Menstruation sucks. Even as a guy I've known that for some time, but today I've learned that it sucks beyond the one week per month hell women have to go through, and that women seem to suffer through it a lot more frequently in the first world. Also, it seems that it is something we could, and perhaps should, change.
I'm reading Malcolm Gladwell's What the dog saw and as usually he is steering my mind into unexplored areas. One of the essays is talking about "the pill" and while it really talks about Churches' impact on the contraception as we know it, it really made wonder about menstruation. It turns out that as a twenty-something man I know next to nothing about it, despite being well educated, well read and married. I'm willing to wager that I'm not special in that regard. Up to today I was fine with that, but now I think all of us should know more.
It turns out that menstruation is tightly linked with a variety of cancers (ovarian and breast for starters) and that each menstruation increases your odds for those cancers. So each "time of the month" not only sucks those days in the month, it is actually hurting the health prospects for the future. This is especially significant now when women are having more periods in their lifetime.
The obvious reason for this is of course the number of pregnancies a woman goes through in her life. Since women don't menstruate during the pregnancy and for some time after, during breast feeding, pregnancies mean less periods. The down side is that women have less children in the first world, therefore more pregnancies and increased health risks that comes with that. But that's not the entire story, as women get their first period earlier and menstruate more frequently in the first world too.
The idea that the regularly-scheduled once-per-month menstruation is a somewhat new development in the human experience is entirely knew to me. I was taught women menstruate every 28 days, on the dot. I heard more or less plausible theories how and why this coincides with the lunar cycle for a verity of good and not so good reasons. While I've heard of some women not being quite so regular, I thought they were the anomaly, so imagine my surprise when learning of studies done on pre-industrial societies expect that historically women only experienced around 100 menstruation in their lives, compared to the nearly 400 in the first world of today.
This is where the contraception comes in. It enforces a 28 day cycle, making women have a large number of pregnancies, despite the fact that it is entirely unnecessary. The drug is dosed so because John Rock hoped it will help convince The Church (and less urgently women themselves) that it is a natural thing and nothing to ban. Disappointingly Iit also failed in this regard, the church banned it anyway. There is nothing in the medicine itself that would require one off-week every three weeks. In fact, some scientists think that women wouldn't have to menstruate at all. Additionally, scientists found that putting women in a state of early, temporary, menopause reduces their health risks enormously for each year in that state.
Something makes me think that drug isn't more of a thing just because menstruation doesn't directly affect men. I imagine that if there was a condition making men suffer pain regularly, and there was a way to stop that, it wouldn't even be a question. Everybody would sign up the moment they reached puberty, free of charge of course.
I think this is very important and should be talked about. I'm disappointed that despite being well educated first world citizen I know next to nothing about something so significant. I just hope women know more about it, and are making educated decisions about their bodies. Somehow I doubt it. What do you think, do we know enough about this, or are we in the dark just because it is uncomfortable to talk about it? Can you help me learn more?
No comments:
Post a Comment