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Aunt Flo: The Great Deceiver

"That time of the month" is actually a time of great joy for the ladies!

CONFIDENTIAL TO ALL GUYS

LADIES DO NOT READ

Guys, I think I may have been wrong about this whole “feminism” thing. It turns out that the ladies use what’s called their “periods” to manipulate men and act like perfect entitled princesses — at least, as perfect as you can be when you’re bleeding from your crotch!

Anyway, one of the ladies just spilled the beans in an interview with Jezebel. Rachel Kauder Nalebuff – that is so obviously a fake name – told Jezebel’s Anna North:

[F]rankly I … see [menstruation] as a free pass when it comes to getting out of a bind. Guys often know so little about menstruation that they assume the absolute worst. Maybe out of a fear of menstruation or, even more likely, a fear of seeming insensitive, guys tend to be incredibly generous when it comes to giving you freedom to tend to your “feminine needs.”

Menstruation? More like Men Ruination!!

I hereby renounce feminism.

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Victoria von Syrus
Victoria von Syrus
13 years ago

Does anyone else get really hungry right before their period? Because I totally do. It’s really odd, because I’ll be ravenous for a day or so before the show starts, and then for the next three days I can have like, a sandwich and a muffin a day and be perfectly fine. Then I go back to eating regularly. Part of me wonders if this is healthy, but then again, most of my diet plan consists of ‘eat when hungry, don’t eat when not.’

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

You could, you know, read the actual cited studies to see the methodology but that requires work and that is hard so just dismiss them with a “oh they are feminists (that I never bothered to check to see if they are)” Arks.

Being stupid is really easy-using one’s brain hard. I see why you are in favor of the former.

Sarah
Sarah
13 years ago

Lady Syrus, I totally get hungry right before/during my period! And I crave sweet things. It’s weird! I feel like a a stereotype, but my body demands brownies, so once a monthish I make it brownies. (That I then feed to everyone else. And gross them out by calling them period brownies. =3)

And I think it’s probably pretty healthy to just eat what your body tells you to eat, even if that’s occasionally a bunch of brownies. *shrugs*

Advice on good nutrition changes so often, I think it’s wisest to just listen to your body!

darksidecat
13 years ago

People who complain about their PMS are told there is no PMS, people perceived as women who complain about pretty much anything else have a good chance of being told their problem is PMS. It is funny, but sad. “I have black outs and I don’t drink.” “Stop bothering me about your PMS”. “I have severe abdominal pains the few days before my period”. “Stop making things up. PMS does not exist!”

PosterformerlyknownasElizabeth

I also notice that if a woman says something in anything less then a pleasant tone or complains it is PMS.

So basically it does not exist except when convenient for men.

Ami Angelwings
13 years ago

Feminism is about starting with a conclusion, then looking for evidence to support it. When you combine the two, you get faulty results.

That doesn’t sound like what Arks is doing at all xD

Victoria von Syrus
Victoria von Syrus
13 years ago

@ Sarah: Nice to know I’m not alone! I don’t think I particularly crave sweet things, I’m just ravenously hungry for a day or so. Maybe I should pay attention to that. For the most part, I’m happy to let my body tell me when it’s hungry and when it’s not, and I figure that since this has been a pattern for a decade and a half with no ill effects, it’s probably not a bad thing. I figure the ravenous/not so hungry evens out in the long run, anyway.

I always thought it was odd, because it was never really one of symptoms of PMS that people talk about. I do get mild cramps, but I actually rather welcome them – it’s my body’s way of warning me that I should have some tampons on hand in four to six hours 🙂

Doctress Julia
13 years ago

“Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.”
— Robert A. Heinlein

Captain Bathrobe
Captain Bathrobe
13 years ago

I’m still thinking Ark is trolling. I’m not sure even NWOslave is that willfully obtuse.

Doctress Julia
13 years ago

‘I’m so glad that my boyfriend isn’t weirded out by my period. Sometimes I have excrutiating period cramps and he lies with me and strokes my hair until they pass. The first time it happened, he called his mom (who is a nurse) to make sure I’m okay.’

That made me ‘awww, cuuute’ out loud. What a sweet and nurturing thing to do. :3

ithiliana
13 years ago

I seem to botch up mechanical things during my period-I feel like I have trouble driving (my little red Ford truck is a stick shift, and I clash gears during my period), I get klutzier in terms of dropping things (which I’m doing more anyway because of arthritis!), and I run into things more (NOT while driving, but while walking, thank heavens). I say klutziER beause I tend toward that anyway, spending too much time in my head and not enough time noticing say, where the door is. I cannot think of any appetite things involving my period or the period before it ahahah though….

Sarah
Sarah
13 years ago

Ithiliana, that is because your silly woman brain can’t handle such complex tasks while bleeding at the same time!

theLaplaceDemon
theLaplaceDemon
13 years ago

Arks: For your reading pleasure…

Eriksson O, Wall A, Marteinsdottir I, et al. (2006). “Mood changes correlate to changes in brain serotonin precursor trapping in women with premenstrual dysphoria”. Psychiatry Res 146 (2): 107–16. doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2005.02.012. PMID 16515859.

