It took you a full 10 days to prepare for the party. You decorated the room painstakingly for hours and hours every day. You prepared food and washed the floor. On the 11th day you were finished. Happily expecting many guests. But nobody came. Nobody. You thought „tomorrow they will come“. But also the following day, nobody came. Nobody. You waited another day, but still nothing. Then, in great sadness, you started to dismantle the decoration for your party. It took you again many days to accomplish this task. Finally you used a lot of water to wash the remaining dust and debris from the decoration out of your apartment.
And then - you started the preparations for the next party.
It was the 147th month in a row you prepared for the party. Not a single guest ever showed up.
I would like to write these lines to my feminist mother. But sadly she ended her own life many years ago. So I write to you instead, feminist woman of 2025. I want to ask you a few questions. Maybe because you are my last hope.
You tell me that you want to promote the idea that „Menstruation is a natural, healthy, and necessary part of life for women“. Now forgive me when I find this statement utterly confusing. No woman enjoys her period. Many of you experience strong pain and even mood swings (which can even grow to full-blown depressions). Medicine has invented many fancy words acronyms for these sufferings: dysmenorrhea, premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).
„Dys…“, „syndrome“, „disorder“. These words sound like there’s something seriously wrong with your body. I know, you really don’t like old white men like me explaining you your body. But I will try anyway, because I simply can’t afford to respect this wish anymore. I’m really sorry.
Look at your hand. Do you see the extreme perfection with which it is designed? How absolutely perfectly it serves its purpose? So do you really believe your period pain is simply a result of nature having done a „really poor design job“?
What is pain good for anyway? It can serve two purposes: first, it can stop us from doing things which harm us (like touching a hot stove plate). Harm our body or our soul. Or, second possibility (implemented only in social animals), it can warn our fellow human beings that there is something wrong with us. That we need help. This is also why we are capable of feeling crippling pain. This kind of pain would not make sense for a dog (for instance). Because other dogs cannot really help. Crippling pain would therefore needlessly reduce the dog’s survivability in an already difficult situation. But for humans it does make sense: fellow humans can help. They can take on our work, relieve us and help us to recover quickly.
So what is (or better: was) menstruation pain good for then? To warn people around us that something rare and unusual has happened. Something nobody wants to happen: that all the men in the tribe have ignored a woman for a full month. Your pain and depression are not a „dysphoric disorder“ but simply the totally natural sadness about the fact that you did not get pregnant this month. Again.
I know you don’t like this line of thought. But please continue reading. No, the fact that almost half of our population is menstruating every month is far from natural. In our distant past, menstruation was a rare event. For some women it might even have been a unique event, signaling their sexual maturity (and never seen again later). During almost all of their following (rather short) lives these women were either pregnant or breastfeeding. No period. Period.
Now please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that this is the way things should be (I don’t know much about this yet). I’m only saying: this is obviously the natural way, the way things were for millions of years. A woman’s body is not made for 400 menstruation cycles. This is about a hundred times too many (and the reason why Endometriosis is so common today).
Why does it matter? Because your statement at the beginning is obviously wrong. You don‘t have to be a rocket scientist to discover my line of thought. But why do you want to lie so blatantly to yourself?
I really don‘t know. Maybe you can tell me. Could it be that you got lost? Lost by two orders of magnitude? Or maybe you believe that what we truly are does not matter anymore, because we can shape society into anything we want regardless of our nature?
I have so many questions!
You want laws which prohibit men to touch your derrière without your consent. And then, who will enforce these laws? „Feminist policemen“? Men happily saving the weak „damsel in distress“ from the evil machos?
Wouldn’t it be much easier (and much more fun too!) if you just smacked such men vigorously into the face and make them wear a faithful red replica of your perfect hand on their cheek for a week?
I would much prefer to live in a world inhabited by women of the second kind. I could never understand men’s preference for weak women who need protection. But maybe I’m getting too old to understand.
