The Sisterhood of SelfHatred and Internalized Patriarchy

You know who I get the most shit from about talking more positively, or not just solely negatively and disparagingly about periods? Women.

If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written about periods and the cycle, you know I don’t sugar coat or delude. I don’t portray it as blissful or something we will love every second of. I don’t tell you to paint with your menstrual blood, or that a full moon drum circle is the only way to be with your cycle. (I didn’t make those up, they are straight from the comments section talking shit about women who want to connect with their bodies)

I wish it was the “alpha” males aka insecure wounded boys who become toxic men. I wish it was the evangelicals coming after me. I wish it was the anti-abortion activists. Unfortunately and actually very sadly for me, it’s women who suffer a lot with their periods and who it seems to me, have developed a really strong self loathing around their bodies and their experience with their reproductive system.

I’m writing this because I recently commented on a post on a leading “feminist” account on Instagram. The post was a woman singing a song- clever- about how much periods suck. I posted a pretty innocuous comment saying I appreciated the humor but I thought it was unfortunate that the message being put out was about how bad periods are. And that there is a way to have a better relationship with them. Not that they aren’t painful or a pain in the ass, not to be delusional about them, but we can shift our relationship to them.

What followed was low grade outrage and a barrage of accusations that ran from me victim blaming, being toxically positive, not understanding the experience of women with endometriosis or pmdd, to the really good projections that I reminded someone of their toxic gaslighting mother and their doctor who doesn’t listen to them. Maybe the most interesting accusation and ongoing assumption that came up was how nice it must be that I have a “pain free little period”, with light bleeding, slight cramping and no pain. What showed up was that the worst thing I could do to these women was have a pain free period. That was the ultimate betrayal. Along with suggesting there was an option of not hating ourselves and our bodies.

Being how I am, and maybe because it was this subject, I elaborated. I explained. I shared that I had endometriosis for a few years. I did. I shared I had been on the PCOS spectrum. I was. And that I experienced debilitating cramps and heavy bleeding for years. Also not surprising, it made maybe 3% difference. Someone new “accused” me again of having a perfect period.

What I didn’t share, because it wouldn’t have made a difference, was that along with the above mentioned hormonal issues, I’ve had years where I bled through two stacked overnight pads, and pajamas, and sheets, into the mattress. I’ve thrown up from cramps. I’ve had to call in sick to work. But I don’t give myself more validity by proving how much I’ve suffered. And what became very clear to me was that if I wasn’t willing to trauma bond in the comments, or commiserate and empathize with the suffering and victim mentality, then they were going to come for me.

It was fascinating to me that the only possibility for not hating ones body and self was having never experienced reproductive difficulty. That because I was advocating for education, hormone care, searching out medically accurate treatment, and offering the possibility of not being in a purely victim and self loathing mentality with it, meant I must have this “perfect” period and experience in the world.

Someone replied to me that being in relationship to it (your period) was like asking someone to open themselves to an abusive relationship.

Needless to say I have many thoughts about the whole episode. The first being the personal level that what hurt me the most was the adamancy of these women in hating their experience. And of course no one likes being misunderstood to such a degree. Ouch. I saw a huge attachment to the suffering, but more so an identifying with it as a way to explain it or validate it or justify it. Of course the patriarchal systems were involved in the comments. It was literally asked “Until those systems change, and we have access to medical care and accurate diagnoses, how can we be expected to have a positive relationship with our periods?”. Valid questions and position. But I see a flaw in them. It’s not like those systems of oppression are going to one day come before us and say “You know what we take it back, we want you to have your rights and sovereignty and we respect you as people”. If we are waiting for them to change before we can even contemplate shifting our relationship to our bodies and reproductive systems and selves as women, then we are never going to make that shift. If we only make everything about things outside of us, then yes there is nothing we can do until those things change. Do I have to state things can be about things outside of us and there can be elements that are about things inside us as well? For clarity sake, maybe.

I was accused of victim blaming. And this one had me up in the middle of the night thinking. Rightfully so, it was pointed out to me with some level of kindness, that women suffering and not being happy about suffering isn’t causing the problem. 100%.

What I realized in the middle of the night was that I in fact am operating in a completely different paradigm than what I predominantly encountered. I don’t operate in, or believe that women are ONLY victims of their bodies, periods, and the systems of oppression that affect us. I don’t actually believe at all that we are the victims of our bodies or periods. We definitely suffer at the hands and actions of the patriarchal systems and have for centuries. And I am speaking as a white woman. Who got trolled by mostly- I think- white women. The suffering experienced within and at the hands of these systems for Black women and women of color is 100 fold more.

