September 29, 2023
  • 12:08 pm Fall Convocation 2022: “The State of this University is Strong”
  • 9:37 pm Ogrin Brings the Thunder in Toros 12-3 rout; team plays for playoff championship tomorrow
  • 7:00 am Outstanding Professor Award Recipient’s Mic Drop Moment at Last Month’s Virtual Ceremony
  • 9:10 am Bookworms of the World Unite!
  • 7:46 pm Breaking News: All Students Living in Campus Housing Required to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine
  • 9:00 am CSUDH Esports Creates International Competition
  • 9:35 am Spring Commencement Ceremonies Get Brighter
  • 3:46 pm Breaking News: Spring Commencement Ceremonies Recieve Stadium Upgrade
  • 8:00 am Testing the Teachers (and All the Educators)
  • 9:30 am CSUDH Educators and School Employees, Vaccinated Next
  • 10:30 am For White People Only: Anti-Racism Workshop Addresses Racial Bias and Unity
  • 2:43 pm Greatness Personified: Remembering Kobe Bryant
  • 10:02 am Straight Down the Chimney and Into Your (Digital) Hands: Special Holiday Edition of The Bulletin!
  • 2:44 pm Did You Wake up Looking this Beautiful?
  • 11:43 am A Long History for University’s Newest Major
  • 5:15 pm Issue 5 of Bulletin Live! Collector’s Item! Worth its Weight in Digital Paper!
  • 4:06 pm Special Election Issue
  • 4:03 pm Three best Latinx Halloween & Horror Short Films available now on HBO Max
  • 9:49 am Issue 3 of CSUDH Bulletin Live if You Want It
  • 3:24 pm Hispanic Heritage Month Update
  • 2:00 pm South Bay Economic Forecast Goes Virtual
  • 3:52 pm BREAKING NEWS: Classes for Spring to be Online, CSU Chancellor Announces
  • 9:39 am “Strikes” and Solidarity
  • 8:30 am March Into History: Just 5 in 1970, CSUDH Growth Shaped by Historic Event
  • 8:30 am Will the Bulletin Make Today Tomorrow?
  • 9:04 am Different Neighborhoods Warrant Rubber Bullets or Traffic Control For Protesters
  • 5:07 pm STAFF EDITORIAL: Even Socially Distant, We All Have to Work Together
  • 5:47 pm Transcript of CSUDH President Parham’s Coronavirus Announcement
  • 10:46 am Cal State Long Beach Suspends Face-to-Face Classes; CSUDH Discussing Contingency Plans
  • 5:26 pm Things Black People Should be Able to Get Away with This Month
  • 10:25 am Latinx Students Need a Place to Call Home
  • 2:35 pm Will Time Run Out Before Funds for PEGS? [UPDATED]
  • 8:41 am Year of the Rat? What’s That?
  • 6:20 am Artist Who Gave Life to Death and Inspired Countless Others Gets His Due at Dominguez Hills
  • 5:16 pm Why I’m Rooting for Dr. Cornel West
  • 5:00 pm Under Fire from the Feds, Vaping’s Future is Cloudy
  • 3:28 pm We’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat; Tsunami 3.0 Hits Campus, Enrollment Swells
  • 1:22 pm THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE BULLETIN IS HERE
  • 4:48 pm University Weathering a Wave of New Students
  • 9:21 pm The Bulletin’s Public Records Request Offers Springboard to Launch Gender Equity Discussion at CSUDH
  • 4:27 pm Black is the New Black: Raising the Capital on the “B” Word
  • 10:53 am Guns Up for Arrest: Student advocacy group pushes for CSU No Gun Zones–Including the Police
  • 4:09 pm Staff Editorial: Words on the First
  • 8:42 pm Carson Mayor Blasts Media, Landmark Libel Case in Keynote Address
  • 9:27 am Free Speech Week Calendar of Events Update
  • 6:02 am Food for Thought: 40% of Students are Food Insecure
  • 3:12 pm Academic Senate Rejects CSU GE Task Force & Report
  • 3:06 pm Work To Be Done
  • 5:56 pm ASI Elections: What You Need to Know
  • 8:02 pm CSUDH President Parham Announces Cancer Diagnosis
  • 9:47 am CSUDH Art Professor’s 20-Year Journey Results in First Local Showing of Film
  • 9:13 pm Free Speech or Free Hate area?
  • 9:08 pm CSUDH’s Best & Brightest Shine at Student Research Day
  • 9:05 pm Academic Senate Approves Gender Equity Task Force
  • 12:37 pm When Dr. Davis speaks, Toros Pay Close Attention
  • 3:38 pm Investing in the Future: Dr. Thomas A. Parham Reflects on the Past Eight Months and Contemplates​ the University’s Future
  • 3:24 pm Green Olive to Open By End of Feb; Starbucks Not Until Fall
  • 3:20 pm Gov. Newsom’s Proposed Budget Hailed for Extensive Funding Increases
  • 3:08 pm Out of the Classroom: Labor and Community Organizing Course Aims to Teach Students How to Organize for Social Justice
  • 2:54 pm The Other Route in Professional Sports
  • 9:02 am Hail to the New Chief, CSUDH President Thomas Parham
  • 3:36 pm Career Center Holds Major/Minor Fair
  • 5:34 pm After Unexpected Delay, Undocumented Becomes More Intimate Theatrical Production
  • 1:30 pm What to Expect When You’re Expecting New Buildings
  • 6:30 pm September Events For Suicide Prevention Month
  • 6:30 pm Higher Parking Fees Squeeze Toros
  • 6:25 pm Study Abroad Opportunities Abound
  • 7:49 pm CSUDH offers qualified students free laptops
  • 1:17 pm Peaches, Peaches, Peaches

