I was biologically born as a female, and I currently identify as one. This means that one week out of every month, my body has the biggest "fuck you" because I'm not pregnant, and this results in my period. More than half of the population experiences this phenomenon of shedding uterus lining, excessive bleeding, and cramps painful enough to send us to the ER. So, why don't we hear about it more?
When I was first got my period around 11 years old, there was this sick notion surrounding the entire ordeal that I have "officially become a woman", like my maturity and femininity is tied in with my sudden ability to push a 2-9 pound human out of my vagina (and yes, we are all adults here, I will use the word vagina as I wish). But that was all that was spoken about it.
Growing up, I was terrified to ask my teacher to use the bathroom, and when I was denied, mostly by male teachers, I sat in my chair in ultimate misery debating whether to suck it up and say "hey! I'm sitting in my own pool of blood" and be ridiculed for a perfectly normal bodily function, or simply stay put. Imagine the horror on everyone's face, specifically the male teacher's, if I stood up and said "I am on my period and I need to leave now."
When my ovulation came weeks before my actual period began, and my cramping was so bad I couldn't even muster up enough energy to stand up, it seemed that everyone around me saw me as weak, even though the pain was unbearably bad. But nobody told me it was normal, my period was seen as this secret thing, that nobody could talk about. Even the doctors I went to seemed to be hesitant to say many normal words because its such a "gross topic".
I didn't know that a period could be that bad.
I didn't know that I shouldn't be ashamed of what is happening with my body.
But why is that?
Because periods are seen as this gross, foreign concept even though nearly every woman suffers through them.
Like, every tampon commercial shows a woman running around in a white flowy dress without a care in the world, and nobody even mentions a period, they use euphemisms like 'time of the month', that 'time', the 'flow', etc. When I mentioned before that period's are either seen as gross and unhygienic or a step into womanhood, I am not kidding when I say there is no in between.
Like, nah.
Periods can get messy. You either have to stick a piece of bleached cotton up your vagina, sit in a soaked cloth, or use a tiny little suction cup to catch the blood. Or, if you're braver than I, you can let it run free!
But none of that is gross.
Why should I be ashamed to say that I go through this? Why am I, especially, embarrassed to mention that I am on my period, like it is a shameful thing?
It is not shameful. My body is not shameful. By insinuating that my period is gross and shouldn't be discussed, you are saying there are parts of me that shouldn't be accepted.
We need to teach our girls to claim their normal bodily functions as their own, to be unafraid to talk about what is happening to them, to realize that it's okay. We need to teach little girls to be unafraid to say "I am on my period" when asking to use the bathroom.
We need to teach our boys to stop stigmatizing a girl on her period, to stop associating it with "bitchy PMS", and to understand that women are stronger than they will ever be. We need to teach boys not to make misogynistic and rude comments about our demeanor and our hygiene.
We need society to end the stigma around a period. If everyone became a little more educated and the period was normalized, a little girl in middle school wouldn't be denied a right to the bathroom. A little boy won't make a girl feel shameful for what her body naturally does. An older woman knows how to help her youngest when she first gets her period.
Yeah, I bleed. I get very irritable and wish to lay in my bed all day, but you know what else makes me irritable?
People telling me not to talk about something I endure a week of.
Say it again, and I will bleed on everything you love.
