Welcome to CityChats, where Brisbane Times meets our city’s most interesting characters on our most iconic form of transport.
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Times → welcome → transport
This week, Share the Dignity founder Rochelle Courtenay, aka “Pad Lady”, shares how a pair of button earrings changed a young girl’s life, what it was like to meet her idol, and how she gathered the largest body of menstruation data in the world.
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she → share → world
Courtenay is a vision in pink denim when we meet her at the Brett’s Wharf ferry terminal, a short trip from Share the Dignity’s office in Virginia.
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we → meet → Virginia
She’s brimming with positivity about Brisbane as we wait for the boat – so much so that we have to stop her from sharing too much before the cameras roll.
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cameras → brim → much
Tell me about Share the Dignity and how it all started.
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it → tell → Dignity
In 2015, I read an article that talked about how there were 48,000 women in Australia who didn’t have somewhere safe to call home.
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who → read → somewhere
But what I read next changed me and actually changed Australia forever.
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read → read → Australia
It was that they were using socks and newspaper and wadded-up toilet paper to deal with their period.
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they → use → period
I couldn’t believe that it was happening in Australia.
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it → believe → Australia
Back then, I had my own personal training business, so I had all female clients aged between 30 and probably 65.
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I → have → 30
And I asked them all to bring me a packet of pads or tampons for every wine they had in the month of March 2015.
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they → ask → March
Some ladies would just bring me a bag and say, “Let’s not count them.
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ladies → bring → them
Let’s just start training.
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’s → let → ?
In terms of the larger conversation around periods and period poverty, do you feel like we’re at the place that we need to be yet, or we’ve still got work to do?
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we → feel → work
We’ve still got a lot of work to do.
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We → get → work
I feel like when Share the Dignity started, nobody talked about periods ever on social media.
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nobody → feel → media
It was such a hard charity to start, to get off the ground.
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It → start → ground
I mean, people don’t talk openly about periods in the first place, but they also don’t talk openly about living in poverty, right?
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they → mean → poverty
I feel like Share the Dignity’s given the permission for people to talk about menstruation, but we’ve also backed that up with the data from the Bloody Big Survey.
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we → feel → Survey
We do a survey every three years – last time, in 2024, our survey had 153,000 responses.
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survey → do → responses
That’s the biggest body of data the world’s ever seen on menstruation.
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world → ’ → menstruation
Half the world menstruates, and yet this is the biggest body of data, from the bogan from Brighton.
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this → menstruate → Brighton
That’s what I call myself.
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I → ’ → myself
That data has informed serious changes in Australia.
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data → inform → Australia
So, things like there is now the provision of period products in nearly every primary and secondary school in Australia because no girl should ever miss out on a day of education because her family either can’t afford period products or she’s unexpectedly got a period at school.
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she → be → school
And with that Bloody Big Survey, what findings came out of that really shocked you?
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that → come → you
Sixty-four per cent of women don’t go to work or feel anxious about going to work when they have their period.
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they → go → period
If a workplace can provide tea and coffee and give you birthdays off and have ping-pong tables, why can’t you just put period products in the bathroom?
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you → provide → bathroom
No woman should have to sit through a meeting or sit at work wondering whether, one, can she afford them; two, one-in-eight of us suffer from endometriosis, right?
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one → have → endometriosis
I remember having had about maybe five surgeries in my working lifetime and never telling a boss that I was going in for endo – I reckon I had my gallbladder out four times and my appendix out three times, because I never told anybody.
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I → remember → anybody
In your line of work, you meet with a lot of people who are experiencing period poverty.
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who → meet → poverty
Are there any particular stories or things that people have shared with you that have really stuck with you and driven your mission?
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that → share → mission
We do a campaign called “It’s in the Bag” in November.
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It → do → November
It’s where we ask you to put together a bag that has things like shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, then period products, and
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that → ’ → shampoo
We then get them out to every woman spending Christmas in a domestic violence shelter or experiencing homelessness.
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We → get → homelessness
We’ve now collected 1.1 million of those bags.
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We → collect → bags
I hear stories of how a woman receives a bag and how that makes her feel ... that’s what gets me up in the morning.
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what → hear → morning
I met this young girl and she was sitting on the edge of a domestic violence shelter on the Gold Coast.
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she → meet → Coast
She received a mum and bub bag – she had a little 10-week-old baby boy with her.
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she → receive → her
She talked about the fact how she had lived on the streets when she was 14 because it was safer than living in her home.
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it → talk → home
…and 35 more, not listed.
The Aporia
