Period Problems? Shut the Fuck Up.

I was talking to a friend last night and briefly mentioned my little menstrual insert in my blog and before I could tell her what it was about, she launches into an invective against all women who complain about their periods. Just to contextualize all of this, this is one woman who has never had a cramp, never missed her period, never stained her skirt by accident, never had bed sheets resembling a crime scene and has had basically a fairly uneventful menstrual life thus far. She credits all this to her good genes, her mother I hear has had the same boring menstrual existence till its death sometime when she was 50 or so. She has since been terribly intolerant in an almost indignant sort of way of anyone who has any sort of grievance about menstruating or her attendant convoy. She pertinaciously believes that a woman's period is the very affirmation of her womanhood. We should by extension just not yammer about it. I suppose if I lay in hospital bathing in cold sweat, writhing and contorting my body from spasms of acute pain whilst the doctor jabs my ass with muscle relaxants, I should muster what little strength I have, raise my eyes to effulgent fluorescent lights of the hospital and say, "I am woman, hear me roar! (in pain that is)". The saddest part of all this is that apart from the affirmatory bellows, the rest of it actually did happen.


Periods don't ratify womanhood as much as that having a tail means you're a dog. I like seeing those ads featuring women bearing their flat sewed up chests in support for women who have lots their jugs in their fight with cancer. They make me feel better for my lack of breastfulness and they remind me that breasts or the lack thereof don't make or unmake you a woman. Periods aren't quite so different are they? They don't affirm or disaffirm womanhood. I won't hide the fact that I hate getting my period. It is burdensome and oftentimes excruciating. And I do wish I didn't have to. But that doesn't mean I'm going to get a hysterectomy tomorrow or stop my breast augmentation fund (which might I add you are most welcomed to donate to). Hell if I had a penny for every time I wished away the pain of periods or for bigger bosoms, I would have had my breasts augmented 50 times over. We all buy into the social construction of womanhood, but that doesn't mean it isn't problematic. As much as I feel that a bigger bosom would make my clothes fall better or my partner a happier camper, I would never impose this on someone else. Constructions of womanhood, although not insurmountable, will certainly take aeons to change and all we can really do is support one another as we live in different bodies and as these different bodies go through a myriad of processes and developments. My friends astutely believes I have beautiful breasts and insists that I don't need augmentation and you know what, I'm beginning to believe it. Not everyone has big boobs, if any at all, not everyone has uneventful menstrual careers, some don't even have their wombs, but none of this makes us more or less womanly. And to my friend who thinks her period is an affirmation of her womanhood, I'm sorry to tell you, in your definition, your mother isn't quite a woman anymore.