Women suffer, we all know this, women have suffered from a
multitude of things over time and there is one thing that continues to plague
every single woman every single month. Menstruation. Not only do we have the
blissful gift of birthing children but the ability to give birth to those
children comes from a painful sometimes week long ordeal starting around our
teenage years until we hit menopause (another gift from God to women). Thankfully
the women of today have many options for dealing with our monthly gift, unlike
the women from the medieval period. Medieval women had the awesome choice
between a cotton scrap of fabric somehow attached to their lady bits to absorb
the blood or they could “also wind cotton fabric around a twig and use it as a
proto-tampon” (Source One). So while medieval women were walking around with
cramps and twig tampons inside of them the medieval men composed stories and myths
about the effects of menstrual blood. It was believed that it was poisonous,
dirty, and acid-like, it could defy nature and create trenches, etc. All around
menstruation was a pretty negative thing to have and talk about in the medieval
era, yet it was not reserved solely for women but it also was believed that
Jewish men menstruated as well. What’s worse than a menstruating woman? A
menstruating Jewish man.
People believed that Jewish men bled from their
bottoms just like women because their bodies were not fully formed like
Christian male bodies (same was believed about female bodies), their body
temperature did not reach that of Christian males therefore they bled just like
women. This butt bleeding was apparently believed to be karmic retribution for
crucifying Jesus, which makes you wonder what exactly did women do to deserve
periods (according to medieval men)? There even was circumcision ceremonies held
for boys to replicate the coming of age period ceremonies for young girls so
that it seemed that men too could possibly have children. It’s comical nowadays
to look back on the crazy medieval people who thought that menstrual blood was
like acid or that Jewish men bled from their bottoms but have we really come
that far ourselves? Periods today are still an almost taboo thing to talk
about, at least around men and kids. The commercials use blue liquid to “test”
the absorption of pads and for some reason they always show women doing things
like tennis in all white clothing, which is not something I think any woman
wants to do while on her period. One of the articles I read mentioned that the
brand Kotex is “running a campaign to explain that no, you won't get eaten by
sharks if you wear a tampon in the sea during that time of the month” (Source
Two).
Over the course of a woman’s lifetime she might spend around $18, 171 on
things she needs for her period (pads, tampons, pain relievers, etc.) (Source
3). So yeah maybe society as whole does not believe that women’s periods can
cause leprosy anymore and that Jewish men aren’t defying biology by also having
butt periods but we’re still at a point where it’s shameful to see period blood
and where women are spending almost twenty grand on something they can’t
control.
