We're expected to function like capitalist robots in our culture, but we don't power on and off the same way every single day. Period underwear, tampon taxes, menstrual leave, and more — this episode offers a look at the state of menstrual health in the US, the violent roots of gynecological care, where we've made progress, and where we could definitely see some improvements. '
**Note: In this episode I mention 700K covid deaths — I misspoke! As of this recording, we are closer to 600K deaths in the US.
This episode is supported by my FREE WORKSHOP: The Patriarchy vs. Your Body, happening on May 19th. If you can't make it live, RSVP anyway to get the replay emailed to you.
Enjoy the show? Say thanks with a cup of tea.
Mentioned in this episode:
Thanks for listening!
We're expected to function like capitalist robots in our culture, but we don't power on and off the same way every single day. Period underwear, tampon taxes, menstrual leave, and more — this episode offers a look at the state of menstrual health in the US, the violent roots of gynecological care, where we've made progress, and where we could definitely see some improvements. '
**Note: In this episode I mention 700K covid deaths — I misspoke! As of this recording, we are closer to 600K deaths in the US.
This episode is supported by my FREE WORKSHOP: The Patriarchy vs. Your Body, happening on May 19th. If you can't make it live, RSVP anyway to get the replay emailed to you.
Enjoy the show? Say thanks with a cup of tea.
Mentioned in this episode:
Thanks for listening!
Hello and welcome to the Lunar Body, I'm your host, Kristen Ciccolini, period priestess, nutritionist, and the founder of Good Witch Kitchen
So a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I got my second dose of the vaccine, I wanted to share an update and share my experience in case any of you are hesitant about getting it based on what you’ve heard from other people. I had heard from friends and family that they felt totally knocked out, exhausted, one of my friends felt nauseous for four days straight, another slept for like 15 hours a night, which honestly actually sounds kinda great, some people had a little fever, chills.
I haven’t had a fever since I was a kid, and I really didn’t want to feel bad, but compared to the alternative, I was just going to prepare for a couple days of potentially feeling like crap. So I hydrated super well all week before I got my shot, I bought those nuun hydration tablets that just give you a bit of a boost in the hydration department, I got the blueberry tangerine immunity ones, and I just had a couple of those each day leading up to my shot. Got the shot, and then I waited… and waited… and nothing happens. I felt totally fine. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and was like ok, when’s the fever coming, will I sleep through my alarm in the morning, should I go on this walk or will I accidentally puke in front of some neighborhood children? Everything was fine. I felt nothing but a little soreness in my arm.
This is many other people’s experiences too so don’t be scared. Everything will be okay. Hydrate really well, drink a shit ton of water, prioritize rest. I cleared my schedule for two days thinking I’d be dead on the couch but turns out I didn’t need it at all. Well it was actually very needed and I used the time to mentally rest, one of the days I updated my website so if you’re curious about working privately with me I have a whole updated page about nutrition coaching if you want to check that out, it looks great if I do say so myself. But anyway, just wanted to share my experience, everything was completely fine, I had no side effects. That may or may not be the case for you, but just knowing it’s a possibility might help ease some fears.
And I’d also like to quickly mention the misinformation that’s being shared online about the vaccine and your cycle. I mentioned before that yes there is a significant amount of anecdotal evidence that receiving the vaccine may impact your period and that’s an unofficial side effect that many people have noted. Dr. Jen Gunter had a really great newsletter a couple weeks ago talking about potential mechanisms behind this and the most likely is that it impacts your endometrium, or the lining of your uterus, because it’s part of your immune system, there are immune cells in the endometrium.
I will share her article that goes in depth on this because it’s super interesting — she says the “endometrium is involved with maintaining the microbiome of the endometrium (yes, there is one), defending against infectious insults, menstruation, as well the complex immune system interactions required for implantation of the embryo and early development of the placenta.” So that’s a possible mechanism behind menstrual side effects of the vaccine.
What’s not possible? Having menstrual issues just by being near a vaccinated person. People are spreading misinformation about people shedding the virus after being vaccinated and it causing spontaneous miscarriages and serious period problems, but it’s not possible because there is nothing to shed, that’s not how this vaccine works. The mRNA vaccines do not have the virus in them.
