the freakin' men who were either too ignorant to know what a period was, or too squeamish about it. I laughed when the asked men what they thought the women were doing, and they said, "making diapers for children." I mean, it's a sad, infuriating laugh though.

If you liked this documentary, I’d recommend the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide!

Directed by Rayka Zehtabchi
Distributed by Netflix