Culture

People Are Live-Tweeting Their Periods To Donald Trump In Protest Of Him And Douchebags Everywhere

"Oh Donald, my divacup overflowth and I'm still getting shit done. You wish you were this tough."

by Meg Watson  11 August 2015

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

After receiving rapturous applause for calling women “fat pigs” and “disgusting animals” at the Republican Primary Debate last week, leading Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump — seriously, he’s still in the lead — has set his sights on one woman in particular. Over the past few days, Trump has been criticising Fox journalist Megyn Kelly who posited the initial question about misogyny.

This began over the weekend as he rallied Twitter against her, openly deriding the debate host and retweeting corresponding criticism, some of which was plainly sexist. He then jumped on the media circuit and called into CNN to tell his sorrowful story. A heartbreaking, unjust tale of a humble potential Presidential candidate, harangued by a ferocious journalist’s single question about his long-running verbal abuse of women for entertainment.

THE INJUSTICE:

Though the whole thing is truly bizarre, viewers took issue with one phrase in particular and it’s been swirling around in headlines for the past couple of days: “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever.”

Trump retroactively insists this was in reference to Kelly’s nose, but with the entire debate focussed on his gendered insults and disrespect for women in general, most people have found it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt. Fellow members of the Republican Party and far-right commentators have condemned his remarks, and he’s in turn been uninvited to a notable gathering hosted by a conservative political blog.

Now, others have taken the opportunity to turn the public ridicule back on him and make a dual stand for period pride. The idea was championed by Amber Gordon, editor of Femsplain, and very quickly transformed into a whole movement; one which asks people to combat Trump’s bigotry with a deluge of tweets about the blood that comes from their own “whatevers”.

“This is a man who is known to be sexist,” Gordon told Mashable, when speaking about the idea. “I’ve always been one to say I’d love to stop giving him attention. But I feel like this hashtag is more than Donald Trump. I hope that these conversations around periods can just transcend Donald Trump.”

With that, #periodsarenotaninsult was born:

Aaaaand one last shout-out to the beautiful person who found this gif of a winking uterus. There are just so many uses for this in my life.

 

Between this, ongoing mainstream debate about the tampon tax, rogue troupes of dancing tampons at Parliament House, and notable people taking stands on the issue (like MIA’s drummer Kiran Ganhi proudly running the London Marathon with blood all over her leggings), the way we talk about menstruation is clearly changing for the better.

Shockingly, Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be part of that conversation.

–

Feature image via Donald Trump/Facebook.