This year I turned thirty. During my twenties I had this feeling that the future was still ahead of me: I was still studying, still forming myself to become the true and ready me. So on my 30th birthday, for the first time I thought I'm an adult at last! I'm no longer an "early career" professional, no longer "the young woman" at the table, no, I'm an adult, normal, average working person without any extra labels. It felt rather empowering. Or so I thought at first. From the society's perspective, I felt that I entered a decade that's left without advice. The social expectation is that by now, or soon, I should be settled: both in terms of personal and professional life – and from now on I should be living the happily ever after. Meanwhile, some of my female friends also reacted to me being thirty: they said thirty is still fine, but that in the years that follow female beauty would be on the decline. This caught me by surprise – surely there is beauty above this artificially selected number of 30!
Then something else happened. Soon after my birthday I was asked to deliver a presentation on the day when I was expecting my period. This presentation was very important for me professionally, and there seem to have been no flexibility around the date – so I took it as it was. I was trying to make sure that on this very day I was as relaxed and as well-slept as possible, even though it was obviously going to be the least productive day for me that month. As I was making these adjustments, I realised that I have been playing the professional game in a system that was designed for the male body, but not the female. I accepted that I started at a disadvantage when doing this presentation because of the natural state of my body. I got reminded of what my female friends said about the female body after 30 – losing beauty from a perspective of a previous century male.
I quickly started googling: female period and workplace; menstruation and career and so on. The easiest finds were blogposts advising me on how I can FIGHT my body. These articles used medical terms: they talked about pain and symptoms related to my period, as if it was something I had to treat like a disease. They explained what is within medicine's power that can help me overcome the obviously negative experiences associated with my menstruation. These posts encouraged me to leverage the first two weeks of my period when I'm energetic and on the move: they explained how this could be a productive time for me at work. They went on to say that the second two weeks may mean I slow down, I become eventually more tired – but that I shouldn't worry, because there are steps I can take to overcome these feelings. These posts wanted me to try and achieve the same level of functionality and productivity no matter where I was in my hormonal cycle. This got me quite frustrated. Why am I expected to fight my own body, look at my hormonal cycle that represents medical symptoms to me, and try to function more or less in the same way across the month?
I concluded that I'm at a time when a) society expects me to calm down and settle now that I have studied, seen the world, and worked for a few years; b) my beauty will be questioned because of my age; c) and meanwhile I have been making adjustments to this world so that I am a good fit to a working environment that was not even designed for people who have bodies like mine and who operate on a hormonal cycle.
I got angry at these findings and drew the following conclusions.
- I will stop adjusting. I do not see my cycle as either a problem, or as a problematic part of life. I do not see my tiredness before my period as a 'symptom'. I have zero intention whatsoever so fight the way in which my body works. I function qualitatively differently throughout the month: and these intervals are predictable based on my hormonal cycle. I can plan with it perfectly fine.
- I've been trying to make new types of adjustments. I know my body very well, I know the days and weeks when by default I'll feel more energetic and active, and I know when the time comes for me to be on the calmer side of things. I've been trying to organise my meetings and workload accordingly.
- There must be beauty after the age of 30 and I want to find that that means for different people. So I'm hereby launching a new project for The Travelling Psychologist. I'm going to be interviewing women across countries and ages to learn about their experience with aging, beauty, and their body.
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