Women Don't Really Need To Have a Period

Not that my period isn't an extra special time of month t​hat I cherish greatly, but if someone came up to me and was like, "Hey, you could just not have this anymore if you wanted," I would probably accept the offer. Well, as it turns out, science is basically walking up to the entire menstruating population offering that very thing! Just like men, we don't really need to have periods!

According to a recent story from NPR, more and more women in their 20s and 30s are choosing birth control options (like the pill and hormonal IUD) that make their periods go away. "In general, I think views are changing really rapidly," Elizabeth Micks, a doctor who runs an ob-gyn clinic at the University of Washington in Seattle, told NPR. "That need to have regular periods is not just in our society anymore."​

The period women have on the pill isn't a Real Period™, but a "fake" one. As Dr. Micks explained to NPR, there's not really a need to have a period if you're on contraception. So why have one at all? According to NPR, it's because the one of the inventors of the pill (a man) was Catholic, and thought the pope might go for it if women still had their monthly menstrual cycle. LOL!

NPR isn't the first place to break the news that your periods are basically pointless. We've known for a while now that periods are sorta just like a fun accessory for your vagina. No evidence we have thus far has shown that nixing your period — even for something like five or 10 years — dampens your fertility. So maybe the dream of someday opting in or out of periods as easily as you can opt in or out of being an organ donor isn't that far off. Except, ha ha, it probably is, because like Lena Dunham said, medical research has a tendency to be a tad sexist. 

In the meantime, let's all continue referring to our periods as our "monthly gifts" to see if that makes things more fun. 

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