Menstruation has long been shaped by silence, stigma, and systems designed to keep women disconnected from their own bodies. For filmmaker Rebecca Snow, those forces became impossible to ignore while directing Pandora’s Box, a documentary exploring menstrual inequity and the cultural taboos that continue to shape cyclical health. In this conversation with Two Moons, she reflects on why Pandora’s Box was created to “fling open the lid” on menstrual stigma, why silence around women’s biological transitions is structural rather than accidental, and how female-led storytelling can shift who controls the narrative around women’s bodies.

Endometriosis is often framed as a private health issue. Something to manage quietly, around meetings, deadlines, and expectations that don’t bend. But for millions of women, it creates a hidden productivity tax - one workplaces are not currently designed to account for, and it imposes a cost that falls almost entirely on them - in lost income, missed opportunities, and careers quietly derailed. Nicole Notar is part of a growing movement pushing that conversation into the open in the United States.

I am the founder of Period Reality and JIBE. I work with organizations, leaders and high performing teams navigating burnout, health strain and unsustainable expectations. My work sits at the intersection of menstrual cycle awareness, leadership and the future of work. I am writing for anyone who has ever felt that their body was the first thing to break in systems that reward consistency over reality. For everyone who has ever felt that their body was swimming against a current. 

To all my high achievers, performers, or working moms struggling to keep your head above water, battling irregular periods or extreme PMS symptoms, or just tired of not feeling at home in your body... you're not broken. You're just trying to force a 28-day cycle into a 24-hour productivity system that wasn’t designed for you.