“Ways to make periods more inclusive”
Now it’s the Vagina Museum doing it. Yes really – the Vagina Museum.
But women talking about things that concern women (and women only) don’t need to be “more inclusive.” It is just women who menstruate – men don’t menstruate.
But menstruation is “gender-specific” – or rather sex-specific. Women menstruate, men do not, the end.
No. No no no no no, and stop this self-hating women-hating women-disappearing bullshit.
But it’s not true that “anyone can menstruate” – only female people can menstruate. Girls and women can menstruate, boys and men can’t.
The replies seem to be all hostile. Good.
Ok, you’re done now.
Zing.
(The penis museum in Reykjavíc has had no comment) :P
I actually don’t mind “starting puberty”. I have always hated that “becoming a woman” as if periods are the only thing that make you a woman.
The rest of it? No way.
I think the shame issue relats to language that makes women feel their bodies are dirty, i.e., “sanitary products” I can get on board with that.
@5 I was just going to write the same thing–I remember having a moment when someone pointed out the OTT way used pads are treated as some kind of deadly biohazard while shitty diapers and god knows what are just dealt with like ‘normal’ human excreta. So I’m all for ‘menstrual’ rather than ‘sanitary’.
Menstruation is a physiological process, so gender identity has zero bearing on it. If you menstruate, you are female (a lot of genderfeelz people will read that to mean ‘all women menstruate’, showing that logic is not their strong suit).
These fools in charge of the Vagina Museum’s twitter account don’t know what gynae- means. FFS!
“What you’ve got to consider when doing” is a formulation for caveats.
So if you’re being inclusive the things you’ve got to consider, are things which would be reason to not include someone.
So my list of three things:
1: Is this person likely to threaten other members of the group you’re trying to include? If you’re including someone who say, threatens violence against people who disagree with them and not everyone in the group is going to agree on everything, then that maybe is someone you shouldn’t be including.
2: Does the ideology of the person you’re trying to include in some way fundamentally conflict with the ideology of the group you’re trying to include them in? If your group’s ideology centers around consent, and this person thinks that their sexual advances being rejected is bigotry – well they maybe shouldn’t be included.
3: Does this person spend most of their time looking for a reason not to be an ally to other members of the group? IE, someone who is so intersectional that they can’t march alongside anyone, has kind of excluded themselves.
4. Does the person hold beliefs or make statements utterly and completely hostile to basic biological reality? Maybe that person should be encouraged to limit xer participation in politics to Twitter, not your grpoup?
I would say someone who menstruates but insists they are not a woman has excluded herself from the group. Not the group’s problem.