Did you hear the one about the Florida lawmaker who wants to ban girls from talking about ‘periods?’ There’s no punchline. A Mr. Man state legislator is sponsoring a bill to ban girls in Florida elementary schools from mentioning, discussing, talking about or asking about the natural female menstrual cycle. He needs to add the offense of giggling about periods, too, because that’s what most little girls do when the subject comes up. I think Rep. Stan McClain has: 1) never been the father of girls, 2) never been married to a woman, and 3) hates girls hitting puberty. What’s that old disgustingly filthy Southern expression: Old enough to bleed, old enough to breed? That kind of old-fashioned sexist thinking is from where the fellow Southern gentleman is a-coming. If 8-year-old girls talk about periods, then they’ll naturally find out about s-e-x, and the next thing you know they’re pregnant at 13!
Too late, Hon. Rep. McClain because: 1) some elementary girls have already started their periods, 2) I was one of them, 3) and period talk among elementary girls does not lead to sexual curiosity or activity.
With all the bans on books and abortion and trans-gender youth, Texas and Florida continue to duke it out in a pathetic public race to the very bottom of human ignorance … if there is a bottom. And figures that men are leading this asinine charge. They think the whole of society has got to be cleaned up, so leave it to white men in Southern states to get the job done. Please. We’ve seen how y’all handle cleaning up society down here. Segregation, cross burnings, bloody Sundays, ferocious German shepherds, police pulverizing citizen protestors, armed National Guard units, gun shots, assassinations. It never turns out for the best, see, because society is made up of humans, male and female, adults and children, and a variety of ethnicities, races, religions, cultures—as God created us each and everyone.
But the female among us have one thing in common: We bleed every month like clockwork—well, unless pregnant or menopausal or too young or too old or hormonal imbalances or all kinds of conditions that are nobody’s bee’s wax especially male legislators.
Blood, sweat and tears
Yes, everyone knows our secret, sisters. The sanitary pad commercial now featuring red fluid, instead of blue as had been acceptable for decades, to demonstrate efficiency is utterly realistic. Nothing we gals haven’t seen before, each month for several days over a span of 45 long years. But men apparently have gone off the deep end. Stopping girls from talking about periods? This time, they’ve lost their minds.
Come on, it’s not like we forced the guys to see what we’ve had to deal with practically our entire lives. We hide them. Cover them up unused or used. Bury them in trash bins. Hope for trash cans with covers. Dispose the things just like we’ve been taught through signs in our personal private separated restrooms. I think for the most part, we’ve done some damn good acting during our times of the month. Men would never know what’s going on … unless a dog comes up to us or something embarrassing like that.
We’ve kept clean during the whole inconvenient monthly occurrence: sprays, soaps, frequent changings, freshening up. Sure, many of us also had to contend with hellish pain. (OK, maybe my level was 10. And it was NOT in my head.) Nevertheless, we show up to school or work and deal with it. Just proves to me: Women can take a punch.
And now that we’ve come this far in society, proving every day of the month we can work and deserve equal pay with men, our youngest sisters are banned from talking about something natural and consistent? Some mothers never tell their little girls about ‘the curse,’ as it was called among women folk (and all of us can understand why. I mean, WHY???!!!). Girls talk about everything. And in case Rep. McClain has forgotten, so do boys. And I’m here to report boys left on their own are filthy mouthed. And the words ‘period’ and ‘menstruation’ are not dirty words. We don’t need a new generation thinking so either.
So when somehow it got out in 5th grade that I had crossed over into ‘womanhood,’ as my mother called it (hmm, now I see where Rep. McClain is getting his wires crossed), my female schoolmates asked me all kinds of questions during recess when kids are free to socialize. Does it hurt? How do you know it’s fixing to start each month? How often do you need to change the pads? Can we stop it from happening? Can you feel yourself bleeding? What happens if you use the blue side instead of the white? [It was right before stick-on pads.]
These were the questions sincere girls asked me, the Queen of the Period, a crown I was most ashamed and embarrassed to wear at my elementary school. But I handled each question with utmost maturity for someone who was only 11. Usually a big mouth and one to joke about everything, I didn’t joke or lie about this reality. I knew it was serious because constant bleeding for several days is serious. I wanted them to be prepared. I felt like an older sister. And in a way, I was. I answered questions from my younger female cousins, too. This is how throughout the ages we sisters passed on knowledge to each other.
My parents were as surprised as I was when the period thing occurred, totally unexpected that summer before 5th grade. My mother gave me pads and showed me how to use them (including ye olde sanitary belt). She gave me a calendar and told me that from now on, I would need to mark the date for the next period, usually every 28-30 days. The next day, I proudly showed her my calendar with every month marked for the expected visit from ‘Aunt Flo.’ She then told me that it will take a couple of years before my body develops a monthly cycle, that in the beginning a period may be more than two or three months or sometimes six weeks later instead of four. I didn’t know. I was so disappointed. I thought I was well prepared and a step ahead of this period thing. Turned out, after 45 years of living proof, I would always be a step behind. I never knew what was going on. I, like all womankind, learned our biggest lesson: To be female is to be not in control.
A man couldn’t deal with any of it. So they create petty word bans in hopes that little girls will remain innocent and keep their periods and all the products out of public discussion at least in elementary schools. Look, we may not be in control once a month, but Mother Nature is always in control. Glad She’s on our side. Wink.