How Talking about Women’s Periods Ruined a Perfectly Good Date
I was having a great Sunday brunch date with an American guy who started a successful English language school in Taiwan. Food was good and we were sipping mimosas on a nice spot steps from the ocean. When talking about the business challenges he faced, he alluded to the annoyance of having mostly female teachers on payroll, who “wouldn’t show up for work if they were on their period.”
I couldn’t help telling him his comment sounded somewhat ‘misogynistic’ (as in strongly prejudiced against women), sort of a biggie for me.
To my surprise, he turned defensive, clearly irritated by my response. I asked if he would consider why a woman could be offended by a comment like that. Instead, he said he didn’t want to have to watch every single word coming out of his mouth around me. Fair point. He shouldn’t have to. I just would prefer he didn’t think that way at all.
Truth be told, I find that the older I get, the less patience I have for things like this, especially coming from someone I’m trying to like. The thing is, I believe that what we say is a reflection of the way we think. And whether we recognize it or not, “innocent” comments like his carry a hidden sexism that we need to start noticing — and keeping out of our conversation — if we want to promote equality, respect and love for women.
This might seem like a silly argument to a guy, but I believe that changing the conversation about women to a supportive and respectful one also means changing the conversation about our periods.
Let me explain.
I often hear generalizations being made about women based simply on the fact that we bleed every month. Yet, in all my years of professional life, I can’t remember ever calling in sick because I was on my period. I might have left earlier than usual once or twice due to an unexpected start of my cycle or an inconvenient ‘accident,’ and I’ve definitely wanted to stay in bed more than once during those first days, but I’ve pushed through it just like I would on any other day, with extra chocolate in my purse, because that’s what women usually do.
It can be painful and uncomfortable, even a drag, but I’m inclined to believe that the nearly 40 percent of female workforce in the world (according to data from the World Bank Group) isn’t staying in bed once a month based on their menstrual cycles, even if they have the legal right to. (According to The Atlantic, in several, mostly East Asian countries, paid menstrual leave is a legal right for female workers.)
As for my friend, I guess I could have asked him a few follow-up questions to try to find out how serious he was about his comment or the real extent of the business issue he had. Maybe it was just a bad joke. Maybe I could have let it go. The fact is that his reaction to my reaction bothered me more than what he said in the first place, and it didn’t seem this was one of those things we should simply “agree to disagree” on.
As women, is up to us to figure out how much tolerance we can have for certain things. A younger version of me would have most likely let it slip. Today, I want to have zero tolerance for sexism in my life. And so, I did.