Being a woman doesn’t make “being a woman” any easier
Caitlin Moran explains some things about being a woman for readers of Esquire. Item 3 is menstruation.
3. Periods
We’re still pretty traumatised about our periods, even though we’re now 40. Being a woman doesn’t make “being a woman” any easier. All that womb-shit is nuts. It’s like having an exploding, insane blood-bag of pain up in your business end — nothing really prepares you for when it all kicks off. One day, you’re just a kid on your bike. The next, you’re suddenly having to wedge a tiny Barbie mattress in your knickers, crying while you watch Bergerac, and eating Nurofen Plus like they’re Tic Tacs.
And then deal with the tiny Barbie mattress and wedge in a new one, and repeat many times, and then do it all over again 3.5 weeks later. And dealing with the Barbie mattress is gross, and you’re not feeling good anyway and then you have to deal with gross every few hours, and the gross is coming from you. You’ve become a source of gross stuff, and you never asked to. It’s better when you graduate to tampons, but not all that much better, plus toxic shock syndrome.
Men, imagine if, some time around your 12th birthday, some manner of viscous liquid — let’s say gravy — suddenly appeared in your pants, in the middle of a maths lesson. And then it turned up every month for the next 30 years. You’d be all like “NO!” and “WTF?!?!” and “SRSLY??? THIS????” That’s what we’re like, too. We’re not wise, or in touch with nature, or down with it. We’re just people with a whole load more laundry issues than you. Have you ever tried to scrub blood out of a Premier Inn sheet at 6am, using just travel shampoo and your toothbrush? It’s one of the defining aspects of being a woman.
The things that can go wrong, and do. The opportunities for humiliation and embarrassment. The nuisance of it all. I like Moran’s harsh take on it.
7. Tired
We’re tired. So, so tired. From the moment we grew our tits, we’ve been cat-called in the street; commented on by relatives (“Ooooh, she’s big-boned”; “Well, you’ll be a heart-breaker”) as if we weren’t standing there in front of them, hearing all this. We’ve seen our biggest female role-models and icons shamed in the press, over and over: computers hacked and nude pictures released; sex-tapes released. So we know even success, and money, will not protect us from the humiliation of simply being a woman.
Gloria Steinem and Lands End.
I love Caitlin Moran’s take on most things…
Absolutely brilliant.
Next up: Caitlin Moran no platformed because she explicitly linked ‘woman’ and ‘menstruation.’
I can’t imagine.
Then again, I am just so thankful that we have trans-women and their intersectional “feminist” allies to help us redefine what feminism should be. The faster they take full control of feminism the faster women like Moran will be shushed! so that my manly-man head won’t have to think about the things described in that article. (And here’s the shushing method I predict the clods will employ: “Foul! That article is just a TERFy way to minimize trans-women, who don’t share those experiences!”)
There is one thing she forgot, though – what it’s like to start your period without anyone having told you this was going to happen. Sitting on the toilet staring at the blood thinking you have some horrible disease and are going to die. Then when you whisper to your mother or older sister about it, they mock you for being scared, and then treat you like you have to be hidden away until it is over.
Being subjected to PMS jokes every time you exhibit any assertive behavior. Having guys cluck at you with mock pity when you make any error at all, no matter how small, (And no matter how many mistakes they might have made in their life) and say, “Oh, sweetie, is it that time of the month?”
I used tampons from day 1. I was twelve. None of my friends did. At some point the word got out at school that I used tampons and some of the other girls asked me about it. One of them asked me “what about your hymen?” as though were expected to be virginity tested before marriage. (One Muslim girl at school did say that her mother had discouraged her from using tampons and that she thought that her mother was worried about her hymen).
The thing that gets to me is the way it’s taboo. I had heavy periods from a young age and it’s not nice. It would be so much easier if I could have just said what the problem was. Sometimes I would pretend to have a headache, especially if I needed to ask for painkillers. Once I had an uncle rebuke me for looking at my watch during a family gathering, guessing that I couldn’t wait to leave. I was too embarrassed to tell him I had terrible period pains.
Caitlin Moran is wonderful. So true and so funny. I screamed with laughter at Han Solo, and in other places.
