Curse of the normal
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ARE YOU THERE God? It’s me, Meghan.
So the FDA just approved Lybrel, the birth control pill that also eliminates menstruation. What do you think about that? Being God and all, you must have had your reasons for inventing certain bodily functions (though I’d love to hear an answer for tartar buildup). As the name suggests, this pill is supposed to liberate women. But what about the ones who rely on their monthly cycle to know when to pay the bills and so forth? And what will happen to the feminine hygiene industry, not to mention that old joke that goes, “Don’t trust anything that bleeds for a week and doesn’t die?”
Oh my god, God! One minute I was more or less an adult, and the next I was channeling Margaret Simon, the fretful 12-year-old whose struggles with puberty made Judy Blume’s “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” a young-adult classic and pretty much the bible of menses.
How could I help it? All this discussion about Lybrel has transported me back to the sixth grade, a time when anxiety about certain inevitable physical changes was a course requirement.
Margaret’s questions for God were mostly variations on the theme of “Am I normal?” And now, nearly 40 years later, Lybrel’s promise to stamp out this particular form of “female trouble” reminds us all over again that we’re never too old to feel freakish and for self-loathing.
When it comes to human bodies -- women’s bodies in particular -- the mottos have run along the lines of “If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway” or “If you think it ain’t broke, you must be blind!” The female improvement industry, whether it’s trafficking in shapelier noses or perkier breasts or spindlier waists, has been built on diagnosing problems that may or may not actually be problems. Unwanted hair. Yellowish teeth. Whatever the malady is that calls for “vaginal rejuvenation” (Are you there God? Don’t tell me!). How many fortunes have been created by taking normal conditions, redefining them as aberrant and then selling the solutions?
But until now, “the curse” itself was literally an immutable fact of life, despite its unpopularity with both genders, not to mention its long-standing rivalry with swimwear, white pants and expensive sheets. This particular female problem has stood apart because it’s not only the epicenter of all female problems, it’s the Original Problem. It’s the calling card of puberty, the messenger that introduces girls to the whole female improvement industry.
Is Lybrel a quick fix for something that’s not broken to begin with? Or is it a feminist victory, a culturally (or at least pharmaceutically) sanctioned pronouncement that menstruation, like childbearing itself, isn’t mandatory after all? If Lybrel had been around when Margaret was conducting her rap sessions with God, would the specter of womanhood have been a little less frightening? Would she have quit whining and taken up chess or something?
Sadly, I doubt it. As the chief spokesperson for the Original Problem, Margaret was (and is) notably complicit in the self-improvement racket. Why? Because despite its plain talk and 1970s-style earnestness, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” is less a stepping stone to “Our Bodies, Ourselves” than the gateway drug to Cosmo and Glamour. Blume introduced millions to the idea that their bodies -- and, indeed, their very femaleness -- are vessels for anxiety, fear and relentless unflattering comparison. She -- surely unintentionally -- created legions of insatiable women’s magazine consumers. Having internalized Margaret’s chief lesson -- that womanhood is a problem that demands no end of cures -- readers can graduate to articles about wrinkles and cellulite and all the other byproducts of the Original Problem.
Of course, Lybrel doesn’t erase the Original Problem so much as hide it from view. And without going into the yucky medical details, let’s remember that the method is one women have been employing for decades by skipping the placebo tablets that come with traditional contraceptive pills. Whether the drug catches on (and it might not because clinical trials suggest that certain side effects, such as “unscheduled” bleeding, may obviate its benefits), what’s most significant about Lybrel is the way it reverts us into our sixth-grade selves. By challenging the definition of normal, it goads us, once again, into questioning our own normalcy. And as anyone who’s read Cosmo knows, no good comes from that.
