For the past week and probably to my boyfriend’s dismay* I’ve suffered a terrible case of PMS syndrom - something I have been quite happy living without for most of my teenager and adult life. Ridiculous mood swings and crying fits - you name it. Should you happen to be blessed with the wonders of a female body, you probably know what I am referring to. If not you can listen to Mary J Blige, who wrote about it (what a really strange topic for a RnB singer. I didn’t listen to anything by her ever since this duet with Method Man [if you know the song you are old school - HOLLA!] so I don’t know the song itself, but I disgress…)

This might explain why I enjoyed this post at Sivacracy, which attacks the faux-caring, paternalist and condescending tone napkin and tampon manufacturers use when adressing their customers. She quotes a letter sent to a manager of a company representative:

… As brand manager in the feminine-hygiene division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers’ monthly visits from Aunt Flo. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend’s testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey’s Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy! The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in capri pants. Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: “Have a Happy Period.”

Are you f***ing kidding me?

I should write infuriated letters like this one more often.

And don’t even get me started on the “flowery scented” pads trend, which I find revolting. Periods are a natural cycle of your body, and pushing women to feel like their body odour when menstruating is wrong really irks me. Now, while I would certainly agree that it’s a “tough time for women”, it’s also one we have to embrace, not detest.

I know some women decide to regulate their cycle by taking Depo Provera which stops mentsruation altogether, but a really interesting post I read today confirmed my fear of such drastic reproductive-options.

Now about those pads? This great company will be the place where I am going to shop next. At least they don’t treat their customers like raving chocolate-eating shopping-addicted morons. And no more chlorin-ified cotton!

*He is a very patient man. Lucky me.

• Newsflash: all American male law school students aren’t enlightenned characters. And while I’m sure the majority of them are great, capable and bright individuals, some are the exact opposite with too much time on their hands (maybe they should read a bit about sexual harrasment law instead of posting on message boards). And to think they will be lawyers soon. I’m still amazed by what people think they are entitled to do just because it’s on “a series of tubes” and they’re hiding behind their screens.

• Today is International Women’s Day. Does it mean that the 364 other days are International Men’s day? Maybe.

• Accurate sexual education for teens in the US. At last, a step in the right direction! Well that’s good news.

“After five years of making it through the House, but getting nowhere in the Senate, the sex ed bill —mandating that sex ed be medically accurate and that abstinence cannot be taught at the exclusion of contraception— passed the state Senate today, 30-19.” (via Josh Feit @ Slog)

I hope it also means that young adults won’t have to hear propaganda such as “abortion is the leading cause of breast cancer” any longer.

In light of my recent post about Yoshi’s island, Mark pointed me to this piece of news about gaming:

Mark: bet you can’t wait for this game

me: brilliant, and so spot on, after all I knit and bake bread already (1)

Mark: you’re a housewife superstar?

me: well I do have all the qualities don’t i?

A game for girls who want to become Housewives superstars? I suppose the game’s challenge is to bake perfectly little round cakes, clean the kids’ underwear and knit pretty scarves with ribbons intertwined. (I suppose that if there were working-full time housewives characters in this game they would say, hey, “I am enjoying spending an average of 10 hours more than you doing chores even if we both have a full time job and i’m still hitting the glass ceiling. Why’s that, honey?”).

Not that it’s out of the way… From what I gathered learning about games with Mark, Nintendo opened the gaming market to girls by making it accessible (and sadly, by releasing pink Nintendo DS). It also means they release games such as Bratz, which I can only describe as the gaming equivalent of reading Seventeen; Paris Hilton splattered all over the pages and oh don’t-you-wish-you-were-her.

Simple consideration: if there are “games 4 girls” and “games 4 boys”, it makes little doubt that girls are also enjoying playing boy’s games as well. After all, I really enjoy killing my pixelized enemies. And yes, I also understand that some games will be more popular with one sex than the other. But here’s the one million dollar question- why don’t I picture any little boy furiously hitting the start button of his “housewife superstar” game? Damn it, I want to see the “stay at home dad superstar” game out, and soon. Because as long as it’s not about assigning roles to gender but respecting lifestyle choices, there’s nothing wrong with liking housework, or wanting to raise your own children. But Madeleine already explained it better than I could.

(1) Mark and I did it together and to be honest, he knew way more about it than I did. That’s one of the reasons why I love the boy.

I used to be a Suicide Girls enthusiast - I do enjoy pin-up aesthetic, Petty Page paraphernalia, corsets and gothic fashion, piercing and body modification art. I discovered the site back in 2004, when still a very-underground mouvement. A couple of dozens girls were posting pictures and the effort to make it a female, sex-positive environment was clear. My doubts began to grow when Nerve.com (another site I read religiously, and still somehow regard as a sex-positive, edgy community) started to aggressively promote Suicide Girls (the models, not the site) as a brand. Today I stumbled upon this:

“Alterna-chick apologists for SG-style pornulation (…) point to the website’s purported (and invisible) “female-positive” stance as evidence that Suicide Girls models are not exploited like conventional Penthousian objets de smutte. Naturally, there are ex-Suicide Girls who, noting that the site re-pimps their photos to hardcore sites as they decline in popularity with the SG staff, and that subscribers to the decidedly un-feminist Playboy have free access to SG, see things rather differently.”

Absolutely disapointing, not to mention downright exploitive. In many ways SG’s downfall reminds me of American Apparel (1) and the like: companies and sites that truly aimed for the best, but truly got lost along the way.

SG? I’ll switch to Fatal Beauty for this kind of imagery instead.

(1) AA and unions.