Inklast, that was my experience – and it was scary as hell. Adding to that, stick-on pads weren’t available yet…. so think belts that showed through clothing and pads an inch thick… that also showed through clothing. By mid-high school, the stick-on pads had become available thank gawd.
I suffered from deep depression for a week every month. This wasn’t your average PMS – this was “pills in hand, ready to die” depression, and pain so bad it made me bedridden for a couple of days. I experienced early menopause that provided me with sweet release from the hell, but the leadup to that in my 30s was agony… periods every 21 days, 7 days of hemorrhaging, pain and deep depression, followed by painful iron shots into my ass-cheeks, for anemia. Transwomen are upset about missing THAT? This IS a female experience…. and this is what we need to be able to talk about as women, using proper terms related to our sex and being able to say, “this is a woman’s issue…” without having to worry about ruffling feathers of some delicate male egos.
Sorry Iknklast…. I wrote your nsme as Inklast!
I liked this article, although how do people feel about number 10-that saying ‘men can’t be feminists’ is wrong. I am a man, and I’ve kind of come around to the idea that feminism is by and for women-that men certainly benefit from it and can aid feminism as a cause, but that a man claiming the label ‘feminist’ is a bit like capitalist putting on a mask and proclaiming oneself to be a socialist. Maybe I just feel this way because of so many self-described male feminists turning out to be less than promised, though. Just to be clear, I’m not referring to trans men or trans women, here-their differing backgrounds means there’s different things to consider.
Well, Studebacher Hoch, it depends on how you look at what it means to be a feminist. If you use the (sort of joke) definition that feminism is the radical idea that women are people, there is no problem with claiming men as feminists. If you insist that a feminist much intimately understand what it means to be a woman, that does somewhat limit it, depending on how you consider that intimate. I for one believe men can be feminists, just as white people can be anti-racists even though we have not ourselves felt the sting of being racially profiled.
Well, just to represent the other end of the possible experiences…. You could know about menstruation before it happened, have a sensible mother who treated it matter-of-factly, not be grossed out (what’s to be grossed out about? It’s fairly fresh blood and doesn’t smell bad), and have very minimal cramping including quite a few periods with none at all. (The latter leads to a different kind of problem in that it starts and you don’t know until your underwear feels funny.)
So, no, not necessarily awful at all. I’ve always maintained that if men menstruated, there’d have been a boatload of research by now to figure out the why it’s not a big deal for some? a few? women and to make that possible for everybody.
Studebacher, there are definitely wolves in sheep’s clothing among male feminists.
But when I was in high school, the school paper tended to glorify boys’ accomplishments while failing to acknowledge girls doing more. It was the BOYS who noticed, who sent letters to the paper over ignoring the two women who outscored them on the SATs, who arranged a protest over insufficient coverage of girls’ sports. That meant a lot to us.
It’s my husband who would, when praised for an idea he parroted from me after I got ignored in a business meeting, would let the praisers speak– and then point them all in my direction and remind them he’d done nothing but rephrased what they’d shrugged off from me. He’s also volunteered in a women’s center and a few clients had some very nice things to say about finally feeling safe around men again.
It was a guy who told a mutual friend that while most of his humor is fine,t he misogynist jokes make him look like an ass.
These men are feminists and I don’t want them to feel like they don’t belong. They’ve done solid good, often in situations where women were feeling unable to speak up. Being an outsider from being a woman sometimes gives them unique leverage and (in the case of the high school) a perspective on what proper treatment looks like.
It smells like blood though, and that’s not a particularly pleasant smell. And of course once you’ve been wearing the Barbie mattress for a few minutes the blood is not fairly fresh any more, and by the time you change the mattress it’s not fresh at all. The older layer goes dark and stiff and a bit crumbly.
But also, it’s not just blood, it’s chunks. There’s a very funny bit in Douglas Coupland’s novel Microserfs in which a woman informs her bf of that fact. The chunks are one thing to be grossed out about. Remember, this is happening to children of 12 or younger. Sure, of course you get used to it, and as an adult you’re not squealing in horror all the time. But when it first happens? Sorry, but it is gross, and as I said since (with a few exceptions) you don’t feel good anyway – well blegh.
