So there's this thing

[kaberett]

where I will abruptly realise that one of the men I love simply does not know something that so thoroughly permeates my experiences of the world that I barely even think to mention it.

Content notes for misogyny and gender policing and violence and all that good stuff.

I'm not talking about deliberate obtuse ignorance (of the "why were you so mean to him, he just asked you for a light, didn't he?" "no, he demanded that I smile for him because he didn't realise you were with me (you were right there, how did you manage to wilfully mishear that that badly)" variety), just... utter disconnects in worldview. I am reminded of this by this tumblr post in response to which men are baffled at women being scared of raised male voices (and there's a reason my care & feeding document specifies male voices as a trigger, not testosterone-affected voices), and by the fact that my response to getting sexually harassed on the train on Thursday last week was mostly just weariness.

(I got onto the train. I moved into the section of the carriage I could park my chair in, looking tired and not making eye contact with the two men sat there. One of them said something, "hello" and possibly "darling", and I ignored him and hoped he hadn't been speaking to me. I was not, at that point, going to call it sexual harassment, because obviously I wasn't: the world's just full of people who want to tell me I'm overreacting. And that's why I felt a kind of resigned relief when they got off the train several stops before me -- before me, so I was safe -- and addressed me again while I had earphones in and was listening to music and had not engaged with them at all: they thought they were entitled to my time and energy because I was out in public, apparently female, and visibly disabled -- if you don't know why that last one matters, it's because greater than 80% of disabled women have been sexually assaulted -- and they didn't care that I wasn't interested and didn't want to engage. And now, now the litany of justification: I'm perfectly happy to talk to strangers in public if they're not being sketchy as fuck, I was covered collarbones to wrists to ankles, and so on and so forth. It was just enough to be unambiguous and no more, so I'm not second-guessing myself even though I haven't bothered talking about it, because why would I talk about it, because that fear between when they first addressed me and when they left, that fear: that fear is just another thread in the fabric of my days.)

But it's things like: the social status, particularly between young women, attached to whether you use pads or tampons to manage bleeding.

And: what "visible nipple" means, and how unprofessional or inappropriate it is, and how there's an entire industry dedicated to selling you dedicated tape to make sure your nipples don't have any visible shape beneath your shirt and the foam cups of your bra - regardless of whether I want to once it gets cold enough I've got to wear a jacket because the shape of my nipples being visible through my shirt is simply unacceptable in professional contexts in a way that just doesn't seem to be the case for men, as best I can tell.

And I'm (always scared of men) sure there's a whole bunch more that aren't coming to mind right now (seriously please do share examples if you'd like), but wow is it disconcerting every time I trip over something everyone knows and it turns out that that is not, in fact, quite so much the case.

Comments

[jedusaur]

There's social status attached to pads vs. tampons? I did not know that.

[alexseanchai]

Nor I.

I mean, in an emergency-supplies-needed situation, who cares which kind as long as there's a kind menstruation-capable person around who carries spares? And in any other situation, who is going to know unless one tells them?

Though I can see social status, in the "more eco-friendly than thou" lot, attaching to whether one uses reusables or disposables. But that's not quite the same thing.

[karen2205]

I mean, in an emergency-supplies-needed situation, who cares which kind as long as there's a kind menstruation-capable person around who carries spares?

I think most people who mensturate have their own preferred choice of products and they aren't all interchangeable for anything other than 'oh, this'll do for the 20-30 mins it'll take for me to go home/to a shop to get the right thing'. Some people won't/can't use tampons without applicators (the other way round is easier, cos you can take a tampon out of its applicator quite easily). Traditionally sanitary towels were about 1cm thick, most current brands are a few milimetres thick - they feel different when you wear them. They come in a variety of lengths/widths/absorbancy levels. If someone gave me a 'regular' pad, I'd have bled around it within minutes and would fill it rather quickly. Menstural cups aren't to everyone's taste and you'd be looked at strangely if someone asked for spare sanitary products and you offered them a softcup (a disposable menstural cup - most cups are designed to be single person reusable).

[alexseanchai]

Fair points all, though I admit I was only thinking of the twenty to thirty minutes.

