Exactly, it’s just a thing that is. Not the greatest or most fun (it’s blood after all and some women suffer from extreme pain and nausea every goddamn month), but it’s just a thing our bodies do. I once asked my ex to pick me up a box of tampons and he looked at me like I’d asked him to kill a puppy. That said, I’ve…

Years ago, I was paid beer money by my flatmate for going out to buy her tampons and a replacement cap.

Same here. I’d ask if our moms went to the same school, but I think this is just the School of Life we’re talking about here. Everybody had to learn not to offend some man or other, usually starting with dear ol’ squeamish dad.

I know this sounds like a brag, it’s not my intent...but I have always been really confused about the way guys react about anything vaguely period related. I only find it as “gross” as I would any other circumstance involving bleeding. Which is more than women do, I’m sure. But neither do I recoil into the fetal…

They couldn’t even handle the wrapper?! Oh, the childishness.

My version of Michael pitched a fit because my roommate threw away a sanitary napkin in her own bathroom, and it had the gall to come unrolled. “Too much information.” In our shared bathroom.

I thought I hated the invisibility. Now that I’m losing weight I want it back. I’d rather be invisible (and healthy and fit) than feel like I do now: which is like an object and a toy.

They would have complained more if you had flushed them down the toilet. Honestly, men can be such morons. How did they pass biology in highschool?

The way I’m treated is so dependent upon my weight. I’m 5'5". I’ve been 200lbs and I honestly could’ve pulled off a heist then, for how unacknowledged I was. My weight determines how quickly cars stop for me at intersections, how demeaning the language is when men hit on me. I’m 10+ over my skinniest right now, and I…

(Most) men are so easily offended by the mere sight of a pad or tampon, it’s ridiculous. Where else should you have put them? In you purse? They only like to acknowledge vaginas when it’s convenient for them, so when they’re horny. But I can understand your reaction, I used to be like that until a couple of years ago…

If he’s not mature enough to handle his roommate talking about his sex life, then he’s not mature enough for sex.

That’s when you stuff his pillowcase with them.

Whenever I read a frothy article that’s all ‘Here are the top ten things in women’s fashion that men hate’, I just want to do everything on the list as a reminder that I do not exist for anybody’s boner. It’s that level of pettiness that led to me cutting off all of my hair after a boyfriend told me he didn’t want me…

I never wore makeup but I’ve been experimenting with it lately. Always garish — blue lipstick, glitter eyes, stuff that is not “pretty” but like a poisonous snake that warns you away with bright colors. Screw them and their entitlement to how I should look.

And Michael, too. My college boyfriend reprimanded me for putting pantyliner wrappers in the garbage in his bathroom because his roommate would tease him for it. I was so humiliated. I didn’t occur to me then to be pissed at him and his stupid roommate. I feel sad for my younger self, and I’ll never stop being pissed…

“...But this is a lie.” Yes, yes, yes it is. Because as Germaine Greer put it, women have no idea how much men hate us. They lie to us about it all the damn time, so that we might believe them and trust them and take care of them and feed them and fuck them and look nice for them. All the while they keep their boots…

Great piece. And may I recommend getting fat? I am completely invisible now. But nothing makes men angrier than a fat feminist who loves herself. Example number one - Lindy West. She rocks.

Vanity keeps me from throwing away my makeup and sanity keeps me from, as I often feel the repugnant urge, breaking the mirror with the surface of my own face and leaving us both cracked open. But I also can’t deny my current impulse to become as ugly and unlikeable as I can, merely to serve as constant reminder of…

“It’s disgusting how easily they can divide us.”

This was amazing. Thank you for writing!