And I’m not invalidating these people’s experiences or fears, I understand being fearful about something you don’t know a lot about, but the scientists who created it know a lot about it, mRNA technology isn’t new. Obviously something is going on if you’re dealing with severe menstrual issues or significant changes in your cycle, but it’s not the result of simply being around people who are vaccinated, you need to see a doctor and get to the true root of the problem.
If you are still avoiding the vaccine, because you think your immune system is strong enough to handle it, I admire your faith in yourself, however I do ask that you consider the people around you. Having a strong immune system doesn’t 100% protect you from getting covid, remember that your immune system is adaptive, meaning it needs to be exposed in order to protect you in the future by making antibodies. But this is a new virus, your body hasn’t seen it before. So you can’t necessarily rely on faith in your immune system to protect you. Maybe you do get it and your strong immune system means that you have very mild symptoms, and I hope that is the case for you if you do end up contracting it, but I ask that you consider the people in your community, that potential interaction with them might not end up so mild.
The immune systems of the people around you might not be as strong as yours, and if there are children around you, as of this recording the vaccines aren’t yet approved for kids, and their immune systems are still adapting to the world around them.
I didn’t mean for this to be like a super vax episode but I just felt called to share my experience and to ask for your participation in making our communities a safer place. There is a lot to be said about education about prevention and it is important to learn about immune health and take the measures you need to to support your immune health, but right now the priority needs to be containment, harm reduction, we can focus on education in the process but in order to beat this thing we all need to do our part. 700,000 people have died. It is an unconscionable amount of people. If you haven’t lost anyone consider yourself very, very lucky.
If you can’t tell I’ve hit a pandemic wall and I am just ready for this shit to be over so I’m going to stop talking about this now, onto the episode:
You contain multitudes. Your body… is a wonderland. Just kidding, but really, there is so much to explore and to learn about yourself that you may not even have realized, and it’s all been with you your whole life! There’s a whole other world that is hidden under the surface, and what you find when you start getting curious can be life-changing.
In the first episode, I explained how people who menstruate have different hormonal cycles from those who don’t. I explained it in terms of the solar cycle and the lunar cycle, which is where the name of this podcast comes from, the Lunar Body. Our society is currently set up to favor the solar cycle and those whose hormones mirror it. Sun rising and falling, obviously, that’s how nature works, but it’s also how those who are assigned male at birth function hormonally.
For those of us whose cycles more mirror the moon, our energy, mood, digestion, immunity, creativity, and so many other aspects of ourselves ebb and flow over that time along with our hormones, as opposed to the 24-hour cycle that is prioritized by capitalism. The endlessly repeatable and predictable cycle that places productivity above all else and better serves the men who created it.
Our bodies don’t work that way, though. We’re working so hard to maintain this level of efficiency, managing our professional lives on top of the emotional labor that comes with managing our personal lives. Because we’re so tired at the end of the day from all of this, we don’t realize that there’s a whole other way to live.
You don’t have to treat your body like a machine.
You don’t power on and off the same way every single day. Deep down, you know this, but you haven’t had time to do anything about it because you’re just in work-work-work mode all the time, then you finish working for the day and your boss emails you, or you’re so nervous about your boss emailing you that you keep checking your email, and you’re always in the mindset of having to be ready to work. Available at a moment’s notice. Exhausting.
When it comes to your cycle, if you deal with period problems or PMS or pain or heavy flow or other issues, it’s another burden, another thing to add to your to-do list or to plan for or around. Someone told me recently when we were talking about her cycle that she didn’t want to take time out of her life to manage what she didn’t ask for.
And she’s right, she didn’t ask for this. We definitely don’t ask to be born with ovaries and a uterus and to have a monthly bleed. And I totally get it, because it feels like another frustrating thing you have to deal with. We look at it as a burden rather than the gift it can be, but maybe you’re not there yet, maybe you think I’m insane for talking about periods and gifts in the same sentence, maybe you’re still firmly in the periods-suck category and you don’t want to deal with it. And I feel you.
Period products are expensive. Your energy is depleted when you’re menstruating. Symptoms can be debilitating, and despite all this you have to get up and participate in the 24-hour cycle if you want to play the game.
It’s the monthly “curse” we were all warned about when we were young. But by now, if you’ve been listening, you know it’s not a curse, or it doesn’t have to be one. You know there is so much power to be found when you explore your cycle and pay attention and honor what you need throughout each of its four phases. That there is life beyond the pain and the frustration.