[recessional]

*wobbles hands* It's patchy and depends on a lot of other cultural intersections and also whether or not you've had babies and a bunch of other things.

It can, in some circles, be that pads are parsed as more immature, and as an indication that a woman is scared of/ignorant about her own genitalia or squeamish/sex-inhibited (and that being a bad thing) enough that touching and figuring her genitals out is upsetting. Pads can also be parsed as "dirty" (because the blood does in fact make it all the way out of your body) and thus reflecting on the person using them.

(These all tend to be in social cultures where there is a specific space of sexuality that women are required to walk, being neither "frigid" nor excessively sexually active, and who view sexual literacy - as it were - as a mark of adulthood while at the same time still making a general bow towards not being a "slut".)

I've almost only ever encountered this in women* between late adolescence and mid-thirties, who have not had children, and who are for one reason or another invested in appearance, sophistication and how men perceive them, and who have no physiological issues that affect their genitals. It tends to run aground hard when your social circle involves women who give no shits, women who have had children (which makes it impossible for some women to use tampons usefully, even "ultra" ones and who in the circles I have personal experience with also start getting really snarly about anyone but other women who've been through vaginal labour having anything to say about anything to do with this), and women who have physiological differences specifically to do with their vulva or vagina which make tampons a No.



*I have insufficient data for persons who menstruate but are not women; I know a few! but not enough to make generalizations rather than specific-to-this-person

[alexseanchai]

Thanks

[kaberett]

Yeah, all of this, particularly the specifics of age range. Like, it's not something that ever managed to get its claws into me much, but I'm so used to thinking of it as a... default part of the social landscape that I'm always surprised when people growing up in a similar cultural context Just Didn't Have It.

[cadenzamuse]

+1

(Although the bit about not liking to touch one's own bits = squeamish = immature has sunk a hook in me a bit. It's a fantastic societal reason why My Way is The Best Way, which is a crappy human urge. :( )

[serriadh]

There was definitely a sense when people were starting their periods at school (around 10-13 ish) that you 'graduated' from using pads to tampons. Pads were seen as a bit wussish (partly because it could be genuinely unpleasant to do games with a pad, and getting out of games lessons because you had your period was Letting The Side Down). My primary and secondary schools were girls-only, but of the sort who told us MEN would try to KEEP US DOWN and the only way to improve this was to be better, harder, stronger and show no sign of PMT/emotions/nagging, etc.

[quartzpebble]

And then, of course, this is in response to the thing where tampons *may* be seen as "slutty"-or-similar in more conservative social cultures, because omg you're putting something in your vagina, don't you know that's where penises go, a nice girl wouldn't do that. See: all the "If I use a tampon, am I still a virgin?" questions that pop up in sex-ed spaces.

[recessional]

Yeah I've never lived anywhere that that was the dominant peer culture: you'd still get the questions, out of ignorance, because of family-based values, but those questions were basically being asked because there was a peer-based social need to use tampons lest one be shut out.

So it gets complicated.

[lilliburlero]

There was a rather unpleasant incident at my school (this was in England the early 1990s) when the PE teacher decided that students who used pads and thus didn't want to swim during their periods were just malingering and gave a speech along the lines of grow up and use tampons, which made it clear that the only reason she thought people wouldn't use tampons was because of fears about virginity (and also btw that tampon use was mandatory if swimming while menstruating) whereupon one or two people pointed out that they couldn't, nothing to do with 'hymens', and were disbelieved, and parents had to become involved and it was all very humiliating generally. So definitely in my milieu back then there was an idea that tampons were more 'adult' in some sense, and that any reluctance to use them was prudery. I have the idea that this has generally dissipated a bit now and the attitude is more like 'manage menstruation however works best for you', but I could be wrong...

[recessional]

Well at least in Canada by the late 1990s a teacher actually even commenting about a student's menstrual-supply choices would have ended Unbelievably Badly for said teacher. On the other hand I'm not sure how much that is time and how much it is country; our public school teachers in general seem to have had (again at least from when I was in school) less of an idea that they had rights to force kids to do anything in non-injurious situations (aka not when one kid was attacking another) than I've seen and even continue to see elsewhere.

