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Hormones aren’t the only reason women yell at men

Emily Campbell

Today I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

And when I say “wrong side,” I mean 100% incorrect, you-flunked-the-test, evil shenanigans side of the bed. Not to give you TMI, but of course the day I wake up in a shitty mood just happens to fall on the first day of my period. I’m sure every man who reads my blog (all three of you) has now completely checked out, went to lunch, closed the web page, or at least just looked away in disgust because men usually don’t like talking about periods.

But I’ll bet all of you had the same thought before you stopped reading: “Oh well, of course she is in a shitty mood. She’s on her period.The phrase “She’s on her period” is my second least-favorite phrase of all time, right behind a man telling me to “Calm down” (see my April 12th blog “What women don’t want to hear from a man” to experience the full extent of my rage). Why is it that when a woman has a bad day, tells a man to do something he doesn’t want to do, or simply doesn’t feel like talking, the natural assumption is that she is menstruating? I have just as many bad days off my period as I do on my period, and I’m pretty sure if I made a pie chart it would look like this:

emilyperiod copy

That’s not to say that there aren’t some instances when you can blame our crankiness on our periods. Do you blame us? We are bloated, we have headaches, we get cramps, we have to shove a tampon up there every hour, we can’t go swimming for more than ten minutes, we can’t have sex (this is debatable of course), we eat everything and anything, and we are fatigued more than usual. Anyone suffering from all of those symptoms is bound to be a little edgy. Shit, the last time my boyfriend had a cold he looked like a lost puppy dog. Think about having a cold. Now imagine having a cold for a week every single month from age 13 to age 57.

This debate has been raging for centuries between men and women. I’m sure at some point William Shakespeare looked at one of his good buddies and said, “Anne doth protest too much. She must be on thee rag.” The worst part about this is the arrogance with which men say these words – like he’s the perfect man and we are being completely unreasonable for asking him to change the toilet paper roll. If anything, we are always mad that you don’t change the toilet paper roll, but we just hide it until we don’t give a shit anymore because we feel like crap and it just so happens to be around period time.

Sometimes women are the main culprit of blaming everything on their periods. Ladies, if the words, “I don’t know, I must be getting my period” were used as an excuse at any point in your life, raise your hands. I know I am myself guilty of it at times. And what’s insane is that men will always accept that as a viable reason for everything. Screamed at him about putting the toilet seat down? Oh, she must be on her period. Threw all his dirty clothes out the window because he left them on the floor? Well, it’s her time of the month. Committed vehicular manslaughter in the Walmart parking lot? Just whisper the three letters “P-M-S” and no male judge would convict you. You can literally get away with anything if you just tell people you are bleeding heavily from your vagina.

Women know better than this. I am not trying to say we are perfect angels when we have our periods, but you can’t blame everything on them either. So the next time you roll your eyes, groan internally and think, “She is so bitchy because of her stupid period,” also take the time to think, “Have I ever changed the toilet paper roll?”