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How come Buffy didn't have periods? Was part of her slayer strength to have permanent oestrogen coursing her veins without the bother of that pesky pro-oestrogen? I can see a lot of potential for menstrual humour rarely seen outside of Jo Brand jokes - Buffy is chasing a vampire through a graveyard when she comes on and has to pop to the late night chemists for a tampon. Willow is in a mess because she's only got a B+ on a test, but after 5 days she realises how irrational she was being and cheers up. All of the potential slayers syncing and arguing tearfully about who ate the last chocolate bar. Considering the amount of blood there is in the series, you'd have thought some menstrual imagery would, erm, seep through. Maybe Joss found it all a little too....distasteful, although I did read that an original idea for the film was that Buffy suffered cramps when a vampire was near.
PMS in one's thirties seems to have moved on from the screaming rage and suicidal tendencies of one's twenties (aided by Agnus Castus, Black Cohosh, flax-seed oil and attempts at temperance) and is now focussed on physical inconveniences. Today I feel as if last night was spent drinking 10 pints of lager - my head weighs 50 kg and hurts, my limbs ache, my stomach is unsettled, I am, despite 8 hours sleep, exhausted. I feel disoriented and dizzy and discombobulated, unable to concentrate on anything for more than 15 minutes at a time. At least with hangovers you get the fun of the night before! A few weeks ago, there were articles in the media about the disadvantages of HRT, some newspapers implying that women were putting themselves at risk of cancer etc just so they didn't look like an old hag. O, Vanity. The Daily Mail instills it with its article on gaining a bikini-ready body and the Daily Mail takes it away when it decides that females are being fatuous. As many women pointed out, taking HRT is nothing to do with how one looks, it's do to with feeling like a human being. At least with PMT you know that after the blood-letting the good times start to roll once more - if the menopause is feeling permanently pre-menstrual, then I can see why women of a certain age are breaking down the doors of doctors to get their artificial hormones.
In t'olden days, once women had married and reproduced, they could settle into their dotage, but now along with the right to work and divorce and have a life outside of marriage 'n' kids comes the "right" to grow old whilst never looking old. 65 year olds are no longer lonely old pensioners, but Women In Their Prime.
I, grudgingly, include myself in this conspiracy. A new year's resolution of mine was to stop dying my hair which I have done since I was 18 (a desire to escape the quiet timid speccy girl with mousy-brown hair. Henna-red and pink in my teens, blonde and golden-brown in my twenties). But my resolution went out of the salon window when I espied a few white hairs amongst the roots. I may be getting fatter, saggier and jowly but I won't have grey hair!
PMS in one's thirties seems to have moved on from the screaming rage and suicidal tendencies of one's twenties (aided by Agnus Castus, Black Cohosh, flax-seed oil and attempts at temperance) and is now focussed on physical inconveniences. Today I feel as if last night was spent drinking 10 pints of lager - my head weighs 50 kg and hurts, my limbs ache, my stomach is unsettled, I am, despite 8 hours sleep, exhausted. I feel disoriented and dizzy and discombobulated, unable to concentrate on anything for more than 15 minutes at a time. At least with hangovers you get the fun of the night before! A few weeks ago, there were articles in the media about the disadvantages of HRT, some newspapers implying that women were putting themselves at risk of cancer etc just so they didn't look like an old hag. O, Vanity. The Daily Mail instills it with its article on gaining a bikini-ready body and the Daily Mail takes it away when it decides that females are being fatuous. As many women pointed out, taking HRT is nothing to do with how one looks, it's do to with feeling like a human being. At least with PMT you know that after the blood-letting the good times start to roll once more - if the menopause is feeling permanently pre-menstrual, then I can see why women of a certain age are breaking down the doors of doctors to get their artificial hormones.
In t'olden days, once women had married and reproduced, they could settle into their dotage, but now along with the right to work and divorce and have a life outside of marriage 'n' kids comes the "right" to grow old whilst never looking old. 65 year olds are no longer lonely old pensioners, but Women In Their Prime.
I, grudgingly, include myself in this conspiracy. A new year's resolution of mine was to stop dying my hair which I have done since I was 18 (a desire to escape the quiet timid speccy girl with mousy-brown hair. Henna-red and pink in my teens, blonde and golden-brown in my twenties). But my resolution went out of the salon window when I espied a few white hairs amongst the roots. I may be getting fatter, saggier and jowly but I won't have grey hair!
