The Menace of Menstruation

                       

            In March of this year, this photo provoked controversy following its removal by Instagram the day after it was posted, stating that it violated community guidelines. The image was posted by artist and poet Rupi Kaur, who was working on a photo series on menstruation with the goal of destigmatizing the processes of the female body. The photo was made visible again by Instagram after Kaur publicly objected to the censorship, posting on various social media sites about how the photo did not violate the community guidelines as she is fully clothed and the image is her property. She also made clear the implications of allowing certain representations of women but not others. “I will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be okay with a small leak. When your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified, pornified. and treated less than human. thank you.”[1] Her message was widely celebrated and circulated throughout the internet.  Both the photo as well as Instagram’s and the public’s responses to it, call attention to broader attitudes toward menstruation and the female body.

            Beginning even before adolescence, young girls are socialized to the cultural discomfort with periods and the norms of menstrual etiquette. PMS and menstruating women are used as material for jokes for countless movies and T.V. shows. One common storyline used repeatedly by sit-coms and the like is the entrance of the adolescent girl into puberty and the anxiety this causes the parental figures (often male). One episode of King of the Hill depicts Connie getting her first period and Hank taking her to the emergency room.[2] Countless other shows such as Full House, George Lopez, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians, have episodes dedicated entirely to familial responses to young girls at the start of menstruation. The responses almost always those of distress, fear, and discomfort toward the subject as well as instructing the young girls as to the maintenance and responsibility associated with periods. So often we see hear the familiar sigh and resignation of a parent saying “I’m in trouble now!”, accepting the perils of new womanhood. The reproductions of this storyline, promote and ensure attitudes of discomfort in both young girls and the broader society. As agents of socialization, both media and the family, working in tandem in this way, strongly impose the norms of our society onto their viewers. I remember at the age of about 10 or 11 reading Tiger Beat and Bop! magazines, both publications marketed primarily toward adolescent girls, and finding the “Most Embarrassing Moments” sections. Nearly every issue had at least one horror story about an unexpected period, a tampon-related mishap, or a boy seeing someone’s stash of menstrual products. Girls are taught by their peers how discreetly handle bleeding by carrying your whole bag to the bathroom or sliding a tampon up your sleeve or into a boot. Many girls, including myself, are stricken with fear at the prospect of buying “feminine products” from a male cashier. Our introduction into womanhood is laden with discretion, shame, and fear regarding what has come to be called “The Woman’s Curse”.

            This idea of “The Woman’s Curse” is as stratifying as it is pervasive. The notions of the menstrual woman, the woman afflicted with her period, or the PMS-ing woman, commonly present women at the mercy of their bodies. In Images of Bleeding by Louise Lander, she describes a woman’s period as “a cultural event intimately bound up with larger questions of the place of women in society” and “an important focus of medicine’s social function as agent of larger social forces in keeping subservient groups, such as women, where they belong.”[3] As menstruation is such a central and unavoidable part of the female experience, it is convenient in legitimizing and reinforcing stereotypes of femininity.  Most commonly, mood swings, irritability, and general over emotion are deemed biological and natural justifications of mistrust of women as well as their perceived weakness and inferiority. Moreover, the body’s physiological responses to menstruation such as cramps, fatigue, headaches, and back pain, serve to reinforce the perceived weakness of women.  Lander also spoke to the norms of female behavior and perceptions of the menstrual woman deviate from them thus encouraging the demonization of periods and the shame of womanhood. “The personality traits that tend to emerge premenstrually in PMS sufferers—anger, aggressiveness, irritability—are precisely those characteristics that women, especially wives and mothers, are not supposed to possess. Women are supposed to be docile, patient and altruistic.”

            Since menstruation is a biological occurrence, it does, of course, affect women physically and emotionally and cyclically present challenges. But rather than treating these challenges with support for the female body, society seeks to suppress and minimize the process of menstruation. Birth control is marketed now with the promise of shorter lighter periods. PMS, or premenstrual syndrome, is commonly talked about as a condition that dominates a woman and all she does. The medicalization of the menstrual cycle and its classification as a “syndrome” strongly implies that it is a problem with solutions. It also serves to lessen the command of the female body because it makes natural and constant bodily processes a condition, a disorder, or a wrong thing.

           How can we still be so disgusted by periods? Women now make up the majority the U.S. population with 50.8% of the country comprised of female persons. So with 308 million menstrual cycles, how are we so uncomfortable talking about and confronting the realities of them? In short, because hegemonic masculinity is the rule and something so feminine as period blood is a messy exception. The menstrual cycle is such an obvious distinction between the sexes. Our culture and the current structure of American gender dynamics will favor “the man” in such a way that subjugates any and all things feminine. We also cannot ignore the extent to which big companies profit off the shame of “the monthly gift” as well as the complete necessity for menstrual products. It is estimated that a woman can spend up to eighteen thousand dollars on her period in her lifetime.

via: Huffingtonpost.com

The fact that the topic of periods is so readily dismissed by our culture adds to the lack of active support of women’s issues. No one wants to cause a fuss about overpriced tampons. We need them, we buy them, we stay quiet because no one wants to hear about that. However, recently some women are bravely deviating from this imposed discomfort. Women are free bleeding, painting with period blood, posting pictures like that of Rupi Kaur, making public what is supposed to be private. This refusal to bear the burden privately and politely, challenges the structure of female subordination and begs the question “what is the problem with periods?”
                               

  

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[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/instagram-deletes-womans-period-photos-but-her-response-is-amazing/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7UALkvCXHE

[3] Lander, Louise. Images of Bleeding: Menstruation as Ideology. New York: Orlando, 1988. Print.

Sources

Bobel, Chris. New Blood: Third-wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2010. Print.

Kane, Jessica. "Here's How Much A Woman's Period Will Cost Her Over A Lifetime." The Huffington Post. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.

Lander, Louise. Images of Bleeding: Menstruation as Ideology. New York: Orlando, 1988. Print.

Sanghani, Radhika. "Instagram Deletes Woman's Period Photos - But Her Response Is Amazing." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 30 Mar. 2015. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.

"USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau." USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2015.