The ongoing pain of being a woman

How a monologue in the show Fleabag made me realise that female pain never goes away, it only changes after time...

As I enter the next decade of being a woman I know one thing for certain… it will endure pain. Now I'm not talking about just physical pain because I know my 20s will be full of the pain of heartbreak and emotional ups and downs. But why is each decade of a woman’s life defined by pain?

I guess the pain of your childhood up until your teens is growing up, letting go of your innocence. Although the biggest pain I felt when I was child was probably falling off my bike, I know that is not the same for all children and some are exposed to extreme pain from a young age, such as from trauma or grief. Then as your teenage years come around there is your period, a physical pain. Where your body is physically breaking down to rebuild itself. I’ve never been sure whether I have a high pain tolerance or not but I think every woman that has experienced a period has an unbelievable amount of strength. To put on a smile and go to school or work despite the feeling of knives stabbing your insides causing you to hunch over in agony. Then there’s the constant overthinking and paranoia of leaking onto your clothes. Yet it is just something that in society we must get on with as periods aren't going away anytime soon.

Then when you hit your 20s/ 30s and there is the potential pain of childbirth for those who become mothers. Women carry and make a human inside of them for 9 months and feel the after effects for potentially forever. It is never ending.

But as I focus on the extremity of women’s pain I don’t wish to invalidate men’s pain. Especially when it comes to emotional pain, many men feel obliged to repress their feelings and not express them due to societal standards of men having to be tough and emotionless. I find myself to be very empathetic towards men’s pain and I truly hope society is changing where more men are talking to one another about their mental pain and emotions. But I can’t help but feel there is a lack of sympathy for female pain by some men. Now i know it is not all men but those who are immature and have a lack of knowledge of female pain do not understand the pain women experience in their bodies through their whole life. There is such a dismissal of how severe period pains can be and how it can leave many women unable to move or even hospitalised. Also the lack of understanding towards the difficulty of pregnancy and childbirth until they physically witness it. We have female Olympians break records whilst on their periods and they’ve learnt to ‘just get on with it’. However the running joke of men having ‘man flu’ and life being putting on hold as they’re unable to carry on, is hard to find funny when women experience this pain every month.

I remember watching the show ‘Fleabag’ and hearing the monologue about women’s ongoing pain spoken by Belinda, played by Kristen Scott Thomas, and it really got me thinking. I couldn’t get it out of my head and it actually saddened me as I realised that women’s pain does not end but only changes as we grow older.

The monologue begins explaining that, “Women are born with pain built in. It’s our physical destiny – period pains, sore boobs, childbirth. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives. Men don’t.” Even from birth we are the result of pain, the pain our mothers feel to bring us into this world. The monologue essentially states that as women we are the embodiment of pain and that is what we must accept. It is our fate and we cannot change it. Yet the monologue also makes me feel so proud to be a woman in how women deal with pain and their strength in how they carry it as part of themselves and own it. We do not let periods define us and it inspires me to be a strong woman and to only build up my perseverance against the little things. Men will never understand the unification us women have through our pain, we are here for each other. We are a support system whether that is from offering understanding or our spare emergency tampon to the girl in the next toilet stall.

The monologue continues to state how men don't carry pain within themselves internally and instead they have to seek it out. “They invent all these gods and demons so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other and when there aren’t any wars they can play rugby.” The focus is on how men feel the need to externally seek pain to feel something, most usually through something physical like a sport. Yet women have this pain brewing up inside of them and are expected to withhold this poised persona. As women we cannot be overly emotional as then we are hysterical and then that is only followed with the question of, ‘Is it her time of the month?’. As our upset must be due to our unbalanced hormones not from our rage over a lifetime of pain.

But why are woman especially judged for their anger towards the pain.

I saw a poem about the rage felt by women that really stuck with me.

“My rage is a kind of domestic rage.

I learned it from my mother

Who learned it from her mother

before her”

This rage and pain is passed down through generations and lived through many lives. It may soften as society changes and becomes more accepting but it will go on forever. We feel the rage for our ancestors before us who had it worse than us. There will never not be anger towards our emotional, physical and societal pain but as time goes on we learn to deal with it and go on with life as it would kill us if we didn't.

Kristen Scott Thomas continues on saying in the Fleabag monologue, “We have it all going on in here, inside. We have pain on a cycle for years and years and years, and then just when you feel you are making peace with it all, what happens? The menopause comes. The fucking menopause comes and it is the most wonderful fucking thing in the world. Yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares, but then you’re free. No longer a slave, no longer a machine with parts. You’re just a person. In business."

Even into your 50s you will feel pain but after a life of its ups and downs, this is the last stretch. Although I cannot relate to experiencing menopause, there is something that sounds so freeing about it. The last years of your life, though they may be filled with the pains of old age and grief, you are free from the feminine pain that had control over you your whole life. No longer a slave to female pain and rage. Your emotions are no longer blamed on your hormones and your body is no longer controlled by periods, contraception, pregnancy or the societal standards of how you should look.

Although I still see and hear so many older women so worried about how they look and watching how many calories they put in their body, I know that I cannot wait for when I'm older to be free of expectations of how to look. I will enjoy my life and no longer give one. That’s why I am so accepting and loving of how I look now instead of judging myself. I know I wont look like this or be this young forever so instead of stressing and hating, i'm going to enjoy it. The same as with my pain, I am accepting of my pain at this point in my life and will face those further pains when I cross that bridge. As you cannot spend your life dwelling on how as a woman our lives are full of pain, you must try and face everyday as it comes and hope we will be strong enough to face whatever comes in the future.