A ‘Period Dignity Officer’ Seemed Like a Good Idea. Until a Man Was Named.
Editor’s Note: Our friend Alex Hernández has written to us extensively on the history of the “Period Dignity Officer,” or PDO, which appeared on the left-leaning feminist website Salon in 2014, soon after the publication of “The Vagina Monologues.” The discussion of the PDO continued in articles on the website, and even led to a book titled The PDO, published by Hernández and his collaborators. Today, we revisit some of the most striking aspects of Hernández’s original reporting, discussing the role of male “performative violence” in the discourse of the PDO and the potential for its future role in the feminist movement.
During the “periods of my life,” I was told by a man who I’ll call “the PDO” that I should “never stop feeling” a woman’s “vagina inside my body.” He seemed to understand my confusion as he told me that a woman’s vagina is a “body that’s made up of cells,” and it makes the rest of the body “all about the vagina.” The term “period” seemed like an odd choice for the PDO to use, but he explained, “periods are like the seasons and life cycles,” which seemed to satisfy my confusion. After I got pregnant he told me it was my period, and that I should never stop feeling it.
I asked him how he knew I was pregnant. He seemed pleased that I now knew the answer, but he then asked me what had happened to my ovaries. He said: “They probably just stopped working.” He said that women’s bodies are “created and created from the uterus,” and that a woman’s monthly period is a sign that she had a baby. “It’s all about the womb and vagina and vulva.” He continued the conversation by telling me about all the things we both wanted to do to my vagina. “It’s all about the vagina.”
When I asked him if he would ever say that to my face he