If men could menstrate and have babies...
Why don't we just simplfy things a bit here... and just call these hypothetical male beings that menstrate and give birth "women"... and their counterparts "men"?
Becuase that's exactly what the article is:
What if Women Ruled the World?
The answer is clear - menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, femine event:
Women would brag about how long and how much.
Grils would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of womanhood, with religious ritual and "girls' night" parties.
Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts.
Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. (Of course, some women would still pay for the prestige of commercial brands such as Sarah Palin Tampons, Martha Steward's Rope-a-dope Pads, etc)
Military women, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation as proof that only women could serve in the Army ("you have to give blood to take blood"), occupy political office ("can men be aggressive without that steadfast cycle governed by the planet Venus?"), be priestess ("how could a man give his blood for our sins?") or rabbis ("without the monthly loss of impurities, men remain unclean").
Female radicals, left-wing politicians, mystics, however, would insist that men are equal, just different, and that any man could enter their ranks if she were willing to self-inflict a major wound every month ("you MUST give blood for the revolution"), recognize the preeminence of menstrual issues, or subordinate him selfness to all women in their Cycle of Enlightenment. Street girls would brag ("I'm a three pad woman") or answer praise from a friend ("Girl, you lookin' good!") by giving fives and saying, "Yeah, girl, I'm on the rag!" TV shows would treat the subject at length. ("Happy Days": Heather and Dianne try to convince Gwendolyn that she is still "The Gwenz," though she has missed two periods in a row.) So would newspapers.
Women would convince men that intercourse was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Gays would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself - though probably only because they needed a good menstruating woman.
Of course, female intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguments. How could a man master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics, or measurement, for instance, without that in-built gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets - and thus for measuring anything at all? In the rarefied fields of philosophy and religion, could men compensate for missing the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death-and-resurrection every month?
Liberal women in every field would try to be kind: the fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life or connecting to the universe, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.
You get the picture..
In fact, if women ran the planet, the power justifications could probably go on forever.
If we let them.
Whether you swap the gender roles, or who is 'In power" - the outcome is the same.
- Lime
