Top Quotes: “Period: Twelve Voices Tell the Bloody Truth” — Kate Farrell
An Intersex Voice
“No matter the point of view, I stood in certain privilege. Unlike many from the trans community at that point in my life, health insurance had covered my breast augmentation.”
“This body has presented me with options — regarding my presentation, regarding my gender role, regarding my sexuality — and created an opportunity for me to create my own path in this life.”
Friendship & Periods
“It is a special pleasure and privilege of friendship to know when your pals are menstruating and therefore feeling extra sensitive, or needing to stay home with a #computerus. It feels so good to see your bestie on the doorstep with some Trader Joe’s brownie bites.”
“Ugh, I’m so sorry to hear about your Amtrak cry. Public transit while menstruating is the worst. We need to invent some way of strapping a heating pad to your abdomen for crampy days when leaving the house is a necessity. Please tell me how the ultrasound goes.”
“I dream of the day we have tampon ads with real blood and chunks instead of that ridiculous blue liquid.”
The Marathon Runner
“I got my flow the night before the London Marathon and it was extremely painful. It would be my first marathon and I remember already feeling so nervous for it. I had spent a full year enthusiastically training hard, yet I had never actually practiced running on my period.
I thought through my options. Running 26.2 miles with a wad of cotton material wedged between my legs just seemed so absurd. Plus they say chafing is a real thing. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I knew that I was lucky to have access to menstrual products, to be part of a society that at least has a “norm” built around periods. I definitely had the choice to participate in this norm at the expense of my own comfort and just deal with it quietly.
But then I thought … if there’s one person society can’t shame, it’s a marathon runner. You can’t tell a marathoner to adhere to problematic social norms, asking them to prioritize the comfort of others at the expense of their own, as women long have. On the marathon course, I could choose whether or not I wanted to participate in the oppressive social norm of period shaming.
So I decided to reject the stigma surrounding women’s cycles, take some Midol for the pain, bleed freely, and just run.
A marathon is a centuries-old symbolic act. Why not leverage this experience to draw light to those who don’t have access to menstrual care products? Or to those who, despite their cramping and pain, have to hide it away and pretend like it doesn’t exist?”
Disability & Periods
“I have full use of my arms and hands, and am considered very high functioning. I live alone, shower on my own, get myself dressed, etc. People with higher levels of injury than me, such as quadriplegics, often need assistance with daily routines, and so they may need more assistance when they’re menstruating.”
“A car accident when I was almost six years old severed my spine at the T-11 level, which means I am paralyzed at the eleventh vertebrae of the thoracic level, or more simply, from the waist down. In elementary school, this never really seemed to matter. Actually, it kind of made me cool because young kids love riding things with wheels. I rode to school in my own special bus and I got to skip gym whenever I wanted. And because my insurance company had to make my house compliant with the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), my bedroom and personal bathroom were huge, bigger than my parents’. Yes, that’s right, I had my own personal bathroom at the age of seven. I felt a little bit like a celebrity.
Kids would ask me dumb questions, because they were kids, and I’d be excited to answer them because I felt like I was smart and experienced. Questions like: “How do you sleep if you’re in a wheelchair?” And I’d say, “Well, I transfer into my bed and lie down and sleep, just like you! Want to see?” And then I’d show them how I transfer and I was seriously the coolest.
But then came middle school, which was a weird time for me because that’s when kids start to want to blend in. I was a young girl just trying to be like everyone else, yet I was the only girl in my school in a wheelchair. Pretty ironic how the girl in the wheelchair can’t help but stand out, huh?
Being in a wheelchair in middle school still drew a lot of attention, from kids, but not the cool attention I was used to. Now they were asking me questions I didn’t know the answers to yet, like: “Can you have sex?” How was I supposed to know? I was twelve! I didn’t know what sex was.”
“There are certain areas of my body that I can’t feel as well as others, Don’t think this gets me out of cramps. If I’m experiencing menstrual pain in a part of my body that I can’t “feel,” my body will sort of redirect the pain to a place where I can feel. A more technical term for this is autonomic dysreflexia. Autonomic dysreflexia typically affects people, with a slightly higher level of injury than I have (more like T-6), but I have experienced some symptoms. For example, when I was younger, I fractured my femur. I couldn’t feel the pain in my leg, so I didn’t know I had injured myself, but then I started experiencing chills, a fesier, a terrible headache, and blurry vision. These same things occur when I have a urinary tract infection. And when I’m having a particularly bad month in the menstruation department, these same symptoms can pop up then
If you think about it, you can imagine how confusing and frustrating this might be, Whenever I get a very bad headache, not only do I have to ask myself if I drank enough water today or am I stressed out or siny of the usual suspects that cause a headache. I also have to inspect my body to make sure there are no obvious breaks or bruises or issues below the belt.”
The Black Period Experience
“I’m not exactly sure where all this pad shaming started but I’d guess cis men had something to do with it. I’ve seen and heard what many men think of periods in general — and pads more specifically — men who aren’t necessarily bad people. They think periods are gross. They think tampons are “less dirty” and more sanitary because they’re inside your body and less noticeable. They get uncomfortable if their girlfriend is wearing a pad because it feels like she’s wearing a diaper. The list goes on and on. So naturally this makes women feel awful and ashamed of their bodies and their choices. We internalize this and try to find ways to be less “gross” and more appealing. Pad shaming, unfortunately, is one of those solutions.”
