21 co-sponsors.

It’s even more crazy because abortion is technically still legal in South Carolina, up to 20 weeks.

So you’re talking about the death penalty for something that, for now at least, isn’t even a crime.

i’m begging them to call it literally anything else

You were my sister, Womanikin! I loved you!

This is for all you ladies out there.

the struggle is real

I have a trans man story about this.

Since I’m pre-t I still have my period but since I’m socially out as trans I use men’s bathrooms. One time at the college the family bathroom was taken and so I went into the men’s room to do my business. I tried opening the little pad as quietly as I could manage, but the rustling and ripping sound still happened. I froze in silence because I didn’t know if the other guy in the men’s room heard it or not.

Then after a little bit of silence I hear…

“Who has a bag of chips?”

And in a panic I just whisper back to him “I’m not sharing.”

Then I hear a huff before he finished his business and left.

I want you all to know that an Arab Muslim from Tunis proposed the Theory of Evolution near 600 years before Charles Darwin even took his first breath. Don’t let them erase you.

his name is Ibn Khaldun

Also, it was not the apple falling from a tree that made Issac Newton “discover” gravity. He was reading the books of Ibn Al Haytham, an Arab Muslim from Iraq, who pioneered the scientific method, discovered gravity and wrote about the laws governing the movement of bodies (now known as Newtons three laws of motion) some 600 years before Newton existed. Without him, modern science as we know it wouldn’t exist. Read on him. His achievements are far greater than what I’ve just mentioned here.

#no offense but arabs literally invented chemistry and algebra and we came up with the concept of the camera #the cataract operation that’s still practiced today was invented by an Arab #we created alchemy and the wright brothers used abbas ibn firnas’ findings and writings to build on to create a plane #I could go on and on and on #pls don’t erase our scientific history

I reblog this post every time I see it

We fucking replaced a Muslim scientist with an apple?

In the middle ages, THE place to go for an education was the middle East, or, failing that, Spain. The Muslim world didn’t have the same limits placed on scientific inquiry that the Christian world did, and since they were willing to look at more than just Aristotole and actually compare texts to the observable world, they had some incredible scientific and mathematical advancements. And street lights and toilets. I mean theories and algebra are great and all, but street lights and toilets. In the 12th century. Also medical advancements, and fewer rules against women studying. Hell, women *should* be the ones studying the female body, would you rather a woman see your female relatives, or some old man? Would you rather have someone who lives in the same kind of body, or one who has no first hand idea what the parts can do?

Europeans erased centuries of knowledge from the East because of fear. When we “rediscovered” it, we were still too egotistical to admit that non-whites could have been smarter, so we invented our own mythology.

Bring credit back where it’s due. Honor the true pioneers.

Also the world’s oldest continuous existing university was established by a woman, Fatima al-Fihri, in 859 AD (244/5 AH) in Fez, Morocco.

This Texas law will bring so much suffering to victims of sexual assault. The misogyny is off the charts. Gov Abbott is incentivising vigilantes because he can't pass actual abortion bans.

[Image ID: screenshot of tweet by twitter user Jake Lobin (@JakeLobin) reading:

The $10,000 ‘abortion bounties’ signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, mean that women will face harsher punishment for getting an abortion after a rape, than the men face for COMMITTING the rape itself.

This is reproductive terrorism.

End ID]

we need to give this tweet more credit for im pretty sure coining "die mad about it"

checks out, thank you melanie

[image desc: first, a tweet by @ beauty_jackson

"Some women use birth control for..." I use it for sex. A human activity. IDGAF if you don't think I should be having sex. I use it because I want sex and don't want kids. Die mad about it.

posted october 8th 2017

second, a google analytics graph showing the use of the phrase "die mad about it." the first usage is shown to be in october 2017, at 100 uses.

end ID]

Today in “Things they didn’t bother telling us about vaginas”.

https://www.thelily.com/can-the-vaccine-make-your-period-worse-these-women-say-yes/

If you are experiencing strange menstrual symptoms after receiving a vaccine, I encourage you to participate in this research study.

