from: Ann Friedman
to: Aminatou Sow
date: Mon., Apr. 17, 2017, at 1:40 PM
subject: Friendship and Periods
You know how some period-tracker apps let you share the details of your menstrual cycle with your friends? My first thought upon seeing that for the first time was, “If you’re not already talking about your period with your friends, how close can you be?” Really. I can’t remember exactly how I discussed my period with friends when I was a teenager, but in my adult friendships—ours included!—periods are such a normal part of the ongoing conversation. I almost always know when my closest boos are bleeding.
Women have been doing this since ancient times. And, let’sbereal, most of us don’t need a special, cordoned-off space of a period app to talk about this stuff. It’s woven through the text threads and brief check-ins and deep conversations that make up our friendships. My friends know that my cycle runs short, more like twenty-one days than twenty-eight. My friends know that day two is my worst for cramping. My friends know that my vagina hates applicators (the goddess gave you fingers for a reason). I know that you know all of this stuff, because we talk about periods the way we talk about all of the other daily details of our lives.
from: Aminatou Sow
to: Ann Friedman
date: Tues., Apr. 25, 2017, at 3:05 AM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
You’re so right, women have been doing this since forever.
I remember period talk being an early bonding tool for us when we were new friends. I got mine at what felt like a young age, when I was eleven. None of my other friends did until we were at the end of middle school. I don’t ever remember discussing it with high school friends either. In fact, the woman who ran the athletic department made us all sign a pledge that we would never miss any practices because of our periods. At the time, I was foolish enough to think that was badass, and now I realize how limiting that kind of thinking is.
There’s something so liberating about not being ashamed that we bleed. It can also help with diagnosing serious problems. I’m so embarrassed that I was well into my twenties when I realized that it wasn’t okay I was having my period for weeks on end or that my cramps were well above an eight on the pain scale. I thought I just had to play through the pain—thanks for nothing, Coach Murray!—and now I know better.
The only redeeming part of having bad periods when you’re an adult woman is that your friends can afford to buy you top-notch snacks and wine. That always helps. You brought Swedish Fish into my life during such a trying time and now they always make me think of you. You also never make fun of me when I use my laptop as a heating pad. #computerus
FYI NONE OF THIS IS MEDICAL ADVICE LOL
It’s also not lost on me that you and I are lucky to live in a country where having a period didn’t hold us back from going to school and having access to education like it does for so many girls around the world. Just Google “menstrual hygiene management” and prepare to have your mind blown by how much work we still have to do to educate folks about taboos around hygiene and reproductive health.
Do you remember ever feeling ashamed of your period?
from: Ann Friedman
to: Aminatou Sow
date: Wed., Apr. 26, 2017, at 3:25 PM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
Ughhh, yes. Ashamed, confused, repulsed. A whole cocktail of bad feelings. My early periods (around age twelve to thirteen) were some of the most painful and heaviest of my life. I remember being in church with my family once—there are multiple levels of horror and discomfort to this story—and kneeling made my cramps unbearable. (This was before I’d figured out how many ibuprofen I needed to survive the first few days of my period.) I shuffled out of the pew and back to the bathroom and spent the rest of the service sitting on a toilet in the women’s room. Afterward I told my mom I’d filled a whole pad with blood in less than an hour, and she didn’t believe me. I mean, I was never really into Catholicism, so I can see why she thought it was an excuse at the time. But because I was still so sensitive about my period, and still figuring out what “normal” was for me, her disbelief really stuck with me. It made me feel like a freak.
Because my mom and I didn’t really talk about periods in depth, I relied on my friends for information. More precisely, I relied on my friends’ moms’ copies of Redbook. (Which is also where I learned about blow jobs and the gender wage gap. That magazine did so much for those of us who grew up pre-Internet and with conservative moms!) I was definitely not given a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves or anything like that. And while it wasn’t like my teenage friends and I were going deep on the finer points of our menstrual cycles, they were my first confidantes for questions and problems.
And a strong YES to the power of menstruation convos among adult women! Especially after my friends started dealing with serious health problems related to their uteruses, or after they got IUDs put in and suffered some intense, seemingly never-ending 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. Honestly, if I never menstruated I would not fully understand why they come in those giant tubs.
Do you see any posi aspects to getting a period?
from: Aminatou Sow
to: Ann Friedman
date: Sat., Apr. 29, 2017, at 11:29 PM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
I suppose it’s helped me understand my body better and has turned out to be a great bonding experience with other women … but my god, at what price?
I guess I just wish I could have the posi experiences without the bleeding.
While I do think that it’s really important to talk about our periods (the stigma and shame are so real!) and not feel that we inconvenience the world when we’re leaving huuuuge bloodstains all over office chairs, I really don’t think there’s anything special or wonderful about actually bleeding.
I’M REALLY WEARY OF WHATEVER IT IS THAT WE ARE CALLING PERIOD FEMINISM THESE DAYS BECAUSE IT CAN ACTUALLY BE REALLY ALIENATING FOR A LOT OF FOLKS.
It’s just a part of my biology. I didn’t choose it, it doesn’t make me better than anyone, and honestly, at least for me, it’s a significant source of physical pain. Also, we can’t forget that not every person who identifies as a woman actually has a period and having a period isn’t what makes you a woman. Menstruation stigma is 100 percent definitely rooted in misogyny but that doesn’t mean it only affects women. It’s so dumb and harmful to conflate biology with gender and then isolate our trans and nonbinary pals with this kind of exclusive vocabulary and rituals around menstruation.