[kaberett]

STORY TIME: I have, as we know, severe endometriosis. It did not get diagnosed until my second year at university. I routinely bleed for upwards of ten days per cycle and routinely have cycles that last anywhere between 21 and 35 days.

Persuading PE teachers that I was not, in fact, malingering, and I was not, in fact, taking the piss, and I could, in fact, need to miss swimming two consecutive weeks in every four because I was still sodding bleeding was... interesting. I got Looks. This being around 2003-2006ish.

[recessional]

Not sure how much parental support makes a difference in your case; in ours, that's the kind of thing that would get bumped back to a parent-teacher (possibly parent-teacher-student) discussion of the issue, and basically when the parent says "yes my daughter has [blank]" (or son, for stuff like asthma etc), that's . . . more or less it. At most, an alternate PE assignment would be arranged.

I mean it's not like teachers are not sometimes crap? But when they are crap like this, it gets back to parents, and the parental sense that teachers have NO RIGHT to dictate things about their children's bodies is really strong.

But if your parents don't have your back, it can be kind of shit. Like, you know. Everything.

[steorra]

My reaction too. But it is the sort of thing I'd be clueless about.

[untonuggan]

in that awkward menstruating-teen stage, I think the stigma in my area was roughly: pads are "dirtier"; tampons are "cooler" because it means you're an adultier person and whatnot. somehow for me pad-use all got knotted up with the summer I got teased for not shaving my legs and "being a lesbian" (despite, at that point, never having thought of myself as such). now I hate tampons because they are -- for me -- super dry and uncomfortable. but. for a long time I forced myself to use them because somehow I thought my choice of menstrual products made me "cooler" and "more grown up."

[tim]

Besides the existing comments, also see how wearing a pad gets talked about pejoratively as "wearing a diaper" (I'm sure one could spend a lot of time unpacking the layers of ageism, ableism and misogyny in that).

[jedusaur]

I have definitely never heard that, and if I had I would call it out on all of those levels. Christ, what a dick of a thing to say.

[azurelunatic]

I've most often heard it phrased like "I can't wear them, it feels like wearing a diaper" or "I might as well be wearing a diaper".

[alexseanchai]

I saw on Facebook a thing, and other commenters corroborated with accounts of similar situations, where someone got her period unexpectedly and asked her middle-aged cis male boss if she could go to the bathroom. And then had to explain to the guy that no, menstrual blood is not like pee, one cannot hold it in, if she does not provide something to absorb it between her uterus and her panties then it will get blood on her panties and new skirt and probably office chair, and no, the women in his office are not choosing a random week out of the month to be "lazy" by spending extra time in the bathroom.

The state of sex ed in too much of this world. :(

[naath]

The thing that amazed me most about that story (I have low expectations of men it seems) is that she *knew*... I can't tell if I'm bleeding unless I look.

[recessional]

. . . given that in my experience the most aggressive policers of Visible Nipples have always been young men, I'm a bit surprised he doesn't know THAT one.

I will say, however, that I have seen men also get dinged for it - it's just that their clothes are usually loose enough and made of thick enough material that they're usually not visible just because of the nature of clothing, and it's not viewed as Unprofessional/their fault. But they do get hit with "OMG LOL LOOKIT HIM" and mockery and unspoken social consequences and also seen as "gross" (whether they actually do anything inappropriate or not, the baseline state of their body is viewed as sexually inappropriate) and such.

[kaberett]

Huh, interesting, that really isn't something I've observed happening (or overheard any indication of from my brothers, where I have picked up some other plausibly-equivalent stuff from them). Like, in my social context I'd expect perhaps a mildly amused slightly raised eyebrow but otherwise an acceptance that It's Just A Thing, You Know, where the IJATYK is very much something I do not expect (people-perceived-as-)women to get (see the aforementioned industry dedicated to etc etc).

[quartzpebble]

Yeah, I generally interpret that visible male nipple profile (without piercings or anything) is less acceptable than chest hair (which is fairly acceptable, which kind of pisses me off because it seems much moreso and less sexualized than equivalent cleavage), but not *nearly* as unacceptable as visible female nipple profile.

