Patriarchal emotionality

[judecorp]

I always used to say (and think) that the whole "PMS = emotional" thing was just a schtick concocted by (who else?) the patriarchy to denigrate women and make them ashamed of their bodies, not to mention blame them for the crap they do wrong. And to a large extent, I still believe that.

I mean, think of all of the stupid products we have on the market to help women conceal their menstrual cycles, their body odors, etc. And how there is so much embarrassment wrapped up in girls' bodies that seems to just somehow seep into the consciousness of young women anywhere from 10-15 years old. And so on.

But I have to say, that spontaneous period thing on Tuesday night was BY FAR the /best/ thing that has ever happened to my funky Valentine's Day mood. Things had been kind of rocky for that whole weekend and of course - because, hello? I'm human - I blamed it all on Jen. Not that I'm letting Jen off scot-free, mind you (*giggle*), but hey, maybe I was a little extra, erm, sensitive. Or something. Yeah.

~//~

Also, I'm totally fooling myself that I'm going to start having more normal-ish cycles now that I've doubled the Metformin. I'm fooling myself so much so that I'm becoming a charting fool. "Just for giggles," I keep telling myself... but I'm secretly hoping that heck, maybe this will work and I'll actually ovulate somewhere in there. (I've made a few past attempts at charting but they always ended up in frustration... a few 100+ day cycles will do that to you.) So we'll see, right? It's appealing to my Inner Nerd, anyway. Aaah, graphs and spreadsheets.

Comments

[everyday-fire.livejournal.com]

The consumers I work with have menstrual charts for the staff to keep track of their cycles and make sure everyone is regular and whatnot... This appealed to my inner nerd so much that I grabbed a chart and charted all last year... it was pretty interesting!!

And I realized that 95% of the times that I get upset and cry and think my partner is insensitive fall within The Week Before. I used to think PMS was a joke for all the reasons you listed, but after charting, I realized that they didn't make it up, they just exploited us over it to make money.

[estrange.livejournal.com]

I once ovulated on day 25 without fertility drugs!

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would prefer to be stuck into the special tent for a week to cramp and bleed with all the other women, but they don't seem to do that anymore.

[riggeronfire.livejournal.com]

i got put on metformin and it made me sick - i'm going to try again later..... yeah PCOS buddy!

[stapynam.livejournal.com]

pms is very real. i am very regular and every month i feel like i have had a brain transplant for a couple days. it's the worst feeling.