I’m not out here saying don’t get vaccinated, but I’m fucking sick of my body not being included and counted in medical research.

I didn’t have any of these effects, but passing along for anyone who did.

don’t just fill this out if your menstrual cycle changed. everyone who menstruates should fill it out. otherwise you get skewed results

This is not me, but I’m absolutely willing (my wife is too) for me to help if you need me. 

Teach boys about periods

My mother also talked about periods to my brothers.

When I first got mine I had terrible cramps. Crippling cramps. I once was camping with my family and a few of my big brother’s friends when my period came. My cramps were so bad that my mom gave me a full pain killer ( I was 13 and before that she only gave me pills cut in half).

I literally laid down on my parents’ air mattress and cried in pain for an hour before the pill kicked in.

My brothers friend came in to the big tent and I was just curled up and sobbing. Now, I was quite the tomboy and was known to rough house with my brothers and their friends and made sure I wasnt seen as just “a little girl.” So my brother’s friend was confused to see me openly weeping in the fetal position (seriously, these were the worst cramps I have had in my life. My vision went white). He asked what was wrong with me.

My big brother stood up immediately and suggested a nice long hike. During this hike I am sure he had a pretty awkward conversation with his friend explaining menstrual cramps, because when they got back the pain pill had (mostly) kicked in and I was sitting up at a table when my brother’s friend sheepishly asked me if I was feeling better. I said I was better, and he said good.

When we made s'mores that night my brother and his friend kept me well supplied with chocolate.

Making sure sons know as much about periods and menstruation as daughters makes them better brothers, better sons better fathers, and better men. A man that understands a period will not lightly accuse a woman of “being on her period” if the woman is in an argument.

Raise better sons Teach them about normal bodily functions.

HIT REBLOG PLEASE

I read a short story where a woman character “always looked forward to her period” because it was “a reminder of her womanness” and YES! The story WAS in fact written by a male!

*my uterus hits the self destruct button and tissue and blood begins falling out of my vagina*

*music drops*

*Shania Twain voice* Let’s Go Girls

#TheHomelessPeriod exposes the unique menstruation problem homeless women face 

Guys, please sign the petition! https://www.change.org/p/help-the-homeless-on-their-period-thehomelessperiod

My school had a fundraiser for this. Man you never think of these things

A nurse has heart attack and describes what she felt like when having one

I am an ER nurse and this is the best description of this event that I have ever heard. 

 FEMALE HEART ATTACKS 

 I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is description is so incredibly visceral that I feel like I have an entire new understanding of what it feels like to be living the symptoms on the inside. Women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have… you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor the we see in movies. Here is the story of one woman’s experience with a heart attack: 

 "I had a heart attack at about 10:30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, ‘A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up. A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation–the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m. 

After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasms), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR). This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. ‘AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening – we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack! I lowered the foot rest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else… but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment. 

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics… I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to un-bolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in. I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the radiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like ‘Have you taken any medications?’) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stints to hold open my right coronary artery. 

I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents. Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned first hand. 

1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body, not the usual men’s symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up… which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a ‘false alarm’ visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be! 2. Note that I said ‘Call the Paramedics.’ And if you can take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER - you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor – he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn’t carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later. 3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive to tell the tale.“

Reblog, repost, Facebook, tweet, pin, email, morse code, fucking carrier pigeon this to save a life! I wish I knew who the author was. I’m definitely not the OP, actually think it might be an old chain email or even letter from back in the day. The version I saw floating around Facebook ended with “my cardiologist says mail this to 10 friends, maybe you’ll save one!” And knew this was way too interesting not to pass on.

snopes.com says this one’s true.

Save a life–Reblog.

Female heart attacks are much different, and most people don’t know it!

This is so much more helpful than the fucking lists that basically describe everything that happens during a really nasty panic attack and then tell you to go seek help as if you don’t have an anxiety disorder that does this to you on a regular basis and can afford to go to the emergency room.

