What will Twitter will make of a #feminismfriday hashtag?

Update 2010/06/04: Week 2!

I’ve just sent out a tweet calling for submissions. Some of you may have been around long enough to recall that Feminism Friday used to be at least a semi-regular thing around here – l decided to get all Web 3.0 with the old idea.

If you’re on Twitter, and you’ve read some terrific feminist/womanist op-ed style blogging this week (it doesn’t have to have been published this week, that’s just what’s likely to be fresh in your mind), please tweet the link and hashtag it as #feminismfriday. For an extra dollop of helpful goodness, if it’s a great Feminism 101 post, please also tag it as #FF101.

If you’re not on Twitter, please drop a link to a post that meets the general Feminism Friday guidelines in comments on this page.

No doubt, if this #feminismfriday hashtag trends highly enough, there will be some pushback from the usual suspects. I suggest treating it as an excellent opportunity to get out the anti-feminist bingo cards for your own amusement, and also to perhaps pre-emptively block some arsehats on Twitter who had previously flown under your radar.

Feminism 101: Periods

Editor note: This is an old post of Melissa’s, but it’s an issue we haven’t addressed here, and myths about PMS are still well worth debunking.

originally posted at Shakesville by Melissa McEwan at Monday, March 17, 2008

And here I always thought it was my period!

Even though this is technically Woman 101, I’m filing it under Feminism 101, because I don’t feel inclined to create a separate category of informative posts about the mysteries of boobies and cooters. I do, however, just want to take a moment to quickly address a myth about menstruation that has always aggravated me, but is now seriously grating on my last good nerve like a cheese grater to parmesan at the Olive Garden.

(And yes, sadly, it has reached a fevered pitch because a woman, and a post-menopausal woman at that, is running for president.)

“Ooh, touchy! You must be on the rag!”—First we need to deal with the fact that anyone who says this is an idiot, and not just because they have the emotional maturity of a zygote. The misogynistic “joke” here is predicated on the concept that women are “moody” when they have PMS, which stands for premenstrual syndrome. Pre. As in before. As in not having her period yet. For many PMS-sufferers, getting one’s period alleviates some of all symptoms of PMS, particularly as regards irritability and tension. So the whole “on the rag” thing doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, for a whole lot of women. I suppose the sort of fuck-knuckle who uses a “joke” like this isn’t too concerned about its medical accuracy, but I’m a pedant, so there you go.

My real gripe, however, is the general presumption, which is widely held, even by some of the most feminist people I know, that women who suffer cyclical irritability with their menstrual cycles get “irrational” and/or express anger about things that don’t really bother them; it’s just that they’re being “sensitive” because of the whole period thing.

New look

Just decided to go for something crisp that incorporated a drop-down menu. If there are any accessibility issues please let me know.