If men could menstruate

ACTIVITY 1
Read the text by Gloria Steinem and answer the questions. 
         

                                                                                                                              If Men Could Menstruate, by Gloria Steinem 

A white minority of the world has spent centuries making us thinking that a white skin makes people superior—even though the only thing it really does is making them more subject to ultraviolet rays and to wrinkles. Male human beings have built whole cultures around the idea that penis-envy is “natural” to women—though having such an unprotected organ might be said to make men vulnerable, and the power to give birth makes womb-envy at least as logical. 

In short, the characteristics of the powerful, are thought to be better than the characteristics of the powerless—and logic has nothing to do with it. 
What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not? 
The answer is clear—menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event.
Men would brag about how long and how much. 
Boys would mark the onset of menses with religious ritual and stag parties. 
Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts. 

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free.  
Military men, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation (“menstruation”) as proof that only men could serve in the Army (“You have to give blood to take blood”), occupy political office (“Can women be aggressive without that cycle governed by the planet Mars?”), be priests and ministers (“How could a woman give her blood for our sins?”) or rabbis (“Without the monthly loss of impurities, women remain unclean”). 
Male radicals, left-wing politicians, and mystics, however, would insist that women are equal, just different, and that any woman could enter their ranks if she were willing to self-inflict a major wound every month (“You MUST give blood for the revolution”). Street guys would brag (“I’m a three pad man”) or answer praise from a buddy (“Man, you lookin’ good!”) by giving fives and saying, “Yeah, man, I’m on the rag!” . TV shows would treat the subject at length. So would newspapers.

(SHARK SCARE THREATENS MENSTRUATING MEN. JUDGE CITES MONTHLY STRESS IN PARDONING RAPIST)

Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself—though probably only because they needed a good menstruating man. 
Of course, male intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguments. How could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics, or measurement, for instance, without that gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets—and thus for measuring anything at all? [...] 
And how would women be trained to react? [...] 
In fact, if men could menstruate, the power justifications could probably go on forever. 
If we let them. 

Adaptation “If men could menstruate” by Gloria Steinem. 
Full article in <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23293691.2019.1619050> (última visita 15/04/2022) 

Exercise 1

Connectors. Highlight five connectors from the text. 

Exercise 2

Vocabulary. Translate the words in bold. 

Exercise 3

What is the structure of the second conditional? Find two examples in the text. 

Exercise 4

Write one sentence answering the question. How would women act if they didn’t have the period? 

Exercise 5

Create a hypothetical situation similar to the previous one to ask your classmates. 

What would you do if you________________________? 

Exercise 6

What does Gloria Steinem want to say in the text? Do you agree with the text? Justify your answer. 

Exercise 7

Who is Gloria Steinem? Do some research on the character. 
 
* Dysmenorrhea is characterized by severe and frequent menstrual cramps and pain during your period.