“NIH Press Release-Hormones Trigger PMS Symptoms – 01/21/1998”. http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/jan98/nimh-21.htm

But also, a PMS-is-socially-constructed theory:

Rodin M (1992). “The social construction of premenstrual syndrome”. Soc Sci Med 35 (1): 49–56. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(92)90118-A. PMID 1496412.

ithiliana
13 years ago

Sarah: Clearly!

And clearly my silly ladybrain kept me from understanding the deep profound truth of that statement!

My partner says that she thinks during the weeks women faculty (or staff) are having their periods, we should get to go around and kick the male faculty (or administrators).

ithiliana
13 years ago

Demon: but all scholarship is controlled by TEH feminsts, so is unworthy!

Plus, in my understanding of the “social construction” theory–in this context–saying PMS has a social construction or is socially constructed does not deny the realities of experiences, but is a way of cultural explanation–i.e. at one point, people who behaved in X way were culturally understood to be possessed by demons. NOw we have different socially constructed explanations for X behavior–i.e. schizophrenia for example.

theLaplaceDemon
theLaplaceDemon
13 years ago

Yeah, the stuff out there on PMS ranges from the mild “we interpret it through a cultural lens” to “it’s all a placebo effect because you think you’re supposed to feel it.”

I think that the evidence for PMS is actually pretty good, particularly the serotonin and hormone stuff. It’s probably not a single cause but rather a cluster of things that might make you feel “ick” all happening at about the same time.

Of course, that’s just my silly ladybrain talking. It evolved to think about duvets and home cleaning products and lipstick. If I don’t stop thinking about all this manly science soon I might develop hysteria or something.

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
13 years ago

@theLapaceDemon:

And that would be a bad thing… why?

Kari Edgerton
13 years ago

I have awful PMS cramps the day before my period. It’s awful. My boyfriend helps by bringing me water (he won’t bring me soda, because he read somewhere the soda makes it worse), and popcorn. I am so lucky that I have him. Not only does he get me pads when I need them, he volunteered to be my “Alternate” at Planned Parenthood. This means he will go and pick up my birth control for me if I can’t. He is awesome!

Magical Laura
13 years ago

Ahh, Alice Madness Returns looks so awesome! I played the first game and really enjoyed it, altho there were many horrible unfair jumping puzzles…

theLaplaceDemon
theLaplaceDemon
13 years ago

@Kirbywarp – haha! excellent.

KristinMH
13 years ago

In re: PMS as a social construct, I think (IANA doctor or anything approaching one, just so you know) it’s possible that PMS is a culture-bound syndrome – that in a different culture with different attitudes towards women and menstruation we would experience it differently and it might not be a problem.

I mean, obviously your mix of hormones changes throughout your cycle, and hormones influence behaviour and mood and pain, but I bet that if menstruation and menstrual blood weren’t basically taboo (seriously, the way a lot of men react if they see or touch the blood or anything with the blood on it? Like it has the magical power to make their dicks fall off) PMS wouldn’t be so bad.

So in order to test this hypothesis we must run an extremely long term double-blind placebo controlled study. We will divide society into, say, four groups: one explicitly misogynistic and patriarchal, one somewhat misogynist and patriarchal but in denial about it (kind of like now), one feminist Utopia, and one feminist Utopia that claims to be misogynist and patriarchal (kind of like what MRAs think now is like). Then we’ll measure levels of PMS in each society and see who has the most/worst/has it at all.

I think it’ll take about 500 years and involve terraforming a couple of planets. Who’s good at writing NIH grants? XD

theLaplaceDemon
theLaplaceDemon
13 years ago

“Who’s good at writing NIH grants? XD”

I’m on it! How much should I put in the budget for space travel?

Plymouth
Plymouth
13 years ago

You can’t really do a full double-blind test on the psychological effects of PMS because you can’t reliably create a group of women who do not know if they are premenstrual. I mean, sometimes a few people don’t know because they don’t track these things or are irregular, but most women have a reasonably good idea.

KristinMH
13 years ago

Plymouth, on the completely misogynist/patriarchal planet, no one would talk about PMS or periods ever. All knowledge of menstruation would be surpressed. When a girl started to menstruate, her doctor would tell her that she had a mysterious and shameful illness and should never tell anyone about it. And mothers would be forbidden on pain of death from correcting them.

We would measure PMS levels by asking randomly selected women to keep pain/mood diaries (we’ll tell them it’s an important survey for the Ministry of Motherhood) and rummaging through their garbage/laundry to line up the diaries with their periods.

See, I’m a brilliant scientest! Where’s my Nobel prize?

LaPlace Demon, I suppose we should work on that warp drive thing before filling out that line. I’ve got some free time this week, I should be able to knock up a prototype by Friday.

AWS
AWS
13 years ago

The Facts:

Of overall chlamydia diagnoses reported in 2009, the rate of infection among women was almost three times higher than the rate among men: 592.2 cases per 100,000 population compared to a rate of 219.3 among men. This is thought to be due to the higher number of women screened for chlamydia. For gonorrhea, the rate among women was 105.5 (cases per 100,000 population) compared to a rate of 91.9 among men. The rate of primary and secondary stage syphilis was higher among men – 7.8 cases (per 100,000) were reported for men in 2009, compared to 1.4 for women.