Luckily, more and more people are talking about this and learning about this. And today I wanted to talk about some stats on where we are in terms of menstrual and reproductive health. Because we’ve come a long way, but we also have a looong way to go.
Before that though, I think it’s important to acknowledge that any education that we have about the menstrual cycle, and gynecological education in general, largely came from highly unethical means, through medical abuse by white doctors against Black and Brown people. Abuse is even saying it lightly, it’s violence and eugenics is what it is.
The facts are that women of color were experimented on without consent, and Black women in particular were experimented on without anesthesia because it was thought they didn’t feel pain. That’s a bias that extends to the present day.
Birth control is another example of something that we have, thanks to people who had to suffer through the research, namely Puerto Rican and Haitian women who were chosen because the population was booming, poverty was rising, and it was the perfect opportunity for eugenicists to simultaneously test birth control and wipe out the poor to make room for a stronger population.
Many of these women who took these experimental birth control pills did so without knowing they were experimental, and also they felt desperate to be able to control their bodies, and the people running these efforts preyed upon their fears and encouraged them to take the pill without informing them that it was experimental, and many were also pressured to get hysterectomies as well. This is forced sterilization. And while yes, the pill allows people to have more control over their bodies and their family planning, it has really dark roots and it’s something I wanted to acknowledge because it’s not talked about often enough.
There is a much larger history of medical abuse against people of color, and it contributes to a lack of trust for the medical community, which, obviously, is completely understandable.
In the present day, we’ve made progress, but things could be better.
On top of the fact that there is still the implicit bias that people of color can withstand more pain than white people, for women in general, their complaints, particularly about pain, are more often dismissed as “emotional, psychogenic, hysterical, oversensitive” and the result is that they are not properly evaluated. They say it’s all in your head. This is even more pronounced if you’re a person of color and it’s a significant part of why Black women experience pregnancy and childbirth complications at a higher rate than white people. Women and menstruators are often not taken seriously.
For this reason and because our bodies are not as well studied or understood, it can take several years and several doctors for a person complaining of pelvic or menstrual pain to receive a diagnosis. Upwards of 10 years for those who eventually are diagnosed with endometriosis. 10 years of pain, and being shuffled from one doctor to the next.
I’ve had that experience, luckily not as drastic but for a while I was dealing with lower abdominal pain. I thought it might be ovarian cysts, my doctor was like, sure I dunno, make an appointment for an ultrasound. So I did that, results didn’t show anything, went back to my PCP, he sent me to a gyno, that gyno sent me to a pain specialist, that specialist told me I could get surgery and I was like… surgery, we don’t even know what it is, and I just met you.
I saw like maybe 5 or 6 doctors just over the course of two years and never got answers because I gave up. I had to stop because I have shitty health insurance and it was costing so much to see doctors who just shrugged their shoulders at me. Now imagine, or maybe don’t imagine because you’re going through it, a situation where you’re seeing that many doctors every year, trying to figure out your pain, for 10 years. This is the sad reality of many of us, many people who are dismissed, referred to someone else who doesn’t know what to do, so they refer you to someone else, and you get passed around from one doctor to the next, and the problem never gets solved.
It’s very, very frustrating.
If you are interested in this phenomenon and want to read more about it, I highly recommend reading Maya Dusenberry’s book called Doing Harm if you want to dive more into this. This is the subtitle of the book but it’s about how Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. It’s a really interesting read and it will make you angry. But maybe if you’re a health practitioner and are interested in this issue and exploring your own biases, it’s a great read.
Now in terms of period problems, the ones you go to the doctor about and get dismissed for. 42% of working menstruators say their period pain affects their ability to do their job, and 82% say their employer makes no accommodation for them. These are not good numbers. We’ve been working from home for the last year so I’m hoping with this experience people are going to be able to better accommodate what their body needs when they can, but we’ll see.
There have been a couple news stories lately about progress in this area — I’ve seen a handful of countries and companies introduce menstrual leave — I think Japan has had period leave for like 70 years though, like where is the rest of the world on this — and I’m not sure how many companies extend this to trans employees but I know there’s an Indian company called Zomato that started offering this and it was such big news that I’m pretty sure it’s not that common, so good for them, but we could be doing more. If you own a business, consider paid menstrual leave as an option for those who need it.