This is one reason I wear scarves so much. They *probably* don't hide as much as I think but at least I'm less self-conscious. Bras are terrible.

[azurelunatic]

And hazing, the "so and so has GIRL TITS" thing.

[recessional]

Once or twice, yeah. Continual, you kind of become "that gross guy you can always see his nipples UGH".

[swaldman]

Yeah, this. I think it ties into the whole slightly-homophobic-strait-male-gaze-oriented-society thing. Women are sexy and should keep that hidden at work lest it distract the men, who are helpless at the sight of legs/cleavage/nipples (but women should also not hide their bodies *too* much, hence fashions that risk showing such things in the first place). Mens' bodies are inherently gross, and if you are being distracted by that then euw, you must be gay or something, but also, how gross is it that that guy allows you to see - it's closely related to "put those legs away!" if a man wears shorts in certain laddish company. Hence looser fashions for men, maybe also breast pockets.

Of course, the consequences of transgressing for men - at least for men who perform their gender as expected - are pretty trivial. But that shouldn't surprise us.

[macey]

I have a teammate (my age, super nice guy, very mild-mannered in general) who will get Angry when frustrated by technical questions or advice that doesn't work.

It /immediately/ flips me into 'pacifying voice' mode and starts up my adrenaline. It's not even shouting; it's tone and expression. It's not directed at me, or, I'm 95% certain he intends it not to be - it's directed at the problem. But it is a hard reset on my ability to have that technical discussion with him. It only comes out to play on stuff he's personally working on, so I can manage to be on his team / discuss 'team problems' just fine. But. Other (male) folks on my team don't seem to notice it. So I thought it was Just Me.

The other day, a friend from another team visited to try on my work jacket. While she was there, he got tangled in c++. She's very good at c++. She tried to help. He did the voice. I watched her eyes widen and her body language shift and her tone change and realised - oh. It's not Just Me.

I have /no idea/ how to tell him he's doing this, or how to ask my manager to gently bring it up with him (unless I can induce this state in front of manager and immediately after go 'Yes that thing there'?).

Otherwise: re: tampons and status, I was vaguely aware of that happening in my teen-dom, yes. I was Not Allowed them, though, since my aunt had a bad time with septic shock which scared my mother. Also, all-girl-school = less shirtiness around menstruation.

Other things:

- yes I know where all the people are in relation to me on this street late at night, of course I do, how would I not?
- how to shake your hair into your eyes and jam hands in pockets and /fucking march/ and /mostly/ manage to not get cat-called about smiling. and then second-guess yourself about whether you were Walking Wrong or met their eyes too much or not enough or or or.
- getting blood stains out of clothing
- on public transit I will /literally always/ sit by the woman, yes even if her seat is covered in bags, and she will look at me and look around and give me that not-quite-nod look and clear them away so I can sit safe.

[untonuggan]

oh yes the women-in-public-transit-nod! also akin to the waiting-room-nod! sometimes -- very briefly -- I wonder if the two loud manspreading dudes wonder how they end up with *an entire half of the waiting area* while the other half is a bunch of women and children all crammed together to avoid them. then I think, of course not, they don't even realize what they're doing.

[azurelunatic]

When someone who has become dearer to me than my blue hair doubts my danger sense. Believes my fear, moves heaven and earth to protect -- but doubts the actual danger.

[untonuggan]

I have to say, I think my favorite part of being on government disability and not having a job is that I don't have a "professional dress code." which is really good because there's all sorts of other things I can't wear because my body nopes out of them *so much*, including bras. I mean, I am sure if I had tons of money and time and spoons I could find workable bras maybe? but I do not have those things, so I have gone with "limited fucks given about my nipples." if it's definitely very cold I might wear something more loose or with a bit more lining. but am trying to take the approach of, "my nipples are bothering you? why are you staring at them then?" breaking social conditioning is hard though.

