Seeing Red: The Rise of Mensesplaining
With women explaining periods to men, pop culture is finally treating menstruation as a societal issue everyone should care about.
In the season-three finale of Broad City, Abbi and Ilana find themselves, via participation in the “Birthmarc” program, on a plane to Israel. Early on in the episode, in mid-air, Abbi gets her period. From there, the rest of the finale’s plot revolves around the pair’s airborne quest to find Abbi a tampon. It’s an effort, Abbi and Ilana being Abbi and Ilana, that comes with many, many jokes about the circumstances they’ve found themselves in thanks to Abbi’s uterus. “Ooof, first day. That’s, like, putting your spoon into a molten lava cake,” Ilana says.
“It’s like the first bite of a jelly donut,” Abbi
