Menstruation is just a process, not empowering

I have always looked younger than my age as I’m short. The bullies of my class always taunted me that I wouldn’t start menstruating even at 16 as they claimed to have the medical expertise to diagnose that my body was defective as far as womanhood was concerned. The truth was I started bleeding at 12 and the mean girls in the class called me a liar. Some would even lift my dress to check if I had stains or was wearing a menstrual pad. “You aren’t woman enough,” many said in a chorus, “don’t you know that having your period makes girls and women strong and unites us?”

Many girls undergoing puberty long to have their first period as they are made to feel that they are inferior or not grown up for not having experienced it. The girl who has her period first is declared the winner and the one who has it last or doesn’t bleed is the class clown. This should never be a competition but pseudo-feminists are making it into one.

I’m 45 now, the body is now gradually preparing for menopause and I skip some cycles. When I’ll reach menopause, I will still be a woman. So when I hear that the menstrual cycle defines womanhood and we are stronger than men as we bleed but don’t die, I feel angry with so-called feminists like these.

Please understand that all women don’t menstruate and when you say that this empowers and unites women making them strong, you are cruelly invalidating women who don’t have a regular cycle and have had ovaries and the uterus removed, reached premature menopause, have never had a period, etc. Transmen may bleed too.

I agree that we need to break the taboo of not talking about the menstrual cycle, but not at the cost of shaming those who don’t, even if this is unintentional. I think the focus should be on providing menstrual products to all women, especially those living in villages and removing superstitions related to periods. Instead, I see super-privileged women who’ve had ample access to tampons and pads screaming out loud that they are proud to be women as they bleed, unlike men.

#menstruation, #pseudofeminism, #menstrualhygieneproducts, #firstperiod

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