other things on the list:
- UTI frequency. because body-shape differences. [redacted cis dude I know] has apparently *never had one* and the injustice fills me with rage.
- pockets. the lack of pockets in clothes, or the hunt for clothes with pockets. and then people being all "why do you have so much crap in your purse?" and then later them wanting something you have in your purse and/or wanting to store something in your purse because "you're carrying it anyway." nope!
- using a pseudonymn for social media so that if you get trolled, it will be slightly harder to make your life a living hell for being someone not cis-male with opinions. or maybe because stalker exes. or so that if weird creepy guys start following your account too closely, you can shut it down and start anew somewhere else and it will hopefully be harder for them to find you. and you plan for this harassment *when you open your account*, as a matter of course.

also, I was at a NaNoWriMo write in that was all women the other day, and a very chatty guy came up and was asking all sorts of questions about writing and NaNo and stuff. then he came up later with *more* questions (which, dude, just google "NaNoWriMo" but ok the group leader took on his questions). then he wanted to take a photo of the group of us, but fortunately asked if it was ok. and we were like, "NO." and he was all, "is this a woman thing?" and we were like, "kind of, yes, but we really don't care that you're self-identifying as gay, you can't take our photo." (he didn't, but. he still did not really understand why.)

[azurelunatic]

The way that various software things don't treat names as things which have a good chance of changing.

The previous absence of menstrual tracking stuff in Apple's iOS health thingy.

Making sure that someone has the full legal name of your date and when you're expecting to be home, on the first few dates.

Hearing your sheltered friend on good terms with her family saying that the family is concerned about her doing a thing with strangers (to them) and automatically sending her your full name and contact information to send along to them, because you know. (And her looking relieved and thanking you, because she wasn't going to *ask* but it would make things so much easier with them...)

any sentence that starts with "just" or "why can't you just" and the way you brace.

People policing your fear levels, especially if there was some recent specific criminal activity in the area. Aren't you afraid to ... ? no? is there something wrong with you?

Why are you more afraid of the security guard than any of the other guys who might be in this building after dark? If you wouldn't be afraid of any random other dude flirting with you, why does him doing that give you the heebie-jeebies?

The genuine shock that a conference full of ostensibly well behaved software professionals is only as safe feeling as a well lit parking lot after dark in a reasonably familar area of town.

"Are other women as afraid as you are?"
"No. ... I'm less afraid."

[azurelunatic]

Moving closer to a trusted male friend to make sure you're inside the radius that can be construed as linked. Knowing the body language that signals relationship status, and performing it loudly to attempt to avert a confrontation. Even if you're not together that way.

How much of a social pariah you would have to be if you were to say "Do you have a pad, a tampon, anything" and the other party has some and can spare them, but wouldn't consider giving one to you (or lending it if money is that tight).

How much time and effort it really takes to look fresh and bright-eyed and awake with soft skin and a healthy glow and maybe wearing just a hint of lip gloss.

[vass]

How much of a social pariah you would have to be if you were to say "Do you have a pad, a tampon, anything" and the other party has some and can spare them, but wouldn't consider giving one to you (or lending it if money is that tight).

:|

*quietly reevaluates entire secondary school years in light of new knowledge*

[naath]

The older I get the more I'm forced to realise that there is nothing in the world that "everyone knows" (even if we restrict "everyone" to people who know some things and can talk to me about them in English, because I'm rubbish and only speak English).

For instance many of the things related in this post and comments are things that I don't know in a "this is part of my life, always and everywhere" way (I know some of them from people talking about them, although it's easier to forget "something I read about once on the internet" than something that is part of your daily life).

[vass]

Endearments that are coded social status messages.

Like how if the woman at the petrol station counter says "Here you go, darling" when she gives you your change, that's the same sort of social grooming as when the cat gives another cat a quick lick that means "you're a stranger and have some strange habits, but I'm accepting you as provisionally Like Me."

But when you nearly bump into the middle-aged man in the music/DVD store and say "sorry," and he says "that's all right, darling," he is putting you in your place, below him in the hierarchy, and if you say "I'm not your darling," this could very well become a physical confrontation.

[ceb]

The one that always utterly utterly boggles me goes:

male viewpoint: black bra = sexy and/or slutty

female viewpoint: black bra = wearing a dark top