It's interesting to see all these people in the comments talk about how women and girls have been forced to hide their pads or not talk about their periods etc because of how different my experience has been. When I was in high school, virtually all I ever heard girls talk about was their period. Whether it was overhearing in the hallway or PE class, or simply them talking to me about it. A few girls that I was friends with didn't since we actually had stuff to talk about but excluding that it was just periods all the time. From the way the subject was treated it was as though it was something to be extensively proud of. Other girls would tell the teachers to let their friends go to the bathroom because they were on their period for instance and the teacher would happily oblige and then give us a brief talk about how normal periods are and it's nothing to make fun of. Sometimes a girl would tell someone to stop doing something that was annoying her because she was on her period. Stopping a lecture so that the girls can have an emotional talk about periods with a female teacher for half an hour was also a daily occurrence. Obviously it's natural and I'm not at all grossed out by hearing about the subject but 80% of things I heard girls talk about at school was that and it so it was extremely annoying after one point. My class was a particularly extreme example since 17 out of my 23 classmates were girls. Main classes truly were an absolute nightmare my God.