I found Gloria Steinem's article, "If Men Could
Menstruate" to be of particular interest to me. She talks about how if all
of a sudden, men had their menstrual periods and women did not, these "men-struations",
as Steinem calls them, would be looked upon as being something of
power and masculinity. Men would compete with each other when it came to their
cycles about whose is worse, whose lasts longer, etc. etc. Steinem continues by
saying that the government would even get involved with funding men's sanitary
supplies and that celebrities of a high status would be in commercials
advertising these sanitary products. She also comically arises the topic of
street gangs and how these gang members would act hard and tough by making
comments about how they are "on the rag". With all of this, Steinem
suggests that women would then be inferior to men, because menstrual cycles are
a symbol of power, and without these cycles, women are therefore powerless and
the weaker sex. I find this very intriguing, humorous, and true. Power
lies in the hands of those whom we decide. Women do not compete when it comes
to their menstrual cycles, and actually, most of us would get rid of them if it
didn’t involve removal of the uterus, and therefore, a lack of ability to
reproduce. But if men had their periods, they would brag and compete, just as
many of them do about the size of their genitals. There are pills for penis
enlargement and pills to allow men to sustain an erection for a longer amount
of time, and I would bet a million dollars that if men had their periods, they
would come out with pills to increase the longevity of one’s cycle, due to the
fact that power lies with whoever has the longest, worse periods.
No comments:
Post a Comment