"If there’s one person society can’t eff with, it’s a marathon runner. You can’t tell a marathoner to clean themselves up, or to prioritize the comfort of others. On the marathon course, I could choose whether or not I wanted to participate in this norm of shaming...
As I ran, I thought to myself about how women and men have both been effectively socialized to pretend periods don’t exist. By establishing a norm of period-shaming, [male-preferring] societies effectively prevent the ability to bond over an experience that 50% of us in the human population share monthly. By making it difficult to speak about, we don’t have language to express pain in the workplace, and we don’t acknowledge differences between women and men that must be recognized and established as acceptable norms. Because it is all kept quiet, women are socialized not to complain or talk about their own bodily functions, since no one can see it happening. And if you can’t see it, it’s probably “not a big deal.”"
SO INSPIRING. I posted about this yesterday and someone pointed me towards this first-hand account, and I'm so glad that the did. That was joyful.
Menstruation is so deeply shamed, and we should really be talking about this. Every menstruating person has their hiding mechanisms and euphemisms - there is something about revealing, in any way, that you have your period that feels not just embarrassing but fundamentally inappropriate. Like, when I have cramps that are impacting my day, I will usually tell people that I have a really bad stomachache - why am I more comfortable with people thinking that I might have major digestive problems than with them knowing that they might be talking to me during the first few days of my period?
And the lengths that people go to to hide pads and tampons! Like, no one ever just carries one to the bathroom. I strategically go to the bathroom at times when it makes sense for me to have my bag, and I have often stuck things in my sleeves when I didn't have a pocket. I mentioned this to a friend, and she said that she would put pads in her shoes. What is this?? Why are we all spending so much energy being so absurdly secretive?
I think there is still a lingering idea that the menstruating woman isn't clean, is impure. And there is also the stereotype that women on their periods are irrationally over-emotional and intellectually non-functional, and should probably not be given any responsibilities until they are done bleeding.
So, shoutout to all my uterus-having friends who I went through puberty with and learned to have moments of real, serious honesty with about underwear blood. And for that time we taught each other about tampons at girl scout camporee, because I think that moment is why Girl Scouts was started.
Related: A (very) short and a long essay on female pain; “The Everyday Sexism of Women Waiting in Public Toilet Lines”; the armpit hair dying trend (cuz ladies have hair too)
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