Student, poet, and artist Rupi Kaur called out Instagram after the social media site removed her photo depicting menstrual blood on March 25.
The photo, deleted by Instagram for allegedly violating community guidelines, depicts a woman lying on her side in bed with blood stains on her pants and bed sheets.
The post is part of a series of photos depicting women and their periods, addressing the taboo existing around the subject.
Kaur, a student at the University of Waterloo, designed the images for the final project of her visual rhetoric class in which students were tasked with addressing a critical topic through the use of media, according to her professor for the class, Beth Coleman.
“When she proposed a visual mediation on how women’s menses are hidden away in society, often marked as taboo and dirty, it seemed an excellent way to address the assignment that was also in keeping with her interests as an artist,” Coleman said in an email.
Kaur’s photo, created alongside her sister Prabh, was met initially with praise, but continued to be met with negative feedback online, including death threats.
“When I created it, I knew I was tackling a very heavy topic and I knew that it was something that people didn’t really want to see,” Kaur told the Toronto Star.
After the picture was deleted from Instagram, Kaur took to social media to denounce the removal of the photograph by the site.
“Their patriarchy is leaking. Their misogyny is leaking. We will not be censored,” Kaur wrote on Facebook. “[W]e menstruate and they see it as dirty. attention seeking. sick. a burden. [A]s if this process is less natural than breathing.”
Kaur’s photo quickly went viral with BBC, Huffington Post, and the Toronto Star picking up her story.
Instagram allowed the photo back on the site after the backlash.
“When our team processes reports from other members of the Instagram community, we occasionally make a mistake. In this case, we wrongly removed content and worked to rectify the error as soon as we were notified. We are sorry for this mistake,” Instagram told Huffington Post Canada in a statement.
Sarah Breault, a fourth-year economics student at Carleton University, praised Kaur’s project and the message behind it.
“I find that there is a double standard about blood because when it comes from a man it’s considered manly but when it comes from a woman there’s some sort of taboo,” Breault said. “I found her pictures to be a good way to desensitize people that are disgusted from such a natural process.”
In contrast, Aaron Hemens, a first-year film student at Carleton, criticized Kaur’s photos.
“I think that a project like this is somewhat unnecessary and honestly pretty gross, and I can see why it would have been deleted. Photography is a powerful way to promote messages but when they’re as personal as this, I don’t think it’s that necessary,” Hemens said.
Kaur thanked her supporters via social media after her photo was brought back online.
“[W]e did it. you did this. your belief in the work. it’s message. [A]nd your movement to not quiet down has forced [I]nstagram to place both deleted photos back on my grid,” Kaur wrote on Facebook.
Coleman said she applauded Kaur’s perseverance in standing up for the project in the face of criticism.
“That Rupi has weathered the storm of fury she has unleashed so well and has been such a nimble and smart defender of her project is very satisfying,” Coleman said.