There is some debate on this and whether it’s paternalistic and gives in to the notion that menstruators are weak, but I disagree with that. I believe it’s just honoring one part of your cycle, and allowing yourself that time to rest if you need it is going to help you perform better, for work and for other things you want to do for yourself, because you’re honoring what you need and not banging your head against the wall trying to make something happen when you’re feeling miserable and just want to lay on the couch with a heating pad.
We just work differently, and that’s okay. What’s the point of resisting it, trying to be productive when you know you’re not going to be, depleting yourself more than if you just take leave and give yourself some space? We need to take the shame and stigma out of menstruation and give everyone a better understanding of the fact that everyone works a little differently and that not everyone is built like a machine to be a capitalist robot. I feel like we’re getting to a place where people are realizing the system we built sucks, that 40-hour weeks aren’t always necessary, that 8 hour days just aren’t applicable to the way we can work today, that just because we did it for a while doesn’t mean we have to continue. I think we are still a long way from dismantling any of that on a larger level, but I do see things changing in our lifetime.
Another thing that we are making some progress in is with period products. I’m talking pads, tampons, menstrual cups, menstrual discs, period underwear, all the products we use to manage and contain our flow.
We have more choices now than ever, I personally am a big fan of using period underwear. I have tried cups and discs and I just find this so much easier and more comfortable, and there’s no learning curve, you just put ‘em on. That’s what I mainly use and I can personally vouch for the brand Thinx, there are several brands out there now but that’s the one I’ve actually tried myself. I have a link for $10 off your purchase if you want to try them too, this is not a paid advertisement, but it is an affiliate link if you want to use my link to help support me and the show.
But while period underwear is great and all the options out there are great, the fact is that these products are expensive and inaccessible to many. And the more sustainable they are, the pricier they tend to be. The underwear can be anywhere from $20-40 for one pair. The cups are about the same price range, but they’re more difficult to purchase because everyone’s body is different and one cup size does not fit all, but you can’t really try it on and return it, so you risk wasting money on a product that doesn’t work for you, and that’ll get you some looks when you try to pawn it off in your local Buy Nothing Facebook group. There are quizzes out there that can help however so I will link to that in the show notes. But my point here is, it’s not cheap. Period care is expensive, and for something that we did not ask for, it’s absurd that these products aren’t subsidized in any way. Yes, reusables are higher cost upfront and cheaper in the long run, but it’s not easy for everyone to have the money upfront. If someone’s living paycheck to paycheck, they’re probably not about to drop $40 on a pair of period underwear if the choice is between that or feeding themselves that week, you know?
Period products are also subject to a luxury tax in some states, known as the tampon tax, which is placed on items that are deemed non-essential. Despite pads and tampons being classified as medical devices. Someone please tell me how these items are nonessential. They are as essential as toilet paper and people deserve the dignity of being able to contain their bodily fluids and keep their clothes blood-free. Unhoused menstruators often have to resort to using dirty paper bags, socks, and other unsanitary items to contain blood throughout the day.
Even if a person is on federal assistance, programs like SNAP or WIC don’t allow people to purchase pads or tampons.
So this is where we are right now in the US. Most workplaces don’t accommodate menstruators with period products or menstrual leave, it can take years to receive a diagnosis because our pain is dismissed as psychogenic, and pads, tampons and other menstrual products remain expensive and inaccessible to a large portion of people.
What can we do about it?
We can support organizations that work to destigmatize menstruation, that work towards menstrual equity and to fight period poverty, we can donate period products to shelters — these are some of the most requested but least donated products We can encourage employers and policymakers to consider accommodations for menstruators such as menstrual leave or putting tampons and pads in all bathrooms, not just the women’s bathroom.
Some organizations to look into are Period.org, which distributes menstrual products to those in need, provides intersectional menstrual health education, and advocates for systemic change through policy and legislation.
There’s Distributing Dignity, a nonprofit that distributes new bras, pads, and tampons to those in need.
HashtagHappyPeriod is a Black-led menstrual equity organization for the Black community.
Code Red is another, if you just do a google search you will find plenty of worthy causes to put your time and energy and money behind.
Change happens on a systemic level, but we can create change on an individual level too, so maybe you’re wondering what you can do to help yourself, to stop being dismissed at the doctor, to get past your menstrual pain and PMS symptoms.
