dear cosmo: stop shaming women’s bodies

{ Please note: this is NOT a post about how awful contraceptives are – I myself used The Pill for eight years, without any side effects – except for the time I tried to “skip” my period with the placebo pills, which is what this article in the Cosmo is encouraging (amongst other things). This IS an article on the importance of using positive language around the female body, in particular, our menstrual cycles, and how damaging it can be for female empowerment to create a disconnect between the natural rhythms of their bodies and minds } 

Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me a screenshot of an article in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan (South Africa, May/June 2019) that made my blood turn cold and my neck heat up with rage. I stopped buying magazines a few years ago when I realised that they were completely out of touch with my reality and trying to sell me ideas and products that were not always in my best interests (surprise, surprise). So whilst I’m not often shocked by some of the kak bylines I see as I scooch past the magazine aisle, this article really did made my jaw drop. I actually had to go out to my local Spar and check that the magazine on the stands did indeed have this article within it, and that it was the latest issue, from 2019, and not one from the 90’s.

The article is titled “Alert: You Can Officially Cancel Your Period” with the subheading “Opt Out of That Nonsense”.

This is no new news to me – every girl worth her weight in Yasmin at university in the early noughties knew that if you skipped the placebo pills you could “cancel” your “period” (although it’s not really a period, because The Pill prevents ovulation, and by definition, you need to ovulate to experience a period, but I digress). It was an unwritten law shared across dormitory corridors, however, that you shouldn’t do it very often. Although no one really knew why, I guess it had something to do with an inherent wisdom that messing around with the artificial hormones you’re already putting into your body was probably not be a good idea. These suspicions were confirmed for me when I decided at the age of twenty-six to try “skip my period” whilst away on a week-long beach trip with my boyfriend. I really didn’t want my period to get in the way of running around in my bikini and what would hopefully be loads of sexy-time. Well, it didn’t really work, and I spotted most of the week anyway. Fast forward to a couple of months later, and I was woken in the middle of the night by a pain so excruciating in my lower belly that I paced the house like a caged animal, until I eventually keeled over on the floor, clutching my stomach in an agony I hadn’t felt since my appendix almost burst. I was at my gynae the next morning and after a quick scan, it was confirmed that I had a big cyst on one of my ovaries. She asked, since I was a rather healthy individual, if I had recently changed anything in my lifestyle, or if I had changed contraceptives. I told her about the skipping of the placebo pills and she was not impressed. She made it very clear that one should never mess around with contraceptives, and especially not without the advice of a medical practitioner first. She sent me off (a little red-faced, I have to admit) with a heavy dose of antibiotics and a resolve to give birth control a break for a while. I have never gone back. (my choice, I don’t judge anyone who is using birth control.)

The article in the Cosmo states that it is safe to skip the placebo pills, but then right at the end, quickly mentions that you shouldn’t do so without consulting your doctor first. So is it really safe then? And let’s be honest here, how many young girls are going to take the time (and spend the money) to book a doctor’s appointment to check if they can indeed skip a few pills? I know I didn’t and I was a twenty-six year old adult! I suspect, on reading this article, that many girls (young women are the Cosmo demographic, after all) around the country will be experimenting, unadvised, with the notion of “cancelling” their period. I really, really hope that they don’t damage their bodies and end up like me, in the doctors room, getting a harsh lecture and a R2000 medical bill.

Aside from the worrying health aspect of the article, the language towards menstrual cycles – a perfectly natural function of the human female body – is, quite frankly, disgusting and disheartening. It verges on serving the patriarchal notion that women’s bodies and our bodily functions are shameful and embarrassing. It hints that we should be more like society’s ideal “man” – ready and able to work, and do, and serve the capitalist machine at all times of day and night, without something as petty as a period to slow us down. I could go very deep into this topic of how The Pill and other hormonal contraceptives make women subservient to the capitalist system by inhibiting our natural flow of energy and emotions, but I think you get the gist (if you don’t have a clue, please consider reading the books and websites listed at the bottom of this post). Instead, I’m going to come at this from the angle of self-love and self-care and body-positivity, which, to be fair, is a movement that many women’s magazines have picked up on and are trying to portray in their pages, and I’m going to ask, why are we still shaming and spreading misinformation and untruths about the menstrual cycle? Why are we calling our monthly bleed “nonsense”? Is it really nonsense? The only blood in the world that comes from life, not death, the blood that enables us all to be here, is casually dismissed as “nonsense”? And just like that, our feminine power, the very essence that makes us woman and sister and lover and mother, is tossed aside and dismissed, much like the fundamental rights of our foremothers before us. 

The first line of the article states that, “aside from the monthly reassurance that you’re not getting knocked up, getting your period sucks.”  My heart breaks at the thought of my daughter reading this one day and thinking that the magic and power she carries in her womb, that her ancestors have carried for centuries before her, “sucks”. Is it not enough already that young women grow up with so many insecurities, that we now too have to make them anxious about a completely natural part of themselves? How about we start teaching our girls that their whole menstrual cycle (it’s not only about the bleed, but the weeks leading up to it) is sacred and that it is their own special connection to both the earth and spirit? How about we educate them that women are the only beings whom are able to bring forth actual life through their ability to ovulate and bleed? How about we finally stop shaming our young women about their bodies, once and for all? Because you can wax lyrical about how to choose the best scented candle for your me-time bath or how to meditate in five minutes, but if you’re telling us that one of our most basic bodily functions is “nonsense” and “sucks”, well I’m not sure you really care about us, or our bodies, or our place as women in this world at all. 

I don’t know how much longer Cosmopolitan or any other “women’s magazines” are going to survive on our shelves. They seem to be dropping like flies and I’m wondering if this is perhaps due to their double standards when it comes to “lifting up” women and disempowering them at the same time? I, for one, believe that the younger generation are too smart to fall for this bullshit. Either way, I really, really hope that any of the young women who read that article could see straight through its dispiriting language and chucked the entire magazine straight in the bin. I hope.

Cosmo, do better please. Our bodies are not here to be commented on, dismissed, damaged or disgraced. We are so much stronger than that. We hold so much more power than that. You need to start believing in it or we will stop believing in you.

 

Books to read on embracing your cycle:

• Wild Power by Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer & Alexandra Pope (check out their website and free online course too at redschoolonline).
• Love Your Lady Landscape by Lisa Lister
• Check out Claire Baker’s site and amazing eBooks – thisislifeblood.com
• Woman Code by Alisa Vitti

And if you’re inspired by the above and would like to start embracing your own menstrual cycle and reconnecting with your inner power, you can begin by learning about, and tracking your cycle, with the La Luna La Femme Moon Journals.

Image: Amy Keevy by Katinka Bester