Menstrual care activist Nadya Okamoto on founding August and challenging norms

Back in 2014, high-profile female executives like Sheryl Sandberg were leaning in to rebrand feminism for a new generation, everybody wanted to be a #girlboss, and hustle culture was at its peak. Meanwhile, 16-year-old menstrual care activist Nadya Okamoto was just getting started. “I started a non-profit [and] there were a lot of exciting things happening – awards and a lot of praise,” Okamoto tells me on the phone from New York.

In the decade since launching that organisation to combat period poverty across the US – now known simply as Period – she’s become an internationally recognised ambassador for the movement, advocating for better access to menstrual care products worldwide. She also co-founded the organic pad and tampon brand August, graduated from Harvard and accumulated over four million followers on TikTok along the way.

“At the same time, behind the scenes, I was a f***ing mess,” she says matter-of-factly. “I wasn’t sleeping, I was in, like, 16 student clubs, playing two to four sports at a time, and was going to the hospital regularly for exhaustion.”

While building the CV of a high achiever, privately Okamoto battled depression and at age 14 was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from her childhood. “I was running away from a lot of demons and always felt like I was living a double life,” she says of using work as a means to escape financial instability and insecurity at home. “My mum talks about how I would be in the kitchen and she would hear a glass drop and run in, and I’d be passed out … And the hard thing is that I was totally rewarded for it in my professional life.”

Though she’s celebrated for her candid confidence now – Okamoto shares her struggles with pads and tampon strings sticking out or period blood staining her underwear regularly on social media – she recalls how stressful it was to get to where she is today, coming of age during a time partly defined by sheer survival.

“Instead of sleeping, I would basically just apply for any grants for the organisation,” she remembers. Under her leadership, Period managed to donate enough products to cover 400,000 periods and supported the end of the “tampon tax” on menstrual hygiene products in five US states – all in five years. “It was hard to adopt any healthy habits when you’re like, ‘Oh, [the work] is worth it. I’m getting the grades I want, accomplishing the things I want, the organisation is scaling. But I was like a zombie, I was so tired. And I was really addicted to the work. If I put my laptop down, I would have a panic attack.”

As the eldest daughter in an all-girl household, Okamoto grew up to be hardworking, responsible for her younger sisters and, most importantly, a staunch advocate for all things feminist. Learning to put herself first was the one skill that continued to elude her into early adulthood. “I had to really reach rock bottom,” she says. “I went to rehab in 2020, because I didn’t know who I was outside of work. If work went wrong, I wanted to f***ing kill myself. For me, sleep was voluntary. I had to learn how to sleep.”