Love in the Time of Contempt by Joanne Fedler

Author:Joanne Fedler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Hardie Grant Books
Published: 2014-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

On the first day I got my period, my father made a tearful announcement at the dinner table that ‘his little girl had grown up’. I curdled inside. Surely, whatever was going on between me and my sanitary pad had bugger-all to do with my father, and how dare he even mention that I was menstruating, let alone cry about it? But according to the narrative in my family, we ‘shared’ everything and ‘expressed our emotions’, so I assumed my unwillingness to have my news announced over Monday night spaghetti and meatballs meant I was just immature. (As an adult, I realise I had an inkling of what constitutes a boundary.)

Managing blood flow from a body part you can’t see is a private business and does not require a support group or any form of congregational activity. Trying to remain upbeat about periods when – let’s face it – they curtail physical and sexual adventures, ruin expensive Egyptian cotton sheets and cramp you up seems insincerely cheery.

But then in my twenties I fell into a crowd of feminists, women who had special ‘circle ceremonies’ and treated ‘menses’ as sacred (who calls a period ‘menses’, for God’s sake?). I learned that when women bleed we are ‘releasing attachment energy’, and that we need to have ‘sacred connection and prayer practices so the womb doesn’t fill with negativity’. Despite this, I have never quite been able to translate these ideas into my own menstrual cycle; but, never mind, I decided I’d make up for these deficiencies with my own daughter. I fantasised that on that special day, there’d be some deep unspoken bond between us. I’d cover her with rose petals and pass on pieces of jewellery handed down in my family.

But let me tell you now that our plans for what will happen when our teenage daughter gets her period may not materialise. There may very well be no ‘bleeders uniting’, no comparing of notes or chatting about which tampons are better and which pads more absorbent. For instance, our daughter may not let us know that her period has arrived. Or she may not want to talk about it. She may prefer to confer with her peers about how to insert a tampon and leave us out of it altogether. One must be prepared for such eventualities.

When I mentioned my plans for a special ceremony, with candles and incense and other women bearing gifts to welcome her into the fold, Shannon’s face crinkled in a mixture of mortification and horror. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said. I was crushed. I thought perhaps having a feminist as a mother might have infiltrated her psyche the way my genes have taken up occupancy in her DNA.

But on reflection, I realised that at thirteen, feminism is as incomprehensible as childbirth. You don’t get politicised by osmosis. Also, bleeding isn’t a political act. It’s a biological one. And despite what your mother thinks – or even what you think – about how biologically discriminatory it

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