Do I make this stuff up? No, I do not. Specifically, Eugene wants to know:
… When you menstruate, do you feel that you’re part of the “in crowd”? If you chose to stop — not because of menopause, which is a marker of age and of lost fertility, but voluntarily and reversibly — would you feel “out”? Do you smile and talk to your friends about the cramps, the mood swings, and the like? Do you feel you derive meaning from the fact that you share menstruation as an experience with other women? Would you feel meaning subtracted if you stopped menstruating, because menstruation is so “central” a “female experience”? Do you find menstruation to be similar to pregnancy in any emotionally positive way?
Well, one thing I’ve learned is that if you want all the men to leave a room at breakneck speak, just uttering the word “uterus” will sometimes do the trick. Uterus. Still reading? I think Eugene needs to be educated gently and incrementally, so the first thing I’m going to do is send him a copy of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume. Then, when he seems to have grasped the thirteen year old perspective, in a decade or so, I’m going to send him a package of Always and a bottle of Pamprin, and urge him to enroll in an introductory course in Women’s Studies. Somehow I picture him showing up for the first class wearing one of these:
Eventually, I will put him in a dress, heels and make-up and force him to ride the subways in Chicago. There will be video, I promise.
–Ann Bartow
Update: Read Belle Lettre’s take here.
Update 2: Ann Friedman had some fun with this at Feministing. Apparently, however, Eugene is experiencing bloating and cramps.
Update 3: See also the Reproductive Rights Prof Blog.
I’m sure I’ll regret this in the morning, but what the heck …
Eric:
I swear, I was going to post something similar on the VC, but you did a better job than I would have.
The bright side of this whole deal, is that this must be the first time there’s been a thread on the VC in which a majority of the posters are women.
Really, you think those commenters are really women?
Ann:
Well, of course I don’t know, but I was assuming they were being honest. Anyway, I would give Eugene Volokh a little credit: there was a previous thread on the VC about this issue in which it was pretty clear only men were posting (about how women feel about their periods). So at least in the second post he was trying to solicit input from women.
I think many are posting in drag, for lack of better way to describe the situation, but who knows.
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Minor nitpick: the “subway” here in Chicago is elevated (except two lines downtown) so we call it the “El”.
And either my generation is fundamentally different or law school has made me really out of touch (very plausible) but why is this new drug such a topic of discussion??! A woman taking birth control that happens to stop her period is *that* controversial? Wow. I *do* need to get out more.
Ann:
What are you objecting to? Is it the subject of the question… or the sex of the questioner?
A birth control pill has been approved for sale in the US that stops menstration. Initially Volokh’s only concern is if it’s healthy. He dismisses an argument that menstration might be an important part of the female experience. Then he thinks he might have been a little presumptuous. So he asks for women to comment.
I don’t think Volokh is suggesting a particular response. I think its an honest question.
If a woman’s studies professor asked you this question would you find it too objectionable to consider, or would you answer it?
By the way, my answer to Eric’s question is “no.”
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Eric, maybe you didn’t notice, but your analogy just confirms EV’s suspicion, that menstruation falls within that category of “[s]hared experiences that you don’t bond over: hangnails, nearsightedness, tooth decay.” Or maybe I read you wrong; maybe you do discuss your nocturnal emissions with other men and thereby obtain a sense of male solidarity.
Maybe I missed it in the rush of men fleeing from your use of “uterus,” but I don’t seem to have heard you answer Eugene’s questions. I’m especially curious about the last three:
Do you feel you derive meaning from the fact that you share menstruation as an experience with other women? Would you feel meaning subtracted if you stopped menstruating, because menstruation is so central a female experience? Do you find menstruation to be similar to pregnancy in any emotionally positive way?
However you answer, could you please also indicate whether, in your judgment, your feelings are idiosyncratic or generally shared among women.
Many thanks.
As it turned out, I didn’t regret it in the morning, even though the thrust of my lame satire seems to have eluded some.
I know that stephentg’s questions were directed to Ann, but speaking for myself, my objection to Volokh’s query is neither the subject of the question nor the sex of the questioner. The subject of what personal and shared significance menstruation has for women is unquestionably a proper and interesting one, and I don’t believe the subject should be off-limits for men.
What I found objectionable was what struck me as the flippant and dismissive tenor of Volokh’s query. It didn’t read to me as though he was inviting a serious discussion of the subject, but rather that he was mocking the very notion of discussing such a subject. Perhaps he didn’t intend it that way. But it appears, from the discussion his comment has generated, that I’m not alone in having read it that way.
And that was the point I was trying to get across in my spoof. Rephrase the question to be directed at men (and I hasten to say that I don’t really think there’s any meaningful analogy between menstruation and nocturnal emission) and the non-serious tenor of the query becomes readily apparent (at least I thought so).
Seamus appears to think that men never discuss and bond over things like nocturnal emission. I can assure him (and others) that I don’t personally engage in such discussions. I’m a pretty diffident and uptight person, and don’t much go in for “male bonding” at all. But, having been a teenage boy, I’ve certainly sat through more than one such conversation.
Eric, your satire was very funny and spot on.
Actually, the “satire” wasn’t. It was pretty stupid.
It would seem Bartow is really objecting to the fact that a man asked the question. I sincerely doubt that she would be objecting if a woman asked questions about the pill and its reception by the public and why it was received as such. The woman, of course, would have a personal experience with menstruation, one that Volokh lacks, and thus, wouldn’t be asking this question to make up for her own lack of personal experience. She might, however, ask it anyway to just see what the different perspectives are amongst her readers.
So, essentially, Bartow is just bashing Volokh because he is a man.
As for the “satire” being stupid there are many reasons, the least being, there is no pill presently available that would prevent such things. If there were, maybe there would be a discussion about it, but there isn’t.
Furthermore, while teenage boys might mention having a wet dream it’s not some big rite of passage. Wet dreams don’t occur on a schedule like menstruation. Wet dreams don’t last for days on end. You don’t get bloated from wet dreams. And wet dreams don’t HURT. Indeed, they are pleasurable. Sure, you wake up and have to change the sheets, maybe, or whatever you are wearing and that sucks, but if you were having the greatest wet dream in the world, you might wake up with the biggest damn smile on your face–ah, that dream with Jessicas Biel, Alba, Simpson was just damn grand wasn’t it.
When has a woman EVER felt pleasure from menstruation. Indeed, all one has to do is watch daytime television to see all of the talk about PMS and cramps and bloating and birth control that helps “with that time of the month.” It would seem that it is not a pleasurable experience, though it is regular and common.
So, how in any way does that compare with a “nocturnal emission,” except that it is only something one sex does.
There is no pill for wet dreams. There never will be a pill for wet dreams. There is no market for it. There are no significant number of boys or men troubled by wet dreams.
There is a pill for menstruation reduction or remission. There is a market for it. Women are bothered by their cycle.
So, Eric, it’s pretty stupid and I’d think a law professor would be able to see how your post in no way compares to what Volokh was asking.
Oh, and another thing: why would you want to say the word “uterus” in a crowd of men, assuming that the discussion isn’t a medical one.
I’m sure Bartow will say well, women have uteri and men are screwed up because they aren’t mature enough to hear about it. If that is said, it’s nonsense. Everyone has something and depending upon the venue it isn’t necessarily appropriate to discuss it.
If I was in a crowd of women and I just, out of nowhere, started mentioning the word “testicles” over and over again, I’d drive women out of the room, too. I’m sure they might even think I was nuts.
But, I guess that just shows the women’s fear of the male reproductive system and their fear of it.
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