Women's Health Matters: Period.

Sit tight: this post is a doozy.

I'm a Vagina Warrior.

I realize this is quite a startling way to begin my post, but being a Vagina Warrior drives me, it shapes the way I look at the world, and fuels my passion for women's health advocacy. What exactly is a Vagina Warrior? Well, it stems Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues; I performed in five productions of the show throughout college and two years after I graduated at the first college where I worked. The mission of the V-Day movement is near and dear to my heart, and a Vagina Warrior is someone who fights for women, women's rights both home and abroad, and for the safety and health of women and girls everywhere. My work in health advocacy, particularly around infertility, is how I assign my Warrior status (and when I say Warrior, think dorky Xena sporting Old Navy rather than leather-plated skirt).

So I've got three things my inner Vagina Warrior wants to cover in this post, all related to our periods: Tampons. The Red Tent. Project Vital Sign. Sound interesting? Read on.

So I was thrilled when I saw the new Kotex U commercials:

I am in no way being compensated for this. This was too damn awesome not to share.

Thank you, Kotex, for keepin' it real. I haven't had a "real" period in months, technically years if you count that fact that while on birth control, it's not an actual period as a result of ovulation, rather, it's withdrawal bleeding from a drop in hormones. I'm still experiencing breakthrough bleeding on my HRT (the pill), and I had to use a tampon for the first time in over a year last month. I stared at it like, "You want that to go where?" amazed at how quickly I had forgotten all about this strange feminine product. So when I saw this commercial I appreciated that it wasn't trying to sell me this flowered up idea but was like, "Hey. Hey you, you with the XX chromosomes. You're of menstruating age and you need a practical solution to your monthly biological phenomenon. Here, have a tampon." 

I appreciate Kotex's candor, because women don't like to talk about our periods. It's something society doesn't talk about... like infertility. (Funny how women's problems are marginalized into silence.) Which brings me to my next Vagina Warrior subject: the Red Tent Temple Movement and the forthcoming documentary: Things We Don't Talk About. 

 Anita Diamant's The Red Tent is an inspiring fictional retelling of the story of Dinah, Jacob's only named daughter in the Bible. The Red Tent was where the women of Jacob's tribe gathered for their monthly cycles, for births, miscarriages, and shared sisterhood. (If you haven't read it, go do that this summer. And keep a box of tissues handy when you do.) 

ALisa Starkweather has taken the fundamental ideas of The Red Tent and translated them into a movement of women gathering in sacred spaces to share in each other's sisterhood. Our temples are bedecked in red fabrics and welcome to women of all ages, menstruating or otherwise; the Red Tent Temple Movement is about restoring women's dialogue and celebrating the feminine life experience. The Red Tent Temple has allowed me to restore what I felt was lost- my sense of monthly cycles. While I may not bleed every month, I gather with my friends, my sisters near each new moon at the Salem RTT, and that sense of womanly rhythm has returned to my life. Isadora Leidenfrost will be exploring this movement in her forthcoming film, Things We Don't Talk About: Healing Narratives from the Red Tent. I get the sense that this is going to be an important film, and wanted to put this on folks' radars.

Still with me as I talk about all these "woman" problems? You are? Great. Because my biggest problem is calling Aunt Flo a problem. She should be a welcome guest, not a nuisance! CNN recently published an  article online about women's attitudes toward their periods. The article is (fairly) balanced, but the thing that got me was the general tone that "Ewww! Periods are icky and gross and cumbersome." (Yes, I know for some women, they dread their period: heavy flows, debilitating cramps, nausea, and worse.) It was the title that got me: Periods - who needs them anyway?

Who needs periods? Every woman does, that's who! This leads me to my third and final soapbox moment of this post: Project Vital Sign. Sponsored by Rachel's Well, a non-profit women's health organization, Project Vital Sign is working to create a national movement for educators and health professionals to recognize menstruation is just as much of a vital sign as heart rate, blood pressure, or temperature.

Allow me this divergence... I'm still reconciling my feelings on hormonal birth control pills. On one hand, it kept my ovarian cysts at bay all throughout college, after I had already lost an ovary to a torsioned cyst. On the other, it masked my POI for what could have been years. Now they replace the hormones my body cannot produce naturally. I've had this weird give-take relationship with hormonal birth control, so I'm still not sure where my allegiance lies. The point of this brief divergence is to say that eliminating our periods or masking them is a dangerous game, as we lose a basic sign of our reproductive health. My personal thoughts on birth control aside...

Our periods give us a clear picture of our reproductive health and even our overall health. The fact that the media and society paint our periods as nuisance, gross or insignificant is infuriating: it sends the message that we should do away with them entirely, reinforcing broader social constructs of shame, embarrassment, and silence surrounding women's health issues. I know I'm not going to change society, but I'll be damned if I don't try. And look, don't take my word for it (cue Reading Rainbow music) - Dr. Lawrence Nelson at the NIH/NICHD agrees in a recent piece on NPR:

"There's this disconnect," says Nelson. "The menstrual cycle is just seen more as a nuisance by many women. But actually, [when periods are regular] it's the sign that the ovaries and the whole endocrine system related to reproduction is working the way it should."

My points, after this whole long, ranting post?

Love your period. 

Celebrate your womanhood. 

Advocate for women's health issues.

Because women's health matters. Period.