Years ago, a friend went to a party, and something bothered him enough to rant to me about it later. And it bothered me that he was so incensed about it, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. It seemed so petty for him to be upset, and even more so for me to be annoyed with him.
Recently, something reminded me of that scenario, and it made more sense. I’ll explain.
The party was a house party. One of those parties people throw if they’re renting a good-sized house in college. You know the type—loud music, Solo cups of beer, and somebody doing something drunk and stupid before the end of the night.
At some point, my friend had occasion to use the bathroom. When he went into the bathroom, he was disgusted to see that the hostess had left a basket of feminine hygiene products on the counter for guests to use if needed.
Later, when my friend told me about it, he wrinkled his nose and said, “Why would she do that? Guys don’t want to see that!”
When I suggested that she was just making them available in case a woman needed them, he insisted that they could be left in the cabinet or under the counter. Out of sight, anyway.
I wish I’d had, at the time, the ability to articulate what I can now.
To me, this situation is, while relatively benign, a perfect example of male privilege.
A man walks into the bathroom and sees a reminder that women have periods. And he’s disgusted. He wants that evidence hidden away because it offends his senses. How dare the hostess so blatantly present tampons and pads where a man might see them? There’s no reason for that!
A woman walks into the bathroom and sees that the hostess is being extra considerate. She gets it. She knows what it’s like to have a period start unexpectedly. The feeling of horror because she’s probably wearing something she doesn’t want ruined—it is a party after all. The sick embarrassment because someone might notice, especially if she’s wearing light-colored clothes, or worse, sat on the hostess’s white couch. The self-conscious, semi-nauseated feeling of trying to get through a social event after you’ve exhausted every avenue to get your hands on an emergency pad or tampon, and you’re just hoping to God that if you tie your jacket around your waist—you brought one, right?—keep your back to a wall, clench your buttcheeks, squeeze your thighs tightly together, and don’t…move…at…all—you might get through the evening, bow out gracefully, and find an all-night convenience store with a public restroom.
Or maybe she came to the party during her period, but didn’t bargain for her flow to suddenly get that heavy. Or she desperately needs a tampon, but her purse is in a room where a couple is not to be disturbed. Maybe she doesn’t know the hostess well enough to ask if she can use one. Or she doesn’t know anyone at the party well enough to ask. Or she figures she can make do with some wadded up toilet paper or something.
Whatever the case, she walks into the bathroom, and she hears the hostess saying “Hey, I know what it’s like, and just in case, I’ve got your back.” She sees someone saving her from what could be a minor annoyance or a major embarrassment.
The hostess gets it. The woman who just walked into the bathroom? She’s either going to see that the person throwing the party is super considerate, or she’s going to be whispering thanks to Jesus, Krishna, and whoever else is listening because that is a basket full of social saviors.
But to the guy who wrinkled his nose, it’s still offensive that those terrible little things are on the counter, reminding his delicate sensibilities that the playground part of a woman is occasionally unavailable due to a gross bodily function that he should never have to think about.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s a tiny thing. It’s a tiny annoyance for the man, and a more significant but relatively tiny courtesy for the woman. After all these years, my friend has probably forgotten, but I never have. As a woman whose life is partially governed by a fickle uterus that can ruin an evening faster than a submerged iPhone, his story has stuck with me.
How can you be so offended by a small gesture that has zero effect on you, but could make such an enormous difference to the person who needs it?
It occurs to me now that this is a small but effective illustration of how men and women see the world. It’s part of the same thought process that measures a woman’s value through her bra size and her willingness to have sex with him—that everything about us is displayed or hidden based on how men perceive them or what he wants to get from us. Unattractive women should be as covered as possible, while attractive ones shouldn’t be hiding their assets from male eyes (or hands, or anything else he wishes to use).
A woman who isn’t smiling is an affront to him because it detracts from her prettiness, despite the fact that there might be a legitimate reason for her not to smile (or more to the point, that there isn’t a legitimate reason for her to smile). Her emotional state is irrelevant because she’s not being pretty. It’s the line of thinking where a man blames anything other than cheerful sexual consent on the woman being a bitch, being a lesbian, or—naturally—being on her period. Everything we do, from our facial expressions to our use of hygiene products, are filtered the lens of “how it looks to a man.”
It’s the line of thinking where a small gesture from one woman to another, an assurance that someone else understands and will help her without question or judgment, a gesture which could save a woman’s evening from being ruined, is trumped by a man’s desire to see an untainted landscape of pretty, smiling women with visible cleavage and vaginas that never bleed.
And people wonder why we still need feminism.
This is actually an amazing idea I hadn’t though of. (And apparently it has the bonus side effect of showing which of your male friends are whiny pissbabies.)
This is a really considerate thing to do for your trans friends who menstruate too, because then we don’t have to out ourselves or initiate a potentially scary/humiliating/dysphoria-causing interaction just to not bleed all over everything. Some of us have intense panic and disgust at the thought of giving away that we experience this bodily function (because society not only genders it intensely, but also shames it intensely! yay!). If I know I can rely on your home to let me avoid that situation, I’ll be much more comfortable there.
In our household of two adult women (one of whom has had a hysterectomy and the other of whom has no period while using an IUD) there still is (we’ve had this since we moved in together) a box of tampons and pads next to the toilet beside the toilet paper – available to any guest regardless of gender and visible to my sons and their toddler friends. Menstruation is a bodily function that should be as normalized as urination and defecation.
ETA: I know Tumblr skews young, but let me also add that incontinence is something that happens to lots people, it’s not reserved for the old aged. Pads are useful for many reasons – the person with a pelvic floor drastically changed by pregnancy might thank you too.
I find myself having to keep reblogging this for all of this amazing commentary that keeps popping up!
Next time I get my hands on a spare basket I’m gonna make a tampon bouquet and it’ll be awesome.
I originally just kept stacks of pads on whatever flat surface in the bathroom was convenient because I was too lazy to construct a convenient-but-less-obtrusive way to store menstrual products (because seriously, if I like you well enough to allow you into my home, I assume you aren’t going to be a jerky little butt-nugget about the fact that many people bleed from the crotch on a regular basis), but after a few weekends where friends emerged from the spare room at well-crap-it’s-late/early-o’clock to ask if it was OK to snag some because their period had appeared at an unexpected time, I just started mentioning where the pads were whenever I was giving people the general orientation speech*.
*”Feel free to raid the fridge, if you wake up before us the coffee is in the silver box near the coffee-machine, fresh towels are behind that door, menstrual pads are on that counter/in that drawer, here’s a spritzy-bottle if one of the cats decides to start slapping your nose while you sleep”
This is an important thing to consider for people who do not need pads or tampons, but on occasion have company that may need one in an emergency. Best be prepared!
And while there is nothing wrong with the basket (especially for big parties), if that is not your everyday style, including them visibly in a glass-front cabinet along with other toiletries (like extra toilet-paper rolls and such) is a neat idea.
I should add that transwomen may also benefit immensely from such a basket.
Tucking does a hell of a job on the male genital and makes it much more likely that something starts running at some point (plus sweat accumulates and makes everything generally unpleasant). Pads help immensely in keeping everything dry enough to ignore. But the feeling of having to get back into a moist one after sitting down to pee (it having cooled off) is absolutely atrocious.
The idea of going to a party, and just seeing such a basket as I sit down and think about how I’m going to re-do my tuck, fills me with a warm fuzzy feeling.
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