Blood

The life of a woman is intimately connected with blood. The smell of it, the varying colors of it, become a pattern that mark out her days. She plans her life around the loss of blood; her wardrobe, her activities, her romantic encounters, her travel plans, her childbearing, indeed everything connected with her is in some way prescribed by it.

It is a rite of passage. It is something to hide. It is a monthly agony. It is a nuisance. It enslaves her. It is something to look forward to. It is something to dread. It is her pain. It is her gift. It gives her endurance. It wears her down. It makes her emotionally erratic. It brings her insight. It is one week out of every four. It is beyond her control. It is a war waged within. It is the blood of the women who came before. The blood of her womb. The blood of the mother who bore her in tears. The blood she will give to her own children. It is a sacrifice to life. And every woman feels it, knows it, endures it.

No man can ever understand the profound nature of this relationship. Very few men wish to know even the slightest details of her experience. For most of them, blood is death, something to be feared and avoided at all costs. They hate the thought of a woman's body becoming an open wound. They cannot be reconciled with the pain and bleeding that issues from the same place between her legs that gives them so much pleasure. The blood reprimands them, makes them feel as though they are somehow guilty of causing her discomfort. It becomes their shame, an unsightly mess to be cleaned up and made pristine.