“Several studies indicate that, across the board, people — particularly young girls — are starting puberty earlier. A New York Times article profiling precocious puberty noted that major pediatric institutions agree that, girls’ breasts are budding at younger ages; the most surprising finding was that by age seven, 23 percent of black girls have started developing breasts compared to just 10 percent of white girls, 15 percent of Latina girls, and 2 percent of Asian girls. The average age of starting menstruation declined dramatically in the twentieth century, probably because of better health and nutrition, but has mostly held steady at 12.5 years old in the United States for the last forty years. But it’s worth noting that black American girls in particular tend to start their periods earlier than any other racial demographic. Theories abound as to why this is happening; some suggest childhood obesity can trigger puberty, while others suggest childhood stress, and both doctors and granola moms cite endocrine disruptors — chemical compounds that mimic estrogen, found in everything from pesticides to food — as potential culprits.”
“Short-term, starting puberty earlier can trigger hormonally charged mood swings and stress for young black girls who are ill equipped to handle PMS or the responsibility of menstruation. Couple that with the fact that black girls already face racist stigma regarding behavioral issues — young black girls are suspended and expelled from school at a higher rate than their peers — and you have a recipe for disaster: expectations of disruptive behavior based on racist stereotypes and actual inability to compartmentalize moody moments.”
“Starting your period at an early age can be a factor in health problems down the line. Research has shown that those who experience an early period are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer, diabetes, and heart disease; they also have a higher mortality rate if they develop ovarian cancer.”
Bad Periods
“As I got older, I’d look at my schedule and cringe when I saw that I was due for my period, knowing how much harder it would make everything I’m supposed to do. (Taking the subway to work for forty minutes? Impossible. I can’t be away from a bathroom for that long.)”
Political Periods
“Access to affordable menstrual products is a necessity for half the population. Yet this reality is given practically zero consideration in the laws by which we live. Think about this: Tampons and pads are ineligible for purchases made with public benefits like food stamps; they’re not made routinely available in shelters or crisis centers, nor are they provided in any uniform way in jails and prisons. In the vast majority of states, menstrual products are not even exempt from sales tax, forcing the customer to pay added cents on the dollar. And while the government regulates the provision of toilet paper and hand soap — requiring these in public restrooms, including in schools and workplaces — we’re on our own when it comes to managing our periods.”
“Prior to 2015, forty of the fifty states collected taxes on menstrual products; of those other ten states, only five were ahead of the curve and had already begun exempting menstrual products (Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania); the other five (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon) collect no sales tax at all.
Since then, thanks to a nationwide petition and campaign, a whopping twenty-four states have introduced legislation to scrap the tampon tax. Even more heartening, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are getting behind the cause, Democrats and Republicans alike, making menstruation one of the rare, truly bipartisan matters in American politics.
So far, three states — Florida, Illinois, and New York — have succeeded in passing and implementing new laws to make menstrual products entirely tax-free. The city of Chicago and District of Columbia passed ordinances to the same effect. And Connecticut removed sales tax revenue from menstrual products from its 2018 statewide budget, effectively eliminating the tax.”
“New York City has proudly led the way. In 2016, it unanimously passed three groundbreaking laws that mandate the provision of free tampons and pads for all the city’s public schools, shelters, and jails — the most comprehensive legislation of its kind in the world. Los Angeles followed the Big Apple’s lead in 2017 and passed an ordinance requiring free access to tampons in all county juvenile detention centers; Colorado did so for all of its state prisons. Similar laws are being introduced in many states across the country, from California to Connecticut.
Capitol Hill is also making waves. Debating periods in the hallowed halls of Congress? That’s a first-and a very big deal! But it is happening. US Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren demanded free menstrual products for federal prisoners with the introduction of the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act. And US Representative Grace Meng introduced the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2017, the first-ever federal menstrual access bill.”
“Meanwhile, dozens of college campuses across the country — from NYU to UCLA and the University of Nebraska to the University of Arizona — have taken up the cause as well. Students have lobbied administrations or leveraged funds to ensure access for all. At Grinnell College, in lowa, one intrepid student initiated a campus-wide caper that launched a powerful protest. She used bobby pins to break open campus dispensers, freeing all the tampons and pads for others to use. ‘I freed your tampons kept behind lock, key, and quarter, she wrote in a public letter to the college. “Bleeding bodies deserve to think about Foucault and micro-organisms and the history of the bleeding bodies that came before them. When we menstruate, however unexpectedly, we should not feel fear in the pits of our stomachs because of your lack of foresight. We are a part of this college. Provide free menstrual products to students who need them so I can stop picking the locks on your bogus machines.” The president of Grinnell, a former deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, agreed. “It’s not unreasonable to provide free menstrual products everywhere, including on campuses,” he announced. “We have free toilet paper, so wanting the same for menstrual products is not extreme. This is a normal human function.” Indeed.”
Periods in Media
“A rare exception to this is in an episode of Broad City (2014-) when Ilana Wexler (Iana Glazer) wears jeans with a very obvious period bloodstain while traveling in order to get through airport security without any TSA agents conducting a thorough-enough search to locate the marijuana she is bringing on the trip. In this case. llana turns this common plot point on its head, triumphantly using her period-stained pants — and the fact that most people find them disgusting-to her advantage.”
“Let’s start with some facts: This whole concept of period synching first came about from a 1971 study that tracked the cycles of just 135 women living in one particular dorm at a university. Despite numerous attempts, the same results have never been found again, but given how quickly society jumped at the opportunity to explain one of the many complicated aspects of periods, this myth spread and stuck. More recent research — involving a lot more menstruating people — released in 2017 confirms that there is no truth to this. But it was too late: Period synching has become a routine — I’d even say cliché — part of pop culture.”
