Admittedly, I’m a right bitch one week out of every calendar
month. But you know what? I and my fellow females are damn well justified in
acting this way.
You try experiencing nausea, cramps, migraines, bloating,
sugar cravings, surges in your bodily temperature, and of course, skin breakouts
(not to mention the obvious: hormonal changes), and be in a good mood about it!
Worse, even if I have no intentions of
ever bearing children, I have the “privilege” of going through this on a
monthly basis for a minimum of 40 years...not to mention what comes next (ie:
menopause). No word of a lie, there have been times where I’ve been in so much
physical pain because of “mother nature”, I’ve been rushed to the emergency
room only to have a male physician not understand what I was going through and
send me home abruptly without even attempting to entertain my concerns.
Yes, it’s a fact that women’s pain threshold is much higher
than that of men’s (we do have to be able to withstand childbirth you know?),
but given that our “monthly friend” makes us weak and fatigued because of the
sizable loss of iron from our systems, coupled with the ultra-sensitivity and
insecurity that results from our blemished water-retaining appearances, it only
makes sense from a psychological perspective that we get depressed, moody and
easily stressed out.
If you want a comparable circumstance to which you (ie: my
male readers) can even begin to relate, think about what would happen if after
a long sweaty trek you got lost in the wilderness with no water or food that
would satiate your intense thirst and hunger. You’d start to act a little out
of character too! Throw cramps, and everything else unsightly I previously
mentioned into the equation, and the pleas of temporary insanity would
undoubtedly start being expressed full-force.
Ah but that’s just it. Men, for the most part, don’t even
begin to try and understand what it is women are going through during their
periods (YES I SAID IT! OOH WHAT A DIRTY DIRTY WORD!), and therefore are
rendered incapable of empathizing. Well fellas, let me let you in on something:
if any of you ever intend on getting married in the future, at some juncture
you’re going to have to throw away the immature childhood notion that women get
“icky”, “gross”, and “bitchy” every 28 or so days, and that you don’t want to
hear anything about it, let alone go to the store to pick up feminine supplies
or Advil. Fertility (as demonstrated
by menarche) is after all vital to carrying on your family’s name, and I have
yet to meet a man who craves a “marriage without children”.
The point: in the
words of blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe, “if you can't handle [us] at [our]
worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve [us] at [our] best”…see even Marilyn
had bad days.
I will give you, however, that most of you are ill-educated
when it comes to the subject at hand (the elementary and secondary schools’
educational systems are pathetic, at best, when it comes to explaining this
process). So, in order to get a handle on things, this doctor’s recommending a
serious heart-to-heart with your sister, best girlfriend, or mother sometime
soon. If this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, well then, leave us the fuck
alone for a week’s time and no one will get hurt.
Sometimes, I really think we’d all be better off if villages
still practised the tradition of sending away all of their menstruating women
to community huts where they can happily bitch, cry for no reason, and suffer
together in peace. Girls weekend anyone?
