How cliché, a feminist blog posting about menstruating.
When I got my first period, I was about twelve and it was the middle of the school day. As any menstruator knows, the first bit of blood (at every period, not just the first) is typically a little lack luster. Brown, ambiguous, innocuous even. Discharge just looks different sometimes. So, when I first saw it in my underwear, I was weary but brushed it off. However, it didn’t go away. I kept going to the bathroom and I kept seeing this brown discharge. My mind raced, what the hell was this? I checked WebMD, which, of course, told me I was dying. Possible causes were a slew of STIs and WebMD’s favorite, cancer. How can I have an STI?? I haven’t even had my first kiss! Oh GOD, what am I going to tell my dad?! I panicked. Eventually, though, it became obviously red, and I finally understood what it was. I was a woman. Yay.
The whole ordeal was anxiety-inducing, riddled with embarrassment and feeling like a disgusting freak who somehow managed to get an STI without having sex. After my mother taught me how to use a pad, I laid in bed feeling vulnerable and exposed- I still felt gross but at least I knew this was normal. I was hyper-aware of the thick pad between my legs and felt more like an infant in a diaper than a newly-christened woman. It felt immensely personal and private and yet somehow it was family news. My father barged into my room with my grandmother on the phone and insisted I use the event to get her to give me cash (the universal love language of grandmothers). No part of the experience was magical or grand or even note-worthy, well, outside of the widespread discussion of my Womanhood my family enjoyed. So why do “feminist” writings describe getting your period (particularly your first period) as such? Why do essays and chapters written on the very subject read like great poems? Was this supposed to be a romantic experience for a young girl who would have rather melted into her bed than talk to her grandmother about the sudden bloody leak that sprung from her most vulnerable organ?
Maybe you’ve gathered, but I’m not particularly shy about talking about these things anymore. So, I’ve felt the need to speak up in literature classes about Great Authors like Audre Lorde and Elena Ferrante waxing poetic about a great gush of blood and some sort of swell of emotion. To be clear, most women probably don’t have that experience. And many periods aren’t going to be a gush of anything. More of a slow burn, I’d say. A leaky faucet rather than a firehose. And even now, after thirteen years of menstruating, while I don’t feel embarrassed or vulnerable or ashamed of my period, I have never felt a great magic about it either. Why does it seem like only Judy Blume writes as a real-life woman?
I think there’s a lot of content out there today that pushes feminists to see their period as a source of power, a time of renewal, a connection with nature and the moon and Mother Earth and all the great forces behind the Magic of Womanhood. And while I think that is a beautiful way to view what can be a painful, uncomfortable, and awkward time for a lot of women, I’m here to say that I have never once felt that way about my period and I don’t know that I ever will. And it’s okay if you don’t either.
To me, my period is a nuisance. Something I am bound to by nature and cannot escape without making a permanent decision about my fertility that I am not yet ready to make. I hate paying for pads and tampons. I hate the fear that I may get a yeast infection because of my changing hormones. I hate the depiction of periods in the media. I hate hiding my tampon under my jacket sleeve or in my pocket because if people know you’re on your period, they will assume any negative emotion you convey is a symptom of PMS. The only time I can get on board with seeing my period as a magical time of renewal is when I am not menstruating. But, by the time I am, I’m back to seeing it as a nuisance. Something I am cursed to deal with month after month (although the cadence can vary based on different factors). Something Hershey’s and Ben & Jerry’s benefit from far more than I do.
So, here’s to the women out there who can feel love and reverence toward their periods, and the women like me, who simply cannot. You’re valid either way. Don’t let the Audre Lordes and Elena Ferrantes of the world tell you otherwise.
Girling 