It shouldn’t be exaggerated, but it shouldn’t be minimized either.
I’m glad I don’t have to deal with menstruation and I’m definitely sympathetic to anyone who does. I try very hard not to shame anyone who goes through it and if the context is appropriate I will ask them where they’ve heard of some of the less well known ways of dealing with menstruation. Like the reusable menstrual cups or the forms of hormonal birth control that can lessen the severity of or even outright eliminate menstruation.
Where my spouse and I live in Japan they have the option of taking days off when menstrual pain is really bad. She hasn’t felt the need to use it yet, but she has said it’s really nice for her to have that option.
She uses a copper IUD which has it’s own pros and cons. We were considering various contraceptive methods for us and with me not having medical insurance at the time that one seemed like the best option otherwise I probably would have gone in for a vasectomy (as terrifying as it sounds I don’t believe it’s that much uncomfortable than having an IUD put in and it’s definitely a more permanent solution). Unfortunately, her experience with hormonal birth control wasn’t the best. Since getting off the birth control pill she says she’s been a fair bit happier on average, her ups are higher and her downs are not as low and she also doesn’t need to worry about forgetting to take the pill at the same time every day either.
I wasn’t minimizing. Honest. It never seemed like a big deal to me. And I wouldn’t say chunks. Filmy bits of tissue. Maybe the fact that it didn’t seem gross to me, even at 11, was a big indicator that I’d eventually become a biologist. :D
More to the not-minimizing aspect: I shared a dorm room with a girl who was more or less a stretcher case for an entire week out of every four. I felt so bad for her. I’m entirely serious when I say that if heavy periods happened to real people, instead of just women, enough money would go into research to solve the problem.
When you’re sitting on the toilet every couple of hours and the word “abattoir” keeps coming to mind, there’s plenty to be grossed out about.
And then there was a time I was on a tour bus from Naples to Florence and had to figure out how to ask the nice sales lady at the Autogrill if she had any “feminine products” because – like clockwork – I started about an hour into the trip.
Whenever someone raises the issue of female masturbation, I think of The Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, especially the bit near the end of that song when Chrissie Amphlett says “I honestly do”, directly addressing some of the doubters listening and shaking their heads at the thought of the ladies getting any man-free pleasure.
Ah, Caitlin Moran! Yes, her article is definitely funny. As so often in such cases (i.e. when reading advice apparently directed to men), I understand very little. No, I do not mean it as a complaint. It is still very entertaining!
Fair warning: the rest of this comment describes a puzzlement of a troglodyte. If this triggers you, instead of reading, imagine a hairy ape with jaw dropped and eyes wide open. That’s it. Already at this stage you know everything.
Alright, let’s start.
Who is the addressee of Caitlin Moran’s paper? Hmm … it’s neither “The Man” nor the patriarchy – she says it very clearly. In her own words, the addressee is “just … Patrick”. But who is a patrick?
As it seems, the patrick is a modern Western hipster. A leather armchair, Joni Mitchell albums, El Bulli cookbook, au courant with “Caitlyn Jenner trans thing”, he also “gets feminism”. Nice chap. Well, what else did I learn about patricks from Caitlin Moran?
Let’s see … ah, yes, yes! Patricks are embarrassed to call themselves “feminists” because it sounds like boasting. A patrick is either single or extremely unperceptive – otherwise it’s hard to fathom how the remarks about menstruation could be a revelation to him. He has no idea that women are scared on the street at night. Cat-calling and shaming of women is big news to him. He doesn’t have a clue why what women wear is important – his natural reaction to “Slutty”, “Mumsy” etc. would be “Oh, my, thanks, Caitlin Moran, I’ve never thought of that”! What else? Well, a patrick finds it shocking that women appreciate kindness and sense of humor. Yes, patricks get feminism. No doubt about it.
I’m not sure whether I’ve made my puzzlement sufficiently clear. Just in case, I will try a bit harder to explain myself. Here is the thing: being torn among the following three options is my quite typical reaction after reading a lot of the “friendly advice to men” columns written by Western women.
1. This picture of modern men as patricks is deeply delusional. Caitlin Moran may be an expert on women but she is completely fucking clueless about men. She doesn’t even realize how condescending and smug she sounds. Some good ole mansplaining would be in order. You go, boys!