Talking about being a victim, victim mentality, and internalized victimhood is tricky. It is nuanced, mutable, and is not definitively defined by one situation. Multiple things can be true at once as well. Someone can be a victim of a situation and also have a part in it. Someone can be a victim of a situation and 100% not have any responsibility for what has been done to them. This isn’t a piece about abuse, or rape culture, or women being victimized for having a miscarriage or denied life saving abortions, or abortions of any kind for any reason. I’m not here saying women as victims doesn’t legitimately exist. I’m here saying that in the context of reproductive conditions and period problems of any and all severity, and even given the reality of how much women are gaslit medically and in many many instances when we speak up about our experiences in general, we are not only victims of the patriarchy. In this context what I find fascinating is the prevalence and presence of the victim mentality. What I would also identify as internalized patriarchy.

To me, this self hatred and self loathing that I saw in this comments section is a symptom and by product of living in a patriarchal society that tells us in a myriad of ways that our bodies (and emotions, and ways of processing information) are wrong, and shameful, and gross, but if we look a certain way then they are also desirable. But if they get used in a way we don’t like, it’s our own slutty fault.

We are encouraged to be disconnected from them. We are encouraged and taught to hate them and as an extension, ourselves. We are encouraged and supported to not find anything wrong with the fact of how little we are taught about them. And then when we have all these reproductive issues, at least in some part as a result of that profound level of disconnect and disgust, hello body mind connection, we aren’t believed. Many medical professionals don’t know how conditions like endometriosis and PCOS actually work or develop, or how to successfully treat them without hormonal birth control. They don’t know the detail and nuance of how various forms of hormonal birth control works and how it affects the body and reproductive system long term. And then we are not only given even less than that insufficient level of information, we’re told that we’re being difficult when we press for more. The thing is a lot of women stop there. Because of how conditioned we are to not make waves and be pleasant. We stop because of how deeply that conditioning determines our actions.

I do want to say that that conditioning, and either living within it, or employing/falling back on it when necessary, can be a literal survival tool. The instinct to be meek and quiet and not push back is something in women that has developed both by necessity and by inundation over centuries. As a tool in some instances to literally not be killed or raped. I don’t think men- or at least hetero or hetero presenting men- ever have to think, “If I tell this crazy gas station attendant to not call me sweetie and step the fuck back, is he possibly going to punch me in the face through my open window? Or drag me out of my car?” Ok so I’ll just smile and nod and roll my window up as quick as possible. I know women who have feigned sexual interest when presented with potential violence as a means of distraction and as a pathway to literally running out of the house when someone turned their back or walked into another room. *The first scenario is from my own Experiences As A Woman Archive, the second is not. This is all to say, the use of the conditioning can save our lives.

And the internalization of the messages the systems of patriarchy gives us and that are reinforced by the families, churches, groups, schools, and societies we live in, and the subsequent believing of them, and believing they are our origin and inherent to us as people, is called Internalized Patriarchy. We believe what they tell us. We believe it’s us. Women and men both have this. The fact that we as women then act out those internalized beliefs and project it onto other women and men- ask yourself if you’re truly comfortable with your girlfriend who doesn’t play coy and hard to get with men, or expresses her needs, or dresses how she wants, or sleeps with who she wants, or suggests we may not need to hate our bodies. Ask yourself if you truly make the space for men to be vulnerable and sensitive and emotional and silly. The fact that we then go after women when they challenge us to take some responsibility for that internalization in us, is an example of how women perpetuate and contribute to those systems of patriarchal oppression surviving.

I do not blame women. I deeply pray this is abundantly clear. I don’t blame women for being anywhere on the spectrum of dislike to loathing with their period and/or cycle at large. I don’t blame women for not loving or for hating their bodies. I don’t blame women for believing and even acting out what we’ve been fed for generations. I don’t blame women for not seeing a way out of this paradigm.

This isn’t about blame. This is about asking and then what? Given all the shit stacked against us, how do we want to exist? With in ourselves firstly and then in the world as a reflection and extension of that? Do we want to continue passing these beliefs down through the generations? Do we want to continue feeling so disempowered? Do we want to live inside ourselves with so much self negation and rejection? Is that shame ours? And if not where did it come from?

We are not ONLY victims of this system if we don’t want to be. If we are waiting to be handed our rights we will be here until the end of time, or at least a really really long time. If we are waiting for braver women to keep pressing for information and access and education and some levels of attainable SelfLove, there most likely are some who will do the work for us all. And then what? We’ll drag them in the comments section for the audacity to not join in the sisterhood of self hatred.