Anything You Can Do I Can Do Bleeding
An Exploration of the Oppression of Menstruators
Ava Lundbohm
Why Menstrual Oppression?
The social injustice I will be addressing is the systemic oppression of menstruators. To non-menstruators, periods are viewed as taboo, unclean, and the fault of the menstruator. Nearly every woman and plenty of non-binary folks, and transgender men and boys go through the menstrual cycle, yet it is still so stigmatized by a world that is made to fit cis-gender, non-menstruating men.
I chose this topic because as a menstruator, I am so sick and tired of being told to suffer in silence, or that getting my period makes me inferior. I am also president of the PERIOD Chapter club at Fontbonne, and I have realized that not enough people who menstruate are educated about their cycle because there is not a proper, safe, environment to discuss such matters at our school or other high schools around the country.
Everyone who menstruates, whether they be cis-gender women and girls, non-binary persons, or transgender men and boys, does not fit into the mold that society idealizes of cis-gender men who do not menstruate. It is time we smash the stigma surrounding a natural bodily function that is vital for reproduction and benefits everybody.
A Violation of Justice
Justice is love on the societal level and is an effort to change social structures that keep people from reaching their potential. It is essentially a right relationship where we recognize that we are all communal beings who both need and are needed by others.
The systematic oppression of menstruators is a violation of social justice because it is rooted in a broken relationship. People who do not menstruate have a broken way of relating to those who do, as they distinctly separate themselves, sometimes going as far as refusing to acknowledge that this oppression exists. This brokenness becomes cemented in societal structures and is systemically upheld by the patriarchy. The unjust groundings make it all the more difficult to acknowledge and fight the stigma around menstruation.