Shit No One Told Me About My Period

I knew the basics before I got it, but I had no clue…

* The blood wouldn’t necessarily be red. When I first got my period, I spent a few min looking at my underwear wondering how I shit myself. I didn’t know the blood could look brown, or be thick.

* That tampons weren’t a good idea yet. I was 10 or 11 when I got my first period and physically smaller than an adult woman. My first attempt at inserting a tampon was very painful and unsuccessful. I wouldn’t use them until I was around 14 or so.

* That when you use pads the blood can get on your bottom and I’d have to occasionally clean off the toilet seat after using it.

* That getting your first period DOES NOT mean you’re fully developed and fully able to bear children. I could have technically gotten pregnant at that age, but I was still a child and pregnancy would have put my life in danger because I was still physically immature.

* That it wouldn’t be regular for another few years.

* That very painful cramping is NOT NORMAL once you reach your 20s and is cause for concern.

* That the blood and tissue you pass can look chunky or stringy and not like blood from a cut.

* That stress can halt your period for months BUT

* That doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant

Feel free to add your own

Relatable

*That not all pads/tampons are made equal, playtex (sport) and Always Infinity flex foam pads are the best

!!!! HEY YO IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT STRESS AND PERIODS STOPPING!!!!

GO and get a blood test if that happens. Stress can trigger it but it can also be a symptom of other issues you may be unaware of. you may have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and the ONLY REASON I found out that I had it was because of periods stopping due to stress.

PCOS is very manageable, but knowing if you have it is important. Not everyone who has it has the same collection of symptoms, and that is literally what it is: a syndrome is a collection of symptoms. 

Overly painful periods or wildly irregular periods can also point to having this, and you do NOT want Cysts on your ovaries. Trust me. You are better off knowing and treating to prevent them.

Treatment is generally three things: low sugar diet (yeah good luck with this I still struggle with it), metformin (for those who are pre-diabetic and have blunt or ineffective insulin), and the pill. Exercise is also generally important for those with insulin issues as it has the same effect on the body as metformin.

SO MANY WOMEN have this issue and it is only now that doctors are learning how to spot it and treat it earlier. Often people think weight gain problems and male-pattern hair growth are the only real indicators, but the effects differ depending on genetics and there are plenty of very slim women with no male-pattern hair growth who also have it and have no idea.

If you think you might have it then GO. GET. TESTED!

OTHER THINGS NOT TOLD TO YOU ABOUT YOUR PERIOD BEFORE YOU HAVE IT:

- HOW FUCKING LONG IT LASTS. LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW THAT UNTIL I GOT MY FIRST ONE AT 13 (I thought it was just a one to two day thing)

- SOMETIMES EXERCISING IN THE WEEK BEFORE YOUR PERIOD WILL GIVE YOU CRAMPS SO BAD YOU CAN’T MOVE. If you can push past them though you’re good to exercise for several hours without issue generally.

- YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY WEAR NIGHTTIME PADS ALL FUCKING DAY FUCK WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS

- YOU DON’T EVER HAVE TO USE TAMPONS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO

- PERIODS WILL OFTEN EITHER GIVE YOU THE RUNS OR CONSTIPATE YOU there’s too much going on down there during a period and sometimes your body will go ‘get every fucking thing out of me’ or ‘there’s too much i’m only doing one thing at a time and right now it aint poopin’.

- IF YOU’RE ALWAYS HAVING HEAVY PERIODS YOU’RE PROBABLY GOING TO NEED IRON SUPPLEMENTS. Also if they are always super fucking painful, you may not have PCOS but Endometriosis. Which is just as serious and also needs treatment.

- EVEN WITHOUT PCOS THE AMOUNT OF SUGAR YOU EAT CAN EFFECT YOUR PERIODS. If you binge on high sugar foods regularly, regardless of your weight, your insulin may not be able to cope with all of it. Many organs can deal with this OK, but Ovaries CANNOT. You may damage them, or stress them out, and this can be a factor in period irregularity. 

