So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

Clearly, mensuration would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood.  Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free.  Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields - "For Those Light Bachelor Days."

Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentals would cite mensuration ("men-stration") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").

Street guys would invent slang ("He's a three-pad man") and "give fives" on the corner with some exchange like, "Man you lookin' good!"

"Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!"

Men would convince women that sex was more pleasurable at "that time of the month."  Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself, though all they needed was a good menstruating man.

Medical schools would limit women's entry ("they might faint at the sight of blood")

Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguments.  Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and plants, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics - or the ability to measure anything at all?  In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?

Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.

The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on.

If we let them.

To read the entire essay, click here.