Brain Fertilizer

I'll have to share this one with my wife. I know that her "time of the month" can put her in some serious pain, but she don't believe in letting that keep her out of work. Or our girls out of school, for that matter.

Her attitude is "You're a woman. Women deal with this every month. So quit whining and deal with it".

I'm with Zelda on this one. And Diamond Dave's wife, for that matter. It's part of being a chick, and you deal with it. If it's debilitating, then you deal with it in the same way you'd deal with any other thing that's wrong with your body -- you get medical attention. I don't have a lot of sympathy for anyone who perpetually complains about something, whether it's this topic or some other one. Either deal with it, or don't, but don't whine. Being a girl doesn't entitle me to special consideration... I think that the notion of extra sick days is ridiculous. If I can't handle the job, I shouldn't take it. Period.

Sorry, couldn't resist that one.

Remember in Spiderman2 when Peter Parker lost his powers for a while? I think that's what must have happened to my punning ability. I can't believe I missed the opportunity to use that.

Ah, well, the only reason I'm not totally down with Zelda on this is that from the women I've known, those little visits from the friend are not consistent from month to month, and can vary wildly throughout a lifetime. Someone can have extreme reactions to things like starting or stopping birth control pills, IUDs, other medications.

But I agree that if you can't resolve unexpectedly difficult periods within a year, you should probably not try to the job.

I'm glad you found my post interesting Nathan. Thanks for the link. I generally agree with your take on it as well. When I was younger (I'm 40 now), I used to throw up from monthly discomfort if I didn't take a painkiller. But I would be fine once I took something. Yet it never in a million years would have ocurred to me to tell an employer of my menstrual discomfort.

Also, please don't think I'm some kind of monster, but in terms of chronic menstrual problems, someone commented anonymously on my blog about "dysfunctional uterine bleeding." So I looked it up. And as I see it, there are options. They may not be complete cures, but at least, they're a step up from being immobolized by pain each month.

I certainly didn't think bad of you, Zelda. To explain, the first two people I sent the link to pointed out that they've had some pretty bad stuff at times...and my wife had 3 pretty bad ones in row after getting an IUD in. I remember my sister (who is blessed with only minor lower back aches during her Days) be fairly unsympathetic to the females who have 10 day flows, back-aches, and migraines involved.

So I wanted to hedge things a little bit: essentially agree with your point (which I did), but leave me some wiggle room if the PMS Avenger decided I was being an insensitive male by giving my opinion about something I can never personally experience...

But, yeah: this is a situation that just seems to encourage abuse. In fact, everyone who has weighed in in email to me has pretty much added a minor caveat, and then largely agreed: this is not really a good thing for women in the workplace.

Nathan, one of the risks of using IUD's is extra heavy menstrual bleeding, cramping and spotting between periods. I just found an interesting web site that discusses the history, workings and safety concerns of different types of IUD's. Here it is:

http://www.yoatzot.org/article/87

Great reading matter for dinner! Woot!