I often get annoyed while looking at the internet. It’s part of the deal. Usually it’s easy to scroll past irritating content and not lose time over it but sometimes this is more difficult – for example when you are experiencing premenstrual syndrome.
I say this because for the past few months I’ve noticed a few online trends that have something in common: periods and irritating me. The first is viral videos of men hooked up to a machine that simulates period pain, applied by what seems to be a merry travelling group of educators who get to make men feel bad as their job (where do I sign up?). Sometimes their partners who have painful periods or endometriosis are also hooked up – the end result is seeing a man groaning in pain and unable to stand while a woman chuckles at how tolerable it is compared with her reality.
The second trend is women asking “girl questions” of their male partners and dads. These range from types of makeup to “what are the different sizes of tampons for?” Most of the time the men laugh at being asked, before getting it wrong, and everyone involved laughs at how funny and cute it all is, including the commenters.
The final trend is similar, except this time it’s grown-ass men being asked questions on the street like, ‘Can women pee with a tampon in?’ or, ‘What does PMS stand for?’ and getting a blank look in return. Getting to your 30s and not only not knowing the difference between the vagina and the urethra but also saying so on camera, then laughing about this ignorance – we need to bring back the guillotine. Yes I have PMS.
The reason all of the above is so annoying is because of the deep incuriosity it shows. Not only about the world but about the experience of the women in these men’s lives – ranging from family members, friends, and women whose bodies you want access to. For straight cis men in particular who date people with periods that are severe or more painful or difficult, I can’t imagine not wanting to know as much as I could about what was happening and how I could help.
Even if it’s a regular period, for some grown men not to know where you stick a pad (I have seen many videos showing this), or not know anything about a menstrual cycle, or how long it goes for, or even the very basics is unbelievable, especially when they’ve probably spent hours on the Wiki page for “different types of swords” or on YouTube watching “most gruesome sports injuries”.
The problem isn’t helped, of course, by the fact that women have been forever discouraged from talking about their periods. They have been taught to minimise; they’ve had their pain dismissed; they’ve essentially been trained not to scare away straight men by talking too much about it.
The only time society typically approves of periods being discussed is when joking about how moody and bitchy women can allegedly get when they are hormonal. The one aspect of the entire process men care about is the one that impacts them.
When I referenced having PMS earlier I was joking but I also wasn’t joking. It is treated as something we all have a LOL at, when in fact it is also so deeply real. It can cause huge emotions. It can make you genuinely depressed, it can frighten you with your own rage, it can make you bawl because you accidentally spoiled that day’s Wordle for your girlfriend (true story).
It can completely alter your sense of self for days to weeks – and then comes the bleeding, cramping and discomfort, ranging in severity from inconvenient to earth-shattering.
The fact that people who menstruate have to remain normal and pleasant through this, and do our jobs and raise children and then also deal with men who don’t know where a tampon goes – there is not enough praise for how peaceful we remain.
We joke about this stuff to get through it, and maybe men joking about PMS would be funny if they actually cared enough to find out what PMS stands for and what effects it has. But it’s usually from those who have no interest beyond how it directly impacts them.
We need to stop laughing at the ignorance of these people, and reinforcing that it’s somehow cute or masculine or funny to know exactly nothing about this regular experience for 50% of the population. We need to introduce the concept of shame to the men who laughingly let it be shown that they don’t care about women – or anyone else. If your boyfriend deserves you he will be curious about you and want to know about something that impacts your life every month.
If you are a man who doesn’t know anything about what’s going on, and the only thing you take away each month is how women act towards you, I would implore you to dig a little deeper – to dig at all, in fact. It’s not too late to get over the embarrassment and to do a little growing up. Period.
