Women are still being told their periods make them dirty.

Women are still being told their periods make them dirty. Another day, another wellness creator repackaging misogyny as women's health. Let's talk about it. This is a post-period cold brew tea that will have you smelling like a bouquet out like a whistle. Just because your period is over doesn't mean your body just needs extra help cleaning up. Because that man will never leave you alone. It's here for the circulation and to flush everything through. Smelling like a bouquet. Your inside is you clean as a whistle. The most magical part is it's going to actually tighten you down there. Then once it sits in this water, it releases a slippery gel and creates a natural lubrication. So not only is it going to keep you lubricated down there, it's actually going to cleanse your inside. I'm a biomedical engineer who studies female reproductive health and I need to talk about this viral post period cleansing tea because the messaging underneath it is so disturbing. In this video, we are told that this tea will clean you out after your period, tighten you down there, make you smell like flowers, make you wet and make men obsessed with you. And before we even talk about the misogyny, let's talk about the non-existent science behind all of this rhetoric. No, okra is not going to magically make your vagina wetter. Vaginal lubrication is largely influenced by hormones, blood flow, tissue health, and arousal. Naturally fluctuate throughout the month. So there is no magic tea that suddenly travels to your vagina and turns on a faucet. Number two, clove is not going to tighten your vagina. And honestly, why would the vagina need tightening after the period in the first place? Your vagina is a muscular organ. It is capable of stretching enough to deliver a baby and then returning remarkably close to its original state. So your period is not stretching your vagina to some point of no return where you need a tea to shrink it back down. That is not how female anatomy works in the slightest. This obsession with tightening is rooted in some really misogynistic ideas about women's bodies. Women have been taught for centuries that tighter equals better. But when a woman is aroused, comfortable, and actually desiring intimacy, guess what? The vaginal tissue softens, relaxes, and the vaginal canal expands. That's normal physiology. A vagina is not supposed to be tight when we are talking about intimacy. We're still selling women products to fix insecurities they helped create in the first place. So I think we stop calling this women's wellness, because women's health is about helping women understand their bodies better. Women's health is about evidence. Women's health is about improving the quality of life. Women's health is about science. What we are seeing here is something completely different. It's misogyny wrapped in an aesthetic packaging and sold back to women as empowerment, self-care and novelty. And it's none of those things. Centuries-old misogyny sold back to women as wellness, empowerment, and “secret” health hacks. #fyp #fypシ #femalehealth #femininehygiene. We get to your body needs help cleaning itself after your period. Your period is not a contamination event. Your period blood, it's not garbage, it's not waste that needs to be chased out of the body. Your uterus sheds tissue because you did not get pregnant that month. And your body then naturally clears menstrual blood on its own. There's no leftover period residue sitting inside of you waiting for a tea to wash it away. So the part that frustrates me the most about this video is that underneath every single one of those claims is the exact same messaging. This creator implies that your period leaves you dirty, your body needs help cleaning itself, your vagina should be tighter, smell like a bouquet, a fruit salad, and you should become more desirable to men. Every single one of those statements is women's health. It is misogyny. We have to call it what it is. Women have been told for generations that menstruation is dirty. We've been told that our bodies need purification. We've been told that our vaginas need tightening. We've been told that our worth is connected to how desirable we are to men. Every few years, the packaging changes. Sometimes it's a new feminine wash, sometimes it's a gummy, sometimes it's a tea. But the message stays exactly the same. You are not enough as you are. Your biology is not enough. And then companies turn around and sell women products to fix insecurities they helped create in the first place.