I don't need any carefree, bikini-wearing, yoga-posing fictional female characters in advertisements to convince me that bleeding for seven days a month sucks. I have always hated getting my period. It's messy, uncomfortable and oftentimes painful. It negatively impacts my sex life. Some women think it's "cleansing," I say it's draining. I'm a proud feminist, but I don't feel like I'm at my best during that time of the month and will do what I can to avoid it. In fact, I think it's patronizing when other women feel they need to convince us that our periods are some wonderful, mysterious symbol of womanhood.

I breastfed my son for two years and my period didn't return until the end of that time- it was such a blessing. When it finally appeared I got an IUD inserted, in part because I wanted the option of lessening the intensity and/or frequency of my period (and it's been working beautifully). I am skeptical of pharmaceutical companies who market these pills with the message that having your period is somehow abnormal or dirty, and it sounds like many of these companies have not done an appropriate amount of research to ensure that there will be no long-term health (or fertility) concerns. Nonetheless, I think that adult women should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to get their periods if it can be avoided in a safe manner.

1) Wow, I guess I'm not a feminist, because I don't see Big Pharma doing anything of the sort. Who knew? Maybe instead of "feminist" you meant "crunchy earth-mother types who have really easy periods." The type of women who go around saying that anyone who gives birth with a doctor present is perverting the beauty of mother nature. Because, yeah, I'll agree with that.

2) You really blame high school athletes for not wanting to have to worry about their period? And keep in mind that in this era of The Overachieving Girl, pretty much all teen girls have to play a sport of some sort. Sports that include short shorts, bathing suits, and often plenty of white clothes. And don't forget that teenagers often have exceptionally heavy periods. I remember going through 2 or 3 pads a night (I can still remember waking up to that warm trickle) and still waking up with blood soaked through to the mattress.

3) How is it infantalizing for teenage girls to think that they're not ready to have kids yet, so maybe they can push off the PITA that is their period, please? Because, I hate to break it to you, but that's the whole point of menstruation. It's infantalizing to wax eloquent about the beauty and mystery and sisterhood and all that crap about having your period, and to tell teen girls that they should be just LOVING their periods. Don't you think teen girls can make up their mind about that?

4) Was it ever the "cultural cornerstone of girlhood"? Judy Blume aside, cultural references are thin on the ground. And those stories in Seventeen always struck me as really fake.

5) Where on EARTH do you work that getting your period is an acceptable use for being late to work? If you tried that in a corporate office, you'd probably be called down to HR and given a talk about boundaries. Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's possible that your period would make you late (it once made me late for a job interview, in my nice light tan suit) but I cannot imagine a place where it would be appropriate to tell your boss about your period. That little line epitomized everything that is wrong with this article.

Finally, you write as though everyone would be FORCED to go on these pills. "Some women don't want it" you say. Um, okay... those women shouldn't get it. Last I checked, women and their doctors could make up their own minds. Yes, even teenagers (who probably have imput from their parents). Talk about infantalizing!

You did a good job covering the history of contraceptives, and the worries about the hormonal changes are undoubtedly valid. Yet in the midst of your call to sisterhood, where anyone who thinks that their period is a pain in the ass is apparently not a "feminist" and where someone, somewhere runs breathless and late into a business meeting and says "Sorry I'm late, I got my period!" and the other women in the room join hands and sing kum bai ah, it gets a bit lost.

So let me get this straight: when the medical/pharmaceutical industry does not develop drugs aimed at helping women to control their reproductive cycle etc.. then they are confirming and reinforcing the evil patriarchical disregard for female concerns. When, on the other hand, they do develop something like Lybrel, they are clearly trying to pathologize femininity. Give me a flipping break.

For some of us, menstruating as a reason to miss work does not cut it. For some of us, who go through intensely painful periods (hot, sweaty flushes, embarrassed trips to the bathroom to check for leakage, waves of nausea-inducing pain causing cold sweat to form on ashen faces) this is a godsend.

Menstruating women regularly suffer from more sleepless or light-sleep nights, more work downtime, more mood swings. What do you think that does for our career path in high-performance fields such as corporate law or medicine, where staying at home with advil and hagen daaz is not an option? Just because something is natural, doesn't mean its good. I know women whose period does not cause them a moment's pain who would still love to have the option to control when it occurs.

In making these retrograde assertions about what is natural, critics of this and other progress in the area of women's health come perilously close to sounding just like the denizens of the old school patriarchy arguing that women should do what our bodies were made for. Come on! We've got minds too. And careers, and demands on our time. Moreover, we're perfectly capable of making up our minds on issues like this with out any tsk-tsking from the earthier-than-thou "period is a form of female solidarity" crowd. Solidarity based on shared pain and discomfort is lame. Lets settle on an anthem (a la The Internationale), throw out our pads, and spend those lost days doing whatever the hell we feel like (even menstruating if that's what rings our bell!).