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From: jss@sjuvax.UUCP (Jonathan Shapiro)
Newsgroups: net.women.only
Subject: Re: pain relievers and periods
Message-ID: <731@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 19:54:19 EST
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.731
Posted: Tue Dec 11 19:54:19 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 02:28:19 EST
References: <978@phs.UUCP>
Organization: Saint Josephs Univ. Phila., Pa.
Lines: 37

[Aren't you hungry...?]

	This one is asked largely out of ignorance: Is it true that the male
medical practitioners have been perpetrating the myth of the horrors of
menstruation? Or is it rather the case that until recently the studies on
pain killers were not far enough advanced to produce things like Motrin?

	Perhaps I am naive, or perhaps I simply find the accusations against
the medical profession incredible because I can't conceive of people being
so stupid (people == the medical professionals), but if such accusations
are baseless perhaps they should be reconsidered.

	I am attending Haverford College, which has a room/course exchange with
Bryn Mawr College (in some cases major departments are split between the
two). For those of you who may not know Bryn Mawr, it is a good, small, all
female school.  In any case, I spent a year living at BMC, many of my
friends are there, and I have had a chance to observe some of the goings on
there in a way I believe most of my peers have not.

	One of the things which has troubled me about womens groups there (and
elsewhere) is that they are devided into at least two distinguishable
groups: One which is comfortable with itself, whose members do things
because they want to, and another which is simply hung up about the world
in general, and reacts by trying to strike back.  There are those who have
referred to BMC's women (some of the speakers from BMC), as "Castrating
Bitches."  As much as I find the term distasteful, it is in some individual
cases applicable.

	What I am getting at is that the people who are striking out out of
insecurity jeopardize what the Women's Lib groups stand for - equality, not
dominance. Maybe we all need to be careful about the line between
vituperation and criticism.

	I am curious what others out there feel about this, and this seems an
appropriate place for the question.

Jon Shapiro