Most people accept this as part of life, as the hand they’ve been dealt, and this happens when they hit a wall with trying to find help, they don’t know about other options and feel like there’s nothing they can do.
Before I started focusing on menstrual health in my practice, and what made me make that shift, was when I was reviewing my client records over the last few years, I noticed that just about every single client had issues relating to their cycle. But it was never their primary issue, despite them telling me it was such a burden, it was painful, it was seriously impacting their lives. It was always like, hi yeah I want to work on my gut health, and oh yeah sometimes i’m bleeding through my pants and have to stay home from work to deal with my uterus trying to claw its way out of my body but that that’s just a thing that happens, it’s fine, it’s just my body. I’ve accepted it.
I was floored at how normalized it was. We often don’t realize that something isn’t normal until we’re able to experience or hear about another experience that we didn’t know was possible. I know that’s like an obvious statement but here’s what I mean.
When I’ve done group sessions in the past, it was there that a client didn’t realize that her super heavy flow wasn’t what everyone else experienced. It wasn’t until we were talking about this topic that’s still somehow so taboo that she was like oh wait, this is something I should talk to a doctor about?
Or when I was researching topics for my membership program and came upon the question, what does it mean to have a period without cramps? The answer is it means everything is going well, that’s a good thing. But the question implies that cramps are the default, that not having them is something to be concerned about, when that’s not the case.
Another example outside of periods specifically — if you’ve ever done an elimination diet, something like an actual medical elimination diet, or maybe Whole 30 or low-FODMAP, something where you’ve consciously removed inflammatory foods, maybe you start to feel better, but you don’t realize just how much better you feel until you reintroduce and test the food that was making you feel terrible. And the reaction you get is often stronger than usual, and you’re like holy shit, what a difference.
Because what happens is that we get used to feeling bad. We get used to pain, depression, bloating, whatever feeling bad means for you, we get used to that and that becomes our baseline normal, and it doesn’t seem like a possibility to feel better or that we could feel anything other than bad all the time. Because bad is normalized, it’s just accepted and you work around it.
So that’s why all my clients were coming to me for everything else but the period issues they were experiencing, it was just like oh yeah, that horrible pain that keeps me on the couch all week, wait you mean other people don’t do that?
They had painful cramps, heavy blood flow, mood swings, low energy, fatigue and sluggishness, cravings, skin issues, bloating, poor sleep, issues transitioning off birth control, endometriosis, PCOS, etc.
All of those things were just an afterthought because they thought those things were supposed to happen. It wasn’t until I taught them about their cycle and hormone balance that they realized that they weren't destined to suffer every month.
Does that sound familiar? I promise I’m not reading your diary. Learning about your body helps you to be a stronger advocate for your own health.
This is a major systemic issue in health care. The problem goes upstream to the medical community, who learn from the educational institutions, whose curriculums are informed by the scientific authorities. And who’s ultimately responsible for what gets studied and how? The patriarchy.
There are a lot of ways that the patriarchy infiltrates your daily life, much of it having to do with keeping you small, in pain, and too busy to notice that you can do something about it.
You go through over 400 cycles in your lifetime, my hope for you is that you can take back control over those cycles away from the system so you can see what’s outside of that pain and malaise and turn it into power, potential. That’s alchemy.
There is so much potential in your cycle that’s been inside of you all along. You were born with the ability to smash the patriarchy and live a more empowered life.
Right now, you might be feeling like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, day after day, not realizing that forcing yourself into the 24-hour standard (and ignoring your own cyclical flow) which puts you further away from the connection to your own body, and further from your own power.
You can take it back, because despite what you might feel about it right now, your cycle IS your superpower.
I’m teaching a free class on exactly how you can do this, because you have so much more life to experience, and you deserve to put your energy on things that bring you joy and fulfillment rather than shame and frustration.
It’s called The Patriarchy vs. Your Body, and in the class we’ll talk about:
It’s happening next Wednesday May 19th at 6pm Eastern Time. You’ll get the most out of this workshop if you attend live, but if it doesn’t work with your schedule, not a problem. I’ll make sure you get a replay to watch when you get a chance.
Last time we had almost 300 people sign up for it and it was my most popular workshop ever, so you will definitely want to attend, and I’m really excited to teach it again, you can save your seat at goodwitchkitchen.net/workshop
Thank you so much for listening today, I hope to see you there!