Sugar in general can have a huge impact on your hormones and overall body chemistry and you definitely need to be careful about how much you eat. It’s less about what you weigh and more about how stressed out your pancreas gets. It can also cause more thrush problems if you are prone to outbreaks of it! 

Periods can be an indicator of how well your body is coping in general with stress and your diet. I cannot tell you how annoying it was when I had to be HAPPY about getting my period because it meant my internals were doing okay.

THIS HAS BEEN A UTERUS HAVERS PSA.

If you’re at 15% body fat or less, you run the risk of amenorrhea, which causes your period to stop. This really affects female atheles and/or those who suffer from eating disorders.

Tampons are a “luxury item”

Once I worked as an intern in the state capital. One of the representatives I worked for was this middle-aged guy. And he hated the tampon and napkin machines in the women’s bathrooms. Hated them. He insisted that they weren’t necessary.

I found out why after I’d been working there, oh, about a month. My period started suddenly, as it sometimes does, and I asked to excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room. He wanted to know why. I told him.

He started ranting about how lazy women were. How we wasted time. How we were so careless and unhygenic, and that there was no call for that. He finished by telling me that I certainly was NOT going to the ladies’ room and that I was just going to sit there and work. He finished this off with a decisive nod, as if I’d just been told and there could be no possible argument.

“If I don’t go,” I said in an overly patient tone, “the blood is going to soak through my pants, stain my new skirt that I just bought, and possibly get on this chair I’m sitting in. I need something to soak up the blood. That’s why I need to go to the bathroom.”

His face turned oatmeal-gray; an expression of pure horror spread across his face. He leaned forward and whispered, “Wait, you mean that if you don’t go, you’ll just keep on bleeding? I thought that women could turn it off any time that they wanted!”

I thought,  You have got to be kidding.

Several horrified whispers later, I learned that he wasn’t. He actually thought a) that women could shut down the menstrual cycle at will, b) that we essentially picked a week per month to spend more time in the bathroom, i.e. to goof off, and c) that napkins and tampons were sex toys paid for by Health and Human Services. I didn’t know the term then, but he believed that tampons were dildos. Which was why he and a good number of his friends considered them luxuries.

And that’s how, at twenty, I had to give a talk on menstruation to a middle-aged married state representative who was one of my bosses. American politics, ladies and gentlemen.

That’s.., that’s insane.

what the fuck did i just read

it’s easier, faster, and cheaper for men to buy sex than it is for women to get abortions

This literally made my stomach turn over. I feel sick now because this is 100% true.

It’s easier, faster, and cheaper for men to buy the use of a woman’s body than it is for women to gain control over what her own body is used for.

Teach boys about periods

My mother also talked about periods to my brothers.

When I first got mine I had terrible cramps. Crippling cramps. I once was camping with my family and a few of my big brother’s friends when my period came. My cramps were so bad that my mom gave me a full pain killer ( I was 13 and before that she only gave me pills cut in half).

I literally laid down on my parents’ air mattress and cried in pain for an hour before the pill kicked in.

My brothers friend came in to the big tent and I was just curled up and sobbing. Now, I was quite the tomboy and was known to rough house with my brothers and their friends and made sure I wasnt seen as just “a little girl.” So my brother’s friend was confused to see me openly weeping in the fetal position (seriously, these were the worst cramps I have had in my life. My vision went white). He asked what was wrong with me.

My big brother stood up immediately and suggested a nice long hike. During this hike I am sure he had a pretty awkward conversation with his friend explaining menstrual cramps, because when they got back the pain pill had (mostly) kicked in and I was sitting up at a table when my brother’s friend sheepishly asked me if I was feeling better. I said I was better, and he said good.

When we made s'mores that night my brother and his friend kept me well supplied with chocolate.

Making sure sons know as much about periods and menstruation as daughters makes them better brothers, better sons better fathers, and better men. A man that understands a period will not lightly accuse a woman of “being on her period” if the woman is in an argument.

Raise better sons Teach them about normal bodily functions.