in the intimacy and isolation of my American RW Christian fundamentalist family, from which I am long estranged, was that "the period" was clear evidence of Eve's female wickedness and Mom's failure to bear THE first son; took her two more pregnancies to attain the security she had prayed for and planned for so carefully but that had gone unfilled by God twice previously.
I do recall how that first period was celebrated and announced to ALL; yup, now I was fertile and sorrowful childbirth was inevitable. I do recall craving privacy from parading MY wicked evidence, the sanitary napkins, through to the kitchen because the dog got into the bathroom waste can, or the stained underwear and/or clothing hanging to dry in a single shared (gasp, with Men, bathroom. And so, I hid them awaiting a better time of disposal. My periods in early teen-age years were irregular, heavy, and painful but I thought that normal, something to be silently endured. I was always fearful of leakage that did happen on occasion. When I asked to see the doctor as I had read that the new pill could have an impact on regularity, volume, and other symptoms of PMS for the better, I was asked if I really wanted to "tell her something" meaning, of course, fornicating sexual activity and/or the shame of a pregnancy.
Anything post-pubescently enjoyed by young women or thought to trivialize the superiority of males or their sexual pleasure was covertly enforced with rage and punishment - I remember parental rage when I first shaved my legs without consent, parental rage and name-calling on attempting to apply then-fashionable make-up (the whore-ish Cleopatra look was in), or body-revealing clothing (remember mini-skirts and I was ashamed of my voluptuous shape in a bathing suit, and could not go to the pool with friends because, you know, the period); hose and girdles, sandals, and sheer fabrics; parental rage that my good grades weren't sufficient for a scholarship to an Ivy League women's college and, perhaps as punishment, no monetary support for even the least expensive and lowest-ranked public co-ed college in the country at the time. The passive-aggressive double messages never ceased!
In an abundance of fear that Dad's (the sole breadwinner) near-death illness would send our family into poverty, I adjusted my HS curriculum away from college prep, married, and went to work instead, later being told I had thwarted the parental plans and the will of God by abandoning a domestic married life to earn money though it wasn't enough to support the family I had birthed. Had I not always tried to balance these choices about my womanhood and live without misogynist shame. Perhaps I did make ill-advised, yet forgivable, choices along the way. Nope! I deserved the loss of unconditional parental love and support in a time of my family's financial distress, during a phase of my spouse's serial no-cause unemployment, from the moment I married hence she said no to her assistance with childcare, groceries, meals for the freezer; not even attendance at our Thanksgiving table! Always on the same page, they had quite literally given me away and I quote, "YOU AND YOURS ARE HIS PROBLEM NOW - I never want to speak to you again!" I had asked for something my fundie mom would never be able to give, but what was wrong with my dad as well???
And so my "adult-child" will forever mourn my questionable lack of courage, the cold revenge in obedience that I need and still need to overcome and grow (old) with dignity not shame, and my culpability in blame for that portion of the GOP's base of hate, willful ignorance and greed, even while mired in their own "poverty" of spirit through that singular family value of fundamentalist Christian misogyny, would thrust upon America.
I would deny being a feminist and most definitely not a "Christian soldier marching as to war"; I strive for balance, justice, love, and forgiveness, but I'm thankful and grateful I still have life and learned much about being vulnerable in love, tolerance of each person's unique self, sexual identity and gender equality, and how to be the "better" person in America as broken as I am by that depressed "adult-child" thinking it a wasted journey.
I found myself a new family among Democrats, and prefer to think of my family of origin as they were before I learned how conditional was their flawed politics and American fundamentalist family values, and I reveal this in all vulnerability for a better understanding of that poor little Kenyan girl subjected to "period shame."
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