Most people who menstruate will have a story about the lengths they went to to manage their period, or to hide it, or clean it up – usually because they were not comfortable speaking openly about it. When Australia and Manchester City forward Mary Fowler first got her period she dealt with it by wearing four pairs of underwear, then compression shorts, then football shorts.
“Because I was always playing in the boys team, when I got my period I was always so self conscious about it,” she says. “I just wouldn’t want it to go through my pants.”
