The M word

A commercial I saw recently leads me to pick up (though somewhat tangentially) from where I left off the last time. I ended that post with a link to the ever eloquent Tamil Punkster’s post on Hindu culture’s attitude towards menstruation and menstruating women, which if you haven’t read already, you should.

Anyway, things on this side of the world aren’t much different. I saw a Midol commercial a few days back and okay, have you heard their tagline? It’s ‘Reverse the Curse’. Really. ‘The Curse’. You’d think we women spent 3 (or more) days every month incarcerated in a windowless room forced to listen to Bryan Adams. ON-REPEAT. And at the end of all that the men had the babies anyway. I mean, ‘The Curse’? Come on. At first I wasn’t paying much to attention to the voice-over, or even the actual commercial though I vaguely perceived a woman skipping along the shore of a beach all giggly because, well yeah, that is exactly what us chicks like to do when we’re not menstruating. And then – “Midol, Reverse the Curse!”, proclaims a disembodied voice.

I don’t get it. I mean, yes it’s not exactly rainbows and butterflies when the womb is all crampy and spewing out blood but what is so “The Curse” about it? It’s just as natural and essential a process as any of women’s other bodily functions and well, no menstrual cycle = no mankind. So then maybe our wombs are a bad thing after all, seeing as how most of mankind is so sexist, racist and homophobic. But that’s besides the point.

So why the wrinkled noses at the very mention of periods? Why the immature whining and name calling?