When you stop to think about it, there are a lot of steps involved in managing a period. Most women know, roughly, when they’ll get it. We pop to the shop and stock up on tampons or panty liners or sanitary towels – whatever our preferred method is – insert the tampon, and either flush the old one down the loo, or wrap up our sanitary towel neatly in the wrapper of the new one and put it in the special period bin. Depending on how heavy it is, we go to the toilet and repeat this process about five times a day. We might decide not to wear our best knickers during the period. We might also take ibuprofen. We might also be in a bad mood. Commonly, it's over in five days, and then we stop packing sanitary supplies in our handbags for work. It is, usually, little more than a monthly inconvenience in our lives.