It’s one of our many mother-daughter chats; we sit down I and she, my first born, and gab. We dish about reality TV, careers, men and the local gossip. We discuss how things are in the world of women.
Recently the drug company Wyeth came out with a pill, Lybrel, which halts women’s periods, totally. And it sounds like an idea whose time has come--who wants a period? In fact my daughter reads me one of the circulating e-mails (maybe you saw it) about a women who writes a letter to the marketer of ALWAYS, who brings you the inane maxi-pad logo: “Have a happy period.” Probably up there with: “Thongs are comfortable.” It’s a hoot and oh, so true.
There is nothing happy about it. Any person with an XX chromosome makeup knows the hassles, the pain, the food issues, the emotional swings and all the trappings of “the curse.” I know there are women who breeze through with a modicum of travails. But I’ve only heard about them--I’ve never met any. My daughter and I have horrible periods, compliments of my mom and her mom before her. I remember mom saying she used to call in sick to work if the first day of her period fell during the work week. It was that bad. I attribute my less than dazzling grades in college chemistry to the positively Josef Mengele-ish timing of mine. Creepy how it would always slither upon me the last Thursday of every month during lab. Cramps, nausea, fever, wooziness. My hands would shake and I would be dripping with sweat before we put down our graduated cylinders. Happily, having children knocked that hormonal assault into a more manageable ordeal.
But my daughter wonders if stopping women’s periods is really a good thing. She wonders what price women would pay. I know elite that female athletes whose body fat percentages fall below 22% are often diagnosed with amenorrhea, the absence of menses. These enviable women are at risk for heart disease, experience hair loss, stress fractures and bone loss. And I know that my menopausal mother fights the hot flash war; it’s been years now. We trade banes back and forth.
Can we get rid of something that for eons has described our fertility, our femininity, us. Are we women because we menstruate? And is not menstruating bad or good? If we are given hormone pills to keep estrogen levels in check when we our uterus and ovaries are removed why are we taking pills to fool our bodies into thinking we don’t have either?
The relationship women have with their periods is love-hate. And although my daughter and I would be happy to say goodbye our periods, we’d rather have them as reminders of fertility, not lose them altogether.
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Bernadette Sukley |
| About the author: |
| Bernadette Sukley has written, edited, fact checked for nearly 20 years. Her topics range from health to sports and lifestyle, from human interest to hard news. Her work has appeared in Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated for Women, and ABROAD magazines. Currently polishing up 3 novels for publication, she welcomes discussions on women and literature.
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