By Yesenia Flores, Freelance Writer

Having a female body is a unique experience and menstruation is just one of its natural processes. So why are people ashamed to talk about it? For the simple fact that society portrays it as repulsive and gross.

The mere use of pretty blue liquid in period advertisements delegitimizes what menstruation is really about and what it looks like. Women bleed various shades of red, not blue. Period blood can be thicker, contain clots and definitely looks nothing like what is shown in advertisements. Although some might consider period blood to be graphic, not presenting its true appearance teaches women that we should also not see it. So in turn, we hide it, not only from other women but specifically from men.

Society teaches women that men should not see or hear about periods, but instead, we should get rid of anything related to it and not make it their problem. However, when we do so, they still manage to put all the blame on our periods and shame us when something does not align.

“I’m irritated because of my period, I’m wrong because of my period, I’m stupid because of my period, I’m eating seconds because of my period, I’m bossy because of my period,” Ana Serafin, a junior minoring in Women’s Studies, said. “I don’t even bother with those comments anymore because I shouldn’t have to try to validate my capability to someone who doesn’t understand Auntie Flow.”

Given that not every woman feels the same way about their period, not all men should be put into the same category of a naive judgemental being. Some men who have been educated about menstruation or simply have women in their lives that are open about it tend not to overreact or become repulsed. 

“Growing up in a home full of women, I had no choice but to listen to stories of them being on their periods so I guess it just made it seem like nothing out of the ordinary,” Ramiro Villegas, a senior majoring in music, said. “If I had a period, I think I would be mad about having to pay for something that I didn’t choose to have because I know how expensive pads and tampons can be. ”

It is no secret that women menstruate. It is pretty safe to assume that women spend days bleeding and have to buy menstrual products at some point. Having to do so shouldn’t have to be an embarrassing transaction to make.

There were many times I went to Target only needing to buy menstration products but always ended up buying something else just so I could hide the box while I walked to the self-checkout stations. For the longest time, I didn’t want people to know anything about my period. 

The first and only time I was ever informed and engaged in conversation about my period in a public setting was when I was in fifth grade. Both gender binaries were sent to separate presentations. All girls were taken to a classroom with all the female teachers while the boys were taken to a separate classroom with all the male teachers to be given lectures about our developing bodies as if it were forbidden to know what the opposite gender was being taught.

According to my younger sister, this segregation is still done today. The only difference is that upon entering middle school physical education, females were, again, separated from males but told they could inform their teachers when they were on their periods so they could sit out from participating in activities. Although young girls are now given that freedom, the shame continues because even though this option is available, not many speak up if their teacher just so happens to be a male.

We learned from older generations to hide, so I think it is only reasonable to correct those teachings and educate the youth to normalize bodily functions such as periods to deconstruct shame and finally end the sense of embarrassment around them.

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