misconceiving "natural"

there is a great deal of talk about periods these days. why women have them, how women feel about them, how men feel about them, how we should feel about them, whether we need them, whether we need drugs to emancipate ourselves from them - it all seems to dwindle down to some basic question about what, precisely, women are. as if we can be defined by this part of us, this reproductive menstruating part of us.
of course, women have been defined by their reproductive systems for, well, most of forever. but its striking to have this conversation thrust out in the wide sunny open, so explicit, in this oh-so-modern age where it is imagined that women are just human and not menstruating others defined by lunar cycles and secrets held so mysteriously from men. but this conversation of menstruation and cycles and the root of womenhood (what is it?) dredges up an ancient musty and pagan-feeling definition of woman that reminds me of witches and covens and covenants and blood.
and there is something appealing about this secret privately held womanness. this part of being she that the hes cannot know. and it seems that women, many women, resist letting go of this part of our lives and so they continue to, or begin for the first time to, define us by this bleeding.
but womanhood is not about the bleeding in lunar repetitious ways, as darkly romantic as it may sound. and womanhood is definitely not expressed by regulating our prescription hormones so that we manipulate our biology so that we bleed in order to feel like women.
if you have a special love for your monthly menses, that is fine. its been a part of most of us for a large chunk of our lives and in that way we cannot help but let it become a part of us that may seem strange to depart with. but the outcry of "unnatural!" "unwomanly" "pharmocologically manipulative!!!" is confused. certainly, it is pharmocologically manipulative. but the pill - the glorious pill that gave women a freedom that i do not think, i certainly hope that, we would not like to take back - is equally as manipulative. in fact, moreso as it plays with the drug in such a way that woman have thought they were bleeding for a natural reason all these years. no, your contraceptive period has been there to make you feel better. to let you know you were not pregnant and to remind you that you are in fact a woman. the "new" pill is the same pill without the pretending. you do not ovulate, you do not shed the un-ovulated egg.
if women are to cry out about nature, they must cry out about the distancing from nature that orthocyclin has brought us.
instead, i celebrate contraception. women should celebrate contraception.
dont take lybrel if you dont want to, there is no reason you need to and there is no reason that anyone should have an opinion about whether or not their sisters choose to bleed or not. but we should know that it is a choice given us by the advancement of science and medicine, and we cannot shy away from that fact. though we may love nature, we should also love choice, and contraceptive choice is a powerful one for the history of women. we shouldnt hide behind "nature" and mythology of what it means to be a woman. we are not defined by the shedding of ovaries.
not all women even have them to shed.