2. It is you, Ariel, who is fucking clueless. You have no idea. You are not Western. You are not a hipster. You don’t have a leather armchair, nor Joni Mitchell albums. Sweetie, you are a troglodyte – a nobody. You’ve just had to use google to learn what El Bulli is! Just shut up and listen, alright? You know nothing,
twerpJon Snow.3. Ariel, you are really clueless – I mean, not like in 2, but *really*. Darling, you should know that such pieces are not addressed to patricks, imaginary or real, no. Quite on the contrary: their intended audience is composed of other feminists. Just look again at Caitlin Moran’s article. It’s brilliantly written. It’s funny. It’s sparkling with wit. In such cases the whole point is to gather together, laugh and pat each other’s back. That’s what it is for. Go back to your dolls and stop messing with the grown-ups!
That’s it, I’m afraid. Let me just emphasise once again that I found the article quite brilliant and very entertaining. Still, helping an ape could be your good deed for today :)
quixote @ 16 – ahhh, no wonder then. That does indeed sound like the reaction of a budding biologist! I was a very squeamish kid. I got over a lot of that when working at the zoo, not least because I had to…
@Ariel You may not know ‘nothing’, but it does sound like there are a few things you don’t know yet about how we have to deal with men.
Years ago I read an amazing, and frightening, sociological study of men’s understanding of and reaction to menstruation. The intro pointed out that lots of us were taught to be very careful not to let any man, even men we live with, know anything about menstruation—and while modern adult men who live with and have sex with women hopefully know what it is there’s still a lot that most men don’t know—partly because we don’t want to tell them, and partly because they don’t want to hear. I suspect most men haven’t actually thought much about what it must have been like to have your first period; Moran suggests that they probably just think ‘well women deal with women things’, and she’s pointing out that no, being female doesn’t make most of us think it’s any less weird or gross than they would if it happened to them.
It’s definitely true that plenty of modern adult ‘down with the whole feminist thing’ men with female partners and female friends have no idea how afraid most women are on a daily basis, or how utterly relentless the catcalling and shaming are; I’ve had these conversations myself, witnessed some, and heard of and read about many more. Just like the conversations I, a white person, had to have with my very patient black friends in order for me to get any kind of understanding of the crap they have to deal with day in and day out.
I have just had the ‘what to wear’ conversation with my boss, of all people, who STILL has no idea that his personal opinion of what specific women’s clothing is and isn’t ‘businesslike’ or ‘professional’ isn’t shared by everyone, and women in professional roles are constantly struggling with comfort, cost, sizing, too sexy/not feminine enough, and the particular idiosyncratic clothing issues of every man in authority that we have to deal with. I actually loved Moran’s section on clothes—the ‘who do I need to be today?’ question is a great way to look at it. Here’s another:
http://www.sjusd.org/schools/lincoln/downloads/Tannen_article.pdf
And finally, with respect to what women like…I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard ‘Patricks’ say to me or to their partners or friends, ‘well YOU are OK, you’re a real person looking for real things in a partner, but WOMEN are only looking for rich, high-status men.’ It’s like there’s a small set of female people these men happen to know, who are different from all those ‘women’ out there. One of my own feminist milestones was to understand, and then express, that ‘no, I am actually a ‘woman’, so anything you say about ‘women’ by definition applies to me…so would you care to rethink that statement, Patrick?’
guest #21, this is just to thank you for the answer. Much appreciated; I’ll read it once again later in the evening. I will add only this: even though my tone was light, the content was not. In particular, I’ve been treating quite seriously all of the options 1-3 (yes, including 2).
I have been reading a book, “Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality” by Peggy Sanday. In the book, she looks at how current and ancient cultures enacted to women menstruating. She also tries to give explanations of why most cultures isolated women who were menstruating. There was more “fear” of menstruation when men and women didn’t work together.
Can we take a moment and think of the real victims here? #NotAllPatricks
That aside, I’m grateful to my mother for being very forthright about issues surrounding menstruation with my sister and me. Menstruation was just a fact of life, not something to be irrationally afraid of or disgusted by.