You want a job in top management. Why the hell would you want such a job? These men’s uniforms with the dark tie and always the same grey suit are symbols of their powerlessness. They are only puppets who have to bow to markets, customers, superiors, politicians and shareholders. Precisely guided by so many invisible strings. Let me tell you (from a little bit of experience): these are not cool jobs, it’s foolish to want one of them, if you have the choice.
Politics? Same same but (only a little bit) different.
But you tell me that you are well aware of this and that you want these jobs only to get your fair share of power. Yes, this is an absolutely justified demand. But you are looking for it at the wrong place. There is no real power in the hands of men. Their violence you complain so much about legitimately, are acts of desperation. Frantic attempts to get hold of the only resource which really matters and from which they have nothing. The riot of the have-nots, the uprising of those who have nothing to lose.
And this precious resource everybody wants so desperately can only be found within yourself. You ultimately control access to it. And you also control the education of children. Like this you actually control both the present and the future. Already for thousands of years.
Therefore, all these long invisible strings guiding men are, sometimes after many redirections, finally ending up at your fingertips.
How is it possible that you feel so powerless today?
It's because you don't feel the strings. You are not even aware anymore that they reach to you. Instead, you are using your fingers to pick your nose while ranting about the mistakes of men.
It's because your mother has crippled your power. She did it out of fear that you will use it unwisely. That you will waste the family fortune and that she could lose control over you. And as a concession to the mother of your husband. She feared - understandably - that your unrestricted power could allow you to exploit her son, which would be against her interests.
And she achieved this by not teaching you how to use this power. Simply by not even telling you about it. And by scolding you in the unlikely case you were about to discover it yourself. By keeping it buried under a pile of shame.
And when you present me your rather weird views on menstruation today, I realize that all this is long forgotten. That you don’t even know about the power which lies dormant within you today.
And yes, this is a huge problem. It’s not because I believe that you would use this power necessarily for good. No, we are all just humans, women too. But I know that this power must be used today. It cannot remain hidden within its ignorant bearers. It must be unleashed because we must change direction. Only painful chaos can rule in the total absence of power. Of course I hope that you will use it wisely (which will not be an easy task at all!).
But most importantly: just start using it! And stop blaming the few of your sisters who are already experimenting with it.
So far your „demands“ are, in their hilarious modesty, deeply disturbing for me. You want things like „more and cheaper places in day care centres for my children“? Why would you want a stressed out person to „take care“ of 20 kids for money? Is this really your dream? What kind of queen is asking for permission to walk to the river to get herself a glass of dirty water?
Yes, the Cheops-Pyramid is most impressive, but actually totally useless crap. But at least Pharao Cheops knew about the extent of his power. That he could demand huge achievements.
Like this for instance: „I want kids to be able to roam free in the neighborhood, going from house to house satisfying their natural curiosity.. Asking Mr. A to bake a cake with them. Then going to Ms. B to build a cool robot with her. If they spend a night in our neighbors house (because they have such a cute dog) I want to sleep calmly, even if nobody informed me before, because I can be sure they are safe“
Whatever you are going to do with your power, things can only get better. So don’t hesitate, don’t be shy.
We are passengers on a cruise ship. The boat is heading towards a huge iceberg. But the steering wheel is blocked and only the captain is strong enough to make it turn again. But unfortunately the captain was locked in the galley by the whole crew a long time ago. Nobody remembers why, but most sailors agree that it was the right thing to do. She is sitting there, wearing her beautiful captain‘s uniform she has always been so proud of, peeling potatoes. She rants about the crew. That she would also like to be the captain once, instead of only peeling potatoes in the galley and that the idiots on the bridge are steering the ship towards the iceberg. In her panties she is hiding a key which could open the locked door of the galley. She could actually just walk out and head directly to the bridge. Take full control of the ship quickly and save all our souls. But she was told by her mother to never use this key. As a reason her mother told her only that her mother told her the same. Therefore it must be an old, good reason. And anyway: she does not really believe that the key can actually open the door.
Therefore the iceberg keeps getting closer every day. But at least we have enough potatoes to eat.
Does this sound like Franz Kafka‘s most unfunny joke?
Sadly it‘s not a joke but …..
Image on top: Shutterstock
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