Boys, Men, and Menstruation: The Missing Audience

Boys, Men, and Menstruation:
The Missing Audience

For centuries, menstrual health has been framed as a question of access to information, infrastructure, and support systems. And while these are crucial, there is a quieter gap that continues to shape how girls and women experience their bodies: the absence of boys and men from the conversation.

Most menstrual health efforts are still designed for girls, something we at Myna, too, are guilty of at times. We conduct workshops for girls. Awareness sessions are organised to share information with them. And consequently, safe spaces are built around them. And understandably so. Women and girls, being the population who have to deal with the biological reality of menstruation, need to be centered in our conversations on it.

But what this creates is a parallel reality, where boys learn about menstruation indirectly through fragments, jokes, or silence. And the effects of this disengagement of half the population from the biological reality of the other half need to be reflected on.

When Silence Becomes Structure

While girls are showing more awareness and confidence in speaking up about menstruation, thanks to menstrual health management (MHM) programmes, boys continue to be excluded by design. This often looks like sending boys away during MHM sessions, or hiding from male relatives when women in the house are menstruating.

This manifests in men having little to no knowledge about the biological process of menstruation, and therefore, its physical and psychological effects on menstruators. It also often results in a lack of awareness about menstrual hygiene products. Most importantly, it stigmatises menstruation by treating it not as a normal biological reality, but as a gendered secret that must be passed on through generations.

So, what good is the confidence learned by girls when it is not reinforced through supportive action by men?

What Our Work Continues to Show

While doing community work, we have realised that the dispersion of information alone does not shift behaviour. Sustained behavioural change requires investment in ecosystem change.

A girl’s experience is shaped not just by what she knows, but by how people around her respond.

It is shaped by whether a brother teases or supports her by buying sanitary products. It is shaped by whether a father avoids or engages, and emotionally supports his wife when she is menstruating. Outside the family, it is shaped by whether it is treated as taboo when women go to buy sanitary products, or whether a male teacher skips or explains the reproductive health chapter in his class.

It is these everyday interactions that define what feels normal, acceptable, and speakable for girls. You cannot build menstrual dignity by working with only half the ecosystem.

The Cost of Leaving Boys Out

Exclusion is often intentional, to protect safe spaces for girls. But over time, it creates its own set of challenges. Curiosity without guidance leads to misinformation. Silence without context causes discomfort and awkwardness. Distance without responsibility leads to disengagement.

And how we engage with boys in their younger years shapes how they will show up later—as partners, employers, policymakers, and even health providers.

Rethinking the Approach

The question is no longer whether boys should be included in conversations on menstruation, because the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. The real question is: how do we do this while still centering comfort and safety for women? What does shared ownership of menstrual health look like?

From what we’ve seen, a few shifts matter:

We need to start young. Younger boys are easier to engage before stigma hardens.

We need to engage male role models:fathers, teachers, community leaders, in menstrual awareness spaces. Better late than never.

We need to redefine what “holistic support” means by moving beyond access towards everyday normalisation.

When done meaningfully, these shifts don’t dilute girls’ spaces. They strengthen the ecosystem around them.

Beyond Inclusion

The exclusion of boys from conversations on menstruation is not just a programme design gap, it is a systems question. As long as menstrual health is positioned as something to be managed by women, responsibility will continue to remain uneven.

But since the experience of menstruation affects education, health, and socio-economic participation, it cannot be a women’s issue. It has to be a societal one.

Perhaps the real gap is not that boys and men are unwilling to learn and change, but that they have never been fully invited in as stakeholders.

Until that changes, half the population will continue to experience menstruation, while the other half continues to shape that experience—from a distance.

When done meaningfully, these shifts don’t dilute girls’ spaces. They strengthen the ecosystem around them.