Content warning: This article discusses sexism, misogyny, and death. 

The ‘politics of pain’ is a term in feminist theory that describes the politicization of women’s physical pain, particularly through imposing anti-woman ideologies and frameworks in the political and economic governance of menstruation and abortion.

Women face not only natural physical pain through menstruation and abortion, but also psychological and emotional distress caused by the harmful politicizations of these experiences: primarily through the commodification of menstruation, workplace challenges related to menstruation, and dangerous abortion legislation.

I believe the politicization of menstruation and abortion in North America reflects a broader disregard for the well-being and humanity of the women who endure these painful physical acts. 

Commodifying menstruation 

Many advocates argue that menstrual products should at the very least be absolved from taxation, given that many basic grocery items are tax-free. Others suggest that specific products, such as menstrual cups and menstrual underwear, should be subsidized due to their reusability and environmental sustainability.

I, like many women’s activists, argue that menstrual products should be entirely free of charge. Commodifying these menstrual products is not only a slap in the face to women who can afford them, but an outright attack on financially strained, impoverished, and women experiencing poverty who also experience “period poverty.

When menstrual products are inaccessible or unaffordable, women are forced to use toilet paper and other painfully ineffective alternatives, which illustrates the barbarism of any political society that allows such dehumanizing measures in response to a natural physical experience. 

Traditionally ‘men’s’ products like erectile dysfunction medication Viagra and men’s shaving cream are sold tax-free in the US, and condoms are provided at no cost on many university campuses and health agencies, including at U of T’s sexual education centre. If this is the case, what then justifies charging a base price and taxing menstrual products, which, unlike many of these ‘men’s’ products, are not a luxury but a necessity? 

It’s true that condoms simultaneously protect women from sexually transmitted infections and diseases, but sexual abstinence is always an exercisable choice. Menstruation is not.

Workplace period politics

Another politicized issue is workplace menstrual leave. The social taboo surrounding menstruation has made its consideration in the workplace effectively non-existent. This has reinforced the idea that women should quietly endure the onslaught of debilitating menstrual symptoms — even if they can impede women’s ability to perform effectively at work.

In December 2023, Canada mandated free access to menstrual products for workers, making a step in the right direction. However, I believe there is still much work to be done to alleviate painful menstruation experiences, particularly by reworking workplace dynamics to allow for menstrual leave. 

Menstrual symptoms and side effects should not be whispered as coy anecdotes from woman to woman that always end with the same disappointing concession: we just have to deal with it. Workplaces should accommodate the physical needs of their workers, not the other way around. After all, they were designed for human participation, weren’t they?

Abortion arbitration

While the right to an abortion is protected nationwide in Canada, many US states have banned abortions altogether — with the exception of some states that protect the right

In September 2021, Texas woman Josseli Barnica was denied an abortion despite suffering a miscarriage. Due to ambiguous definitions of a “medical emergency,” the fact that Barnica’s fetus still had a heartbeat took priority over Barnica’s cramps, bleeding, and unhealthy cervical dilation. Doctors refused to treat her until the fetus’ heartbeat stopped, and her treatment came all too late. Barnica subsequently died of sepsis. 

Barnica’s outcome is one that could be repeated under the new anti-abortion legislation following the reversal of Roe v Wade: a Supreme Court ruling that had constitutionally protected the right to abortion in every US state until its overturning in June 2022.

I view the state-by-state regulation of when and under what ultra-specific circumstances abortions can legally be performed as dangerous. It grants state governments the authority to arbitrarily decide when a woman can receive necessary care, effectively giving them the power to determine when she lives or dies. 

As Barnica’s case illustrates, natal complications do not always fit with the x-week period or the x-number of medical circumstances that these states arbitrate the legal acceptability of terminating a pregnancy.

The unique, political femininity of pain

Like many critics of dehumanizing menstruation and anti-abortion politics, I argue that if men endured menstruation, menstrual products would be free. Advocates for the constitutional protection of abortion also propose that if men were the childbearers instead of women, anti-abortion debates wouldn’t even be happening. 

For instance, the World Health Organization conducted a study on male birth control, which was scrapped after participants reported side effects like acne and mood swings. Yet female birth control and abortions come with a wide range of side effects, the most dangerous being death. Why, then, is male pain taken seriously, while female pain is normalized and proliferated?

There is much to consider in the unique and inherently gendered way society politicizes abortion and menstruation. The frameworks through which we politicize these experiences — namely, the normalization of physical pain during menstruation and abortion — have become socially and politically tied to womanhood, and are inherently patriarchal and misogynistic. They are governed by the same gendered caveats that subjugate women in all other areas of life.

After all, when every other aspect of women’s lives is scrutinized by society, what difference does the painful, distressing, and fatal politicization of menstruation and abortion make?

Shontia Sanders is a third-year student at St. Michael’s College studying political science. She is an associate Opinion editor for The Varsity and an associate editor for POLIS.