I’m really weary of whatever it is that we are calling Period Feminism these days because it can actually be really alienating for a lot of folks. There’s a delicate balance between not being ashamed of our own bodies and making others feel inadequate about some fake biological empowerment narratives. Does that make sense? Ugh, gender essentialism is such a drag.
BTW, my cramps were so bad yesterday, I cried on the train back from DC. Time to call the doctor again. I have an ultrasound scheduled for next week and I’m so nervous about it.
from: Ann Friedman
to: Aminatou Sow
date: Tues., May 2, 2017, at 9:39 AM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
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.
Thank you for bringing up so-called Period Feminism! I also feel pretty annoyed that openly and not-shamefully discussing something that happens to a lot of women (but definitely not all women, as you pointed out) has somehow become its own brand of feminism. It’s absurd, and I blame the media’s bottomless hunger for trend pieces. I don’t want to go back to the era of body-denial when all menstrual-product ads featured a stream of blue liquid being squirted onto a pad, but there is such a thing as placing too much political weight on a simple biological reality.
It’s also frustrating on a personal level, because the public conversations you and I have about our periods aren’t intentionally about making menstruation central to feminism. They are simply a result of us—two women who happen to menstruate—talking openly about our bodies and our lives. In some of my other personal conversations, when my friends say shit about periods being goddess moon-cycle energy or the “divine feminine” or whatever, I get very annoyed. (Maybe this is a California problem?) Because, again, can we strike a balance, please? I’m not ashamed of my period, but I also don’t credit it as a source of my power. Do you know what I mean?
from: Aminatou Sow
to: Ann Friedman
date: Fri., May 5, 2017, at 7:46 PM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
YES! I know exactly what you mean. Also, if we’re being perfectly honest, the real source of my power probably has to do with how many snacks I eat all the time.
God. I dream of the day we have tampon ads with real blood and chunks instead of that ridiculous blue liquid. Can you imagine? It’s weird that we refuse to acknowledge how completely banal blood is for people with periods. Come to think of it, the only time you see blood used in connection with women’s bodies is when those crazy conservatives want to shock people with their awful, bloody antiabortion “art.” The idea is that we’re supposed to be grossed out by these images. Grossed out enough that we forego a completely normal procedure that’s less dangerous than having a colonoscopy or actually having a baby. Our friend Rebecca Traister wrote a great column about this for New York magazine, “The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works.” If you have a period, blood and guts and chunks come as no surprise. It’s not gross. It’s our dang bodies.
I had my ultrasound. It came back all good. I actually laughed because the medical term for when everything is all good with an ultrasound is “unremarkable.”
Never been so happy not to be special! I know I’ve been whining a lot but our bodies are pretty awesome. A real feat of biomedical engineering I will never tire of nerding out about.
PS—I’m reading that book you recommended, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. There is so much I didn’t know about my body. I’m thirty-two—how is this possible?
from: Ann Friedman
to: Aminatou Sow
date: Sun., May 7, 2017, at 11:57 AM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
Never thought I’d say this, but I’m so happy to hear your bod is unremarkable!
Speaking of what should be unremarkable … Taking Charge of Your Fertility has rocked my thirty-five-year-old world, too. I’ve been recommending it to all my friends for the exact reason you mentioned: How is it possible I spent my whole life believing that all non-blood vaginal discharge was the same? The book explains that the different consistencies and types of cervical fluid correspond to phases and hormones in your cycle. It’s really made me realize that the cultural shame around periods actually extends to all things ovulation. In the intro to the updated edition of this book, the author, Toni Weschler, describes how the first edition referred to “cervical mucus,” but they changed it to “cervical fluid” because even women found the first phrase too disgusting to engage with. As a word person, I was interested in her theory, though I’m not sure she’s right. I think it’s less about linguistics and more about deeply ingrained body shame.
WHAT IF WE GOT THE MESSAGE THAT ALL BODIES ARE DIFFERENT, AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO LEARN ABOUT YOURS?
Of course the book was recommended to me by a friend, too. I can’t help but wonder: What if we were all just given this book back when we first hit puberty? What if we got the message that all bodies are different, and the most important thing is to learn about yours? It’s so important to know what is truly “unremarkable” for you, because there is no universal normal.
from: Aminatou Sow
to: Ann Friedman
date: Mon., May 8, 2017, at 12:20 AM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
I really wish I could go back in a time machine and give this book to our tween selves. It would have definitely saved baby Amina a lot of grief and shame. Learning your body and unlearning the misinformation and lies you believe about your body really is a full-time process. I wish I’d started that journey earlier in life but I’m also so grateful for later-in-life friendships that have facilitated that for me.
I’ve been so encouraged and amused every single time I’ve complained or compared myself to someone else and you’ve said to me, “Bodies are different, Amina,” in that resigned voice of yours. It’s so true, Ann. Thanks for making space in our friendship to talk about this stuff. It’s probably saved my life in the long run.
Can’t wait to see you in a few weeks and cycle together, LOL. I’ll have whiskey and snacks waiting. xo
from: Ann Friedman
to: Aminatou Sow
date: Mon., May 8, 2017 at 8:17 AM
subject: Re: Friendship and Periods
I can’t take credit for “bodies are different,” which I first heard from a friend. But I’m so happy to pass it along. And even happier to share this space of friendship with you. <3 I’m counting the days till our cycles (and snacks) sync up.…