Code Red - again

 

It has been decades and it's still devastating. Well, it has only been decades for me.   It has been since the beginning of time and there is still no cure. The official name is derived from our nemesis and yet, we receive no sympathy.  

On the rag, that time of the month, aunt Flo, red army, crimson wave, code red, shark week, Carrie, girl flu, Red Roof Inn, Red wedding, monthly friend, and the curse, …. 

They are all meant to be polite ways of saying Menstruation or Period.

Let’s look closely at these words.  I mean really look.  Why is something so clearly women start with MEN?  Or why period?  Period is at the end of a sentence.  It is an all-stop.  Yet, nothing stops.

MENstration, as in Strangle MEN.  That makes sense to me.  It is the time when putting up with shit is the last thing that women want to do.  So, men say it must be “that time of the month” whenever we call them out for being dumbasses.  Like it is somehow it’s our fault they are stupid, and we must tell them to cut it out, grow up, and behave like humans.

Period.  This is this, that is that, period.  The buck stops here, period.  The end.  The end of what?  Childhood?  What stops?  Nothing stops.  Your body turns on you.  Bloating, headaches, cramps, nauseous, fatigue…  Your mind turns to mush.  Everything is too, bright, too loud, too hard, too smelly, and too annoying.  It all grinds on the only nerve left.  But nothing stops.  Nothing even pauses or waits. 

We get up despite the shooting pains, exhaustion, and extra laundry.  Our jobs still get done.  The bills are still paid, food is still made, and the mess is still cleaned.  And somehow,

WE are the WEEKER sex   ???????

We have been shamed into hiding “mother nature’s gift”. No one must know.  It is something we all have, like hair, feet, and hands, but never talk about it.  Young girls are left to just figure it out.  Hopefully, a friend will tell them.  Or they will find the right website.  Mother take their girls to salons for haircuts.  Girls have mani / pedis.  The best and worse are discussed at length.  But not that thing that happens every month. Thank you, Judy, “Hello it’s me, Margret.”

But things are different now.  We talk about it.  There are new products, new pills, new remedies, and new ways to get through it.   But that’s the point.  This has been happening since the beginning of time.  The old English root for menstruation predates the 1400s.  That was 700 years ago.  And NOW, only NOW are there new methods.  Now, over 2000 years later are we just NOW starting to talk about it.  How insane is that?

We deserve better.  We demand better.  We are better.

menstruation (n.)

"the period of menstruation," 1680s, from past participle stem of Late Latin menstruare, from menstruus "monthly" (from mensis "month;" see moon (n.)) + -ation. Old English equivalent was monaðblot "month-blood." Middle English had menstrual (n.), late 1400c., from Old French menstrue, from Latin menstruum.