SEXUAL HEALTH
5 Supposedly Empowering Things We Need to Stop Telling People About Their Periods
We can feel good about our bodies, our periods, and our a/genders without resorting to essentialist, cissexist notions about menstruation.
Originally published on Everyday Feminism
As a writer who covers sexual health, I get a lot of incredibly personal e-mails about my period – or rather, how other people imagine it.
One PR person representing a menstrual relief product began an e-mail with a picture of a woman lying in a pile of blood and tears and the words: “If you’re anything like me, this is you once a month.”
“Have you ever had cramps so severe you wanted to cry but were stuck at work?” reads another.
“Let’s be honest, periods are anything but fun,” another says. “Between worrying about when it’s coming, to watching your eating habits spiral out of control, to getting super emotional, to worrying that everyone around you can also smell that funk.”
Since these people probably assume based on my name and/or Twitter photo that I identify as a woman and have a vagina, it probably never crosses their minds that I don’t really have a period.
And since they’ve presumed that periods leave everyone emotional messes, it would probably also surprise them that on the rare occasions when I do get mine, I don’t experience any symptoms other than blood coming out of my vagina.
Then, there are the period-positive brands, which are a little better. But they often have their own set of assumptions.
My period, under their philosophy, is what makes me a woman, connects me to other women and Mother Earth, and supplies my “feminine” intuition, creativity, and fluidity.
A lot of these ideas are meant to empower women. A lot of them probably do – for some. But as a non-binary person who only menstruates a few times a year for unknown reasons, I’m excluded from this magical sisterhood.
And I don’t want to be a part of it.
We can feel good about our bodies, our periods, and our a/genders without resorting to essentialist, cissexist notions about menstruation.
Here are some things we need to stop saying about periods in the name of empowerment because they disempower many of us.
Read: Bloody Hell! Is Period Sex Really a Big Deal?
1. ‘Periods Make You a Woman’
Let’s clear this up once and for all: Getting your period does not make you a woman.
Trans men get periods. Non-binary people get periods. Children get periods. And they don’t suddenly become adults when they start.
Telling kids who have just started their periods that they’re becoming women is meant to be comforting, but it’s actually disempowering – because it conveys that the thing that defines their very identity is out of their control.
When you tell a child, “You’re a woman now,” what you’re telling them is “You don’t get to say who you are.”
You’re telling them, “Society will decide who you are based on this one thing your body does, whether you like it or not.”
It’s already scary to be a child going through puberty, since your body is doing things you didn’t give it permission to do – especially if what your body does is associated with a gender you don’t identify with.
The consolation in all of this should be that your body’s changes don’t have to mean anything. Breasts don’t have to be feminine. Beards don’t have to be masculine. You can sport these characteristics however you want and make them yours, and what other people think of them is not objective reality.
Woman doesn’t have any one definition, and we shouldn’t be trying to define it for anyone else.
2. ‘Periods Bind Women Together’
In addition to claiming all people with periods are women, people sometimes claim all women have periods – and, therefore, all women have a special bond.
When deciding how much of a bond I have with someone, I ask myself questions like “How caring are they?” and “How much have we been through together?” and “Can they geek out about feminist theory with me?”
What does not cross my mind is, “Does blood come out of their vagina with the same frequency as mine?”
Sure, periods give you something to talk about. But saying that they connect everyone with them is a stretch. They’re certainly not a feasible basis for a friendship, let alone a “sisterhood,” as is commonly stated. (Plus, the observation that they “sync up” among friends, which is commonly cited to support this statement, might be false.)
The idea that periods bind women together makes womanhood into an exclusive club. Only cis women can be in it, and women like me who don’t have periods, for whatever reason, also can’t join.
Are trans women less womanly because they don’t get periods? Only if you subscribe to the false idea that your gender is based on what’s between your legs.
What about a cis woman on continuous birth control? Is she less connected to other women because she’s made the valid choice to suppress her cycle?
What about a cis woman that had a hysterectomy? Is she less connected to other women because her uterus was removed?
After you look at all the different ways people may or may not menstruate, the logic behind the imaginary sisterhood of menstruation starts to crumble.
When we say periods are something that all women have in common, we’re defining woman as “someone with a period.” And, again, it’s not our business to define anyone else’s a/gender.
3. ‘Periods Make You Feminine – Like Mother Earth’
Since periods are associated with females, people project a shit ton of “feminine” qualities onto them. They’re said to embody women’s ever-changing, earthly, emotional, and intuitive nature.
Oh, and they’re supposedly connected to the moon (another probably false claim).
I’ve seen this a lot in marketing for period trackers and other menstrual products. Our periods are deemed the source of our adaptability, our creativity, and our nurturing.
If you’re an adaptable, creative, nurturing person, and your period reminds you of that, that’s awesome.
But it’s also subjective. And the notion that it’s objective is based on harmful stereotypes.
Since ancient times, women have been deemed the more bodily gender, and their periods have been used as evidence of this. Aristotle believed that fathers provided children’s souls and menstrual blood gave babies physical form. (You can read more about this in Susan Bordo’s "Unbearable Weight.")
These ideas have been used to justify sexism. To this day, while men are seen as fit to indulge in the life of the mind, women are viewed as limited by their bodies. Periods and the connected process of childbirth are commonly cited in arguments against putting women in power.