What do feminists mean when they say they want to ‘normalize’ menstruation and its discussion?
12.06.2025 17:37
ETAA: I am getting lots of remarks to the effect of “of course menstruation is normalized, why are we even discussing it?” along with a lot of tales of how it’s not normalized. I’m also getting a lot of misogynist remarks (which are being deleted); one said that menstruation wouldn’t need to be normalized if women “would just get out of men’s spaces”. Another told me I was disgusting and ought to have been “ashamed of myself” for placing a folded/rolled, wrapped, used tampon or pad in a plastic-lined, lidded, wastebasket in a kitchen “where food is prepared” as if food is prepared in or on the wastebasket, or if there is no other waste in a kitchen, or as if I had a choice not to menstruate or need to dispose of the evidence of said normal biological function. It seems to be lost on these “men” that they are proving my point.
It means we’re tired of being harassed over our biological functions.
My mother had had a hysterectomy after several difficult pregnancies, so she had no such worries about hiding her menstruation, and had apparently forgotten what it was like to grow up as the only girl child.
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She wasn’t talking about teenage boys. She was talking about a pair of grown men who had mothers, sisters, and wives, angry that a woman was showing signs of menstruating. In her private office, in her own chair, a barely visible hot water bottle. This is why we need to normalize menstruation.
My brother, in high school, got angry because my used pads were folded and wrapped up in the bathroom wastebasket. He was furious that one of his friends may see evidence that a teenaged girl actually lived in the house.
My mother’s response was to take the wastebasket out of the bathroom, which meant that now I had to fold and wrap my used pads and walk them visibly through the house to the kitchen wastebasket. Then, invariably, my brother would holler and heckle me, “Oh, Lisa’s on the rag again,” or “Here comes Lisa with her granny rags,” and then he would get mad that they were in the kitchen wastebasket for him to see when he lifted the lid to put something else in. I had no choice!
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ETA: I remember a woman here telling a story that she was having a bad period, so she brought a hot water bottle in to her office. She sat working, with the hot water bottle tucked into her side. A man came in to ask her a question. She answered it, and he left. A few minutes later, her supervisor (male) came in and asked her, wouldn’t she like to go home? No, she responded, why did he ask? Well, it appeared that her coworker who came in earlier saw her hot water bottle and was disgusted. She said she had cramps, which meant her period, and he told the supervisor that it was unprofessional and gross and he wanted her out of the office. She turned him down.
As I said: EVERY month, for up to a WEEK, for the vast majority of our lives. Get as used to it as we have to.
If you can put a condom machine in the ladies’ bathrooms, surely it’s not too much to ask to have feminine sanitary supplies available as well. Don’t embarrass young students for asking to go to the restroom during class—and certainly don’t say no! Don’t mock our pain and discomfort.
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It’s a biological function, a$$holes, we start young (I started at 11, many start as young as 8) and we bleed, every month, for up to a week, for decades. It’s uncomfortable and painful and not the best sensation as the blood falls out or the tampon shifts or leaks. It’s trouble enough without having to hide it, pretend you don’t have it, listening to men deride you for having it, worrying about having enough supplies, worrying about having an accident, worrying about being able to find a bathroom when you are not at work or at home.
I can remember guys in high school and college making crude remarks about “rip cords” (tampon strings) and diapers and “plungers” and other disgusting comments.
Several minutes later, her supervisor called her in to his office and this time, told her to go home. Clearly she was incapable of working and she was making others “uncomfortable.” She again refused, and said women would miss a lot of work if they called out every time they had cramps. I don’t remember how it ended, but it went on for awhile. I’ve seen people with heating pads and hot water bottles for muscle pulls and bad backs and whatever, I’m sure that’s fine.