How is it that in 2014, with all the advances in technology, women still use pads and tampons to deal with their periods? The process of dealing with this monthly issue is so archaic, messy and uncomfortable that most women still suffer tremendously and suffer in silence because they are very shy to talk about it.
I often hear that women should celebrate their periods and think of it as a gift. However, how is that kind of thinking possible with an endless flow of blood gathering between your legs that at some point promises to overflow and embarrass the daylights out of you? How is that possible, when the bleeding goes on for days on end and everything below the neck hurts? Perspective is important, but when one has to take 6 to 12 pills per day just to deal with menstrual cramps, positive thinking goes out the door.
Some women have decided to use contraceptives to somehow control their periods, but still they have to use pads and tampons to deal with it a few times per year. For these women, when they start using the contraceptives, they may bleed lightly (spot) everyday for a few MONTHS while their bodies get adjusted to having the extra hormones in its system. Seriously, how is that acceptable? These contraceptives also have potentially disastrous side effects that have created many horror stories for some women from becoming overweight and not being able to reproduce to hip replacement surgery. Yes, that's what you read, hip replacement surgery!
The Facebook post that I mentioned earlier posed some interesting solutions that didn't sound too difficult to attain in the future, however, they would require some amount of medical research. The post proposed a procedure
- where a woman would visit the doctor once per month so that her entire period could be removed at once
- where a woman could take some medicine that would expel the entire period at once
- where a woman's period producing body parts would be removed and stored by something like a cryo clinic then when she's ready to reproduce, it could be re-installed
To this list I would like to add,
- a procedure whereby the period is suspended by a drug until the woman is ready to reproduce
- alternatives to pads and tampons ( in this regard, I must say some advancements have occurred. There are menstrual cups available these days. However, they have not gotten enough popularity in my opinion and many women are of the opinion that these cups are gross and would not want to touch their own body fluids or wash it out of a cup.)
In regards to alternatives to pads and tampons, there is also a cloth pad revolution going on that is meant to save the environment :). Again, many women are a bit squeamish about this, but personally I believe that this is a step in the opposite direction technologically. I think the menstrual cups have more promise for the future and not to mention they are also environmentally friendly, but are less squeamish in comparison to cloth pads.
In the future, I would like periods to be reduced to just one day or an hour better yet a few minutes of a woman's life per month or year. Having a period to deal with each month seriously reduces a woman's productivity and freedom. If we could create some sort of medicine that could expel the entire period in one go then that would be great.
People often talk about equality between men and women, but how can we seriously discuss such a topic when women become physically less capable for certain days of every month and when they have all these period related needs? There is no male experience that compares with the female experience of a period and in that sense, we can't be completely equal. I am yet to find anything beautiful about having a period and it seems unnecessary unless you want to become pregnant. So, let's find a way to lessen it, or eliminate it, so we can get on with our lives more comfortably! But until then, let's find better ways to cope with this monthly burden!
By the way, I've found a 17 year old advocate for cloth pads and menstrual cups on YouTube. She's a wealth of information and I must say super brave! After finding her channel, I've seen a whole new world that I didn't know existed before. Her YouTube name is Precious Stars Pads.
Check her out at: https://www.youtube.com/user/preciousstarspads
Here is a video on 'Environmentrual cloth pads'. She's super cute, isn't she? She's inspiring and so comfortable talking about her lady parts and periods.
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