Not too long ago a book made its appearance in our home. It arrived with the LightMom; a gift from the GrandPea to his oldest grandson (LightBoy). It’s called the Dangerous Book for Boys.  At about the same time, Julie Clawson wrote about some serious misgivings she has about the book.  She makes some points that I’ve given some thought to.  But I’m not terribly concerned about them.  We’ve all been reading the book, including LightMom, who wished that the book had been around when she was a girl.  I want to build the crystal radio with the LightChildren, and I’m teaching LightBoy to quilt, LightGirl plays ice hockey, it would be fair to say that LightHusband does more cooking than I do.  So we tend to be fairly gender neutral in our house.  I worry about those books in terms of our culture, but also know that on a case by case basis I have more control over how my children perceive them than I previously recognized.

Then I took LightGirl and one of her friends to play hockey one afternoon and the friend (nicknamed the Beast by her team) told a story about her middle school softball team.  It seems that the girls softball team and the boys baseball team share equipment room space and practice time.  They do not, however, share a liking for each other.  So they have taken to playing somewhat mean jokes on one another.  This is not done in a spirit of fraternity, but in getting even, and ill will.  The latest prank was that  the girls broke into the equipment room and tied tampons and pads all over the boys equipment.  They thought this was hilarious.  I guess if you’re 13 it is.  What was disturbing to me is that the girls coach aided and abetted them in this endeavor.  LightGirl brought the incident up with me this morning.  We talked about it.  I told her I found it somewhat disturbing that the coach assisted in this.  I also told her that my biggest problem was that for centuries men have found women’s menstrual blood and the products they use to deal with it unclean and the butt of jokes.  So the girls were just perpetuating that myth and denigrating themselves by playing that joke.  They were, in a sense, further putting themselves down.

Without menstrual blood, we would not have the human race for much longer.  It is that monthly cleansing of the womb that allows pregnancy and prolonging our species.  It’s high time we acknowledged that far from being unclean and a joke, it is what allows us to be and continue being.  It is what makes us intensely feminine, female and other and beautiful.  And I am far more concerned about those underlying centuries old issues that women and girls continue to perpetuate as well as men.  May we learn to find beauty in these things as well.