I’ve always jokingly said that it’s threatening to men that we can bleed for days without dying, but really it’s just the misogynistic culture we live in. Women have periods, and so it is shamed. It goes much deeper than that, but that’s the gist of it.

There used to be goddess religions where women were held in highest esteem, and when the women in a community all had their period at the same time (without the presence of artificial light, women in close proximity have their cycles sync up), they would go into a hut together for the week and make decisions for the group because they were thought to be wisest during menses.

You can see the difference between then and now, when people say that women shouldn’t be in positions of power because their period makes them too “emotional.” It’s all sociocultural.