a great menstruation article

[Melaleuca]

Sorry I am not sure where I sourced this article, saved it to my computer a while back and forgot to save the link, woops! It's a gem though, enjoy

Hartogh, Evelyn: 'War is Menstrual Envy' Queensland Pride Newspaper #171, March 21, 2003, p.7.


WARNING: This article contains red and wet text.

Menstruation: Shock Horror Scary Taboo Blood
That Time of Month

By Evelyn Hartogh


Can you ride out your Crimson Wave? Do you go for wings, disco
packaged tampons, reusable sea sponges or moon pads, do you need to
take aspirin, panadol, panadiene, naprogesic or peppermint, raspberry
leaf, fennel tea or cinnamon and ginger tea for your cramps? Do you
cruise through the red river, or is it a rocky stream with crashes
and unexpected sharp pointy rocks? And why are most chaps still
freaked out at the mention of menstruation? The monthly cycle on
average happens every 28 days and lasts for 3 to 5 days. This means
a pattern develops in women's lives that is similar to the cycle of
the moon. Waxing and Waning, Menstruating and Ovulating, this cycle
has been used at different times to exult or denigrate women.

I'd love the tradition of coming of age parties for girls when they
get their first period to come back into fashion. It should be an
excuse for a celebration not seen as the beginning of the curse fo
fertility - pain and responsibility and mess. Yuck. So what makes
the thought of menstruation so repulsive to the general populace that
advertising soaks up blue fluid, perfume or just plain anything that
is as different to blood as possible?

Did you have an egg for breakfast? Well that was a chicken's
period. We make Easter egss during what was originally a Festival to
honour Eostre/Eastre/Astarte - who, guess what, was a cool fertile
menstruating goddess. In those days the blood time was a magical
time for women. Some cultures would seclude their women and they
would hang out with other women and I reckon get into lots of cool
painkilling and hallucinogenic herbs. The cycle used to be a groovy
thing.

So why and when did it become so scary that when Women's Weekly
became a monthly publication that the embarrassment of something that
happens to half the population meant that NO WAY were they going to
call it Women's Monthly?

A notion of linear time and progress as a pattern of exponential
growth is one answer. When time is thought of as a continuing in a
straight line then a regular pattern like a period will be viewed by
some as an interruption in schedules and artificial time patterns.
Imagine if your semester timetable could be patterned to your cycle
so you would have to work the hardest in the weeks you were most
anally industrious, then you had a week to relax and contemplate your
work on other lateral levels (some women claim a wholly new and
different perspective on the world at different phases of their
cycle) then return refreshed and reinvigorated able to more
effectively apply knowledge and ideas.

Time does however inevitably remain in a cycle of seasons which
cannot be ignored and women are going to keep having periods every
month. Discomfit is sometimes claimed to be the only thing that
forces creatures to change and develop to their
full potential. Which means that women by suffering the pain of cramps each month (as
well as having to live in a patriarchal society which continually
degrades and undermines women) become a lot tougher than men. Sorry
fellas machismo is a bit of a joke nowadays.

Attitudes towards periods have been linked to the prevalence of PMS
and period pain - does the literature which tells women that it will
be painful, messy, embarrassing and debilitating only serve to
generate or increase these feelings in women? Hippy-heal-thyself-
self-help-books proclaim it is a woman's revulsion for her sexuality
and femininity that gives her period pain. Well hello there welcome
to patriarchy where women are labelled irrational, natural ruled by
the body, decorative and domesticated beasts so men can view
themselves as a superior, rational, cultured, useful, masterful
beast. How ridiculous!

Periods, which were once given as evidence of women's cyclic tuned in
to the element spirituality, are used nowadays as evidence that women
are out of control, ruled by their bodies and still baby cavities
that gross out the world with unfertilised wombs that spew forth
chunky red blood and tissue once a month. Well lads it's about time
you all just coped with it and stopped despising the body and
mythologising a cyclic function as some dumb biblical curse that Eve
got because she wanted to go to university. Next time your
girlfriend or sister or girl mate has her period why don't you make
her a cup of tea and accept it is all part of nature rather than
being immature and freaking out at the mention of a menstruation.
Get a grip boys, periods are here to stay and they are not dirty or
yucky or unmentionable just bloody red and wet.

[Rach]

You will probably enjoy the up and coming edition of Down to Birth then as there are a few great articles on the "menarch(e)" in there. I must remember to forward it to the editor of DTB. Thanks for sharing!

[Gaia]

Awesome, thanks for sharing, I enjoyed that

[alaanja]

Ah, yay!
I haven't really encountered any grossed-out-ness from **** my age, it's mainly been from the girls!
The **** have all been respectful, whereas the girls are mortified to ask each other for pads, they unwrap them in dark toilet cubicles as quietly as possible and meticulously dispose of the rubbish.
I love the mention of fertility goddesses.