History Main / MenstrualMenace

* In UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks, there was an independent series, ''ComicBook/CrimsonPlague'', about a woman whose blood contains a virus capable of wiping out a planet in hours. Cut her, your whole world is dead -- and since she's female, leave her alone for a month, you're still dead...

* One of the best male footballers in the world is challenging anyone to a football game. A confident young lady accepts the challenge despite being on her period. Ilhan tries to dribble past her but she quickly wins the ball, dribbles past him, and scores an incredible goal despite wearing her Evy Lady pad. She rubs her victory in and all the women cheer in the background. So much girl/period power: https://youtu.be/Au1xyaxCXeI?si=AdtN919iOjwqA38n

* One of the best male footballers in the world is challenging anyone to a football game. A confident young lady accepts the challenge. Ilhan tries to dribble past her but she quickly wins the ball, dribbles past him, and score an incredible goal despite wearing her Evy Lady pad. She rubs her victory in and all the women cheer in the background. So much girl/period power: https://youtu.be/Au1xyaxCXeI?si=AdtN919iOjwqA38n

* [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werewolf stories]] often have a Menstrual Menace, due to the days in a lunar cycle and a menstrual cycle.
** In the ''Film/GingerSnaps'' films, werewolf transformations serve as a metaphor for not just periods, but every unpleasant body change that comes with puberty. The first film sees Brigitte watching in horror as her sister goes through mood swings, hair on her body in all the wrong places...
** Creator/PeterSBeagle wrote a short story titled ''Lila the Werewolf'' which purposely plays with the similarities between menstruation and lycanthropy.
--->"First day, cramps. Second day, this. My introduction to womanhood."
** Angua is both the first woman and the first werewolf in the [[Literature/{{Discworld}} Ankh-Morpork Watch]], which leads to a misunderstanding early on ("Is it because I'm a w...") Boyfriend Carrot mentions that he tends to stay out of the way around a full moon.

This trope is for supernatural periods only; for trouble caused by mundane periods, see AllPeriodsArePMS. Compare WomensMysteries. See also HystericalWoman and AllWomenAreLustful, two beliefs brought on by this very trope.

The Menstrual Menace is particularly popular as a MonsterOfTheAesop. Any monster evolving out of a girl's period will serve as an object lesson of how to deal with the [[IncrediblyLamePun pain of puberty.]] If the moral is that GrowingUpSucks, the whole cast will be dead or insane by the end. At the more idealistic end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism, defeating the Menstrual Menace will be an {{Anvilicious}} moral about the importance of [[ItsAllJunk abandoning childish things]]. By virtue of them both running on a roughly monthly cycle, periods are also sometimes compared to [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent lycanthropy]] or the latter is used as a [[StockMonsterSymbolism metaphor]] for the former.

* Grant Morrison's ''Comicbook/DoomPatrol'' has Dorothy Spinner, a mutant who creates {{imaginary friend}}s with her powers. Due to trauma, she acts like she's a little girl. A period is enough to bring back her horrible memories, and the Candlemaker -- a gruesome monster that only children and lunatics can see. Artist Richard Case also made sure to draw Dorothy with red shoes, a longtime symbol for menstruation and a woman's maturation.[[note]]Of course they also tie her to [[Film/TheWizardOfOz another fictional Dorothy]].[[/note]]\\\
Rachel Pollack expanded on the plot point of Dorothy's powers becoming stronger during her menstrual cycle because her first period was badly traumatic. No-one had bothered to explain to Dorothy what would be happening to her body when she finally reached puberty, and her period began while a group of boys were mercilessly bullying her. After Dorothy finally made it home, her mother belittled her over the incident and said to Dorothy's face that she should've aborted her. This horrible experience became linked to Dorothy's power because, a little afterwards, she tried to "kill" some of her imaginary friends because she thought she was too old for them.
* Back in the '80s there was a black and white comic called ''MS. PMS''. A woman is infected by an alien device that locks her into a permanent state of PMS; frazzled hair, bad attitude, super-human strength. The aliens were present too, wearing their environmental armor called P.A.N.T.I.E shields. This comic lasted about two issues. [[WidgetSeries Yeah]].
* Alan Moore's ''Comicbook/SwampThing'' story, "The Curse," draws parallels between menstruation and the traditional lunar-cycle-based activity of werewolves.
* In UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks there was an independent series, ''Crimson Plague'', about a woman whose blood contained a virus capable of wiping out a planet in hours. Cut her, your whole world is dead. And since she's female, leave her alone for a month, you're still dead...
* In ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', Frau Totenkinder first began to receive her magical powers after she had her first period ([[OlderThanTheyLook back in the Stone Age]]). It's mentioned that her shedding of blood fueled her powers, however, she soon finds that the blood of other children gives her even more power. (Her name ''is'' [[MeaningfulName Mrs. Dead Children]]...)

** The first issue features Molly (around 12 years old) trying to get older female characters' attention to ask about changes in her body and unusual bleeding. [[NotNowKiddo They blow her off,]] assuming it's her first period, but it turns out to be a nosebleed associated with her [[PubertySuperpower mutant powers emerging.]]

The Menstrual Menace is particularly popular as a MonsterOfTheAesop. Any monster evolving out of a girl's period will serve as an object lesson of how to deal with the [[IncrediblyLamePun pain of puberty.]] If the moral is that GrowingUpSucks, the whole cast will be dead or insane by the end. At the more idealistic end of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism, defeating the Menstrual Menace will be an {{Anvilicious}} moral about the importance of [[ItsAllJunk abandoning childish things]].

* In Episode 4 of the first season of ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', Lina Inverse has her powers of magic reduced by 99.9999999% for a few days due to her "Time of the Month", and this happens to ''all'' female magic wielders. It's never mentioned again. (The show turned out to have a larger female audience than expected, and the writers didn't want to offend them). This is also the one instance where [[TheDitz Gourry]] understood pretty much immediately the reason behind something being wrong with Lina. Amusingly, though, Gourry doesn't know what "that time of month" actually is, and only knows it's something that girls don't like talking about.

* In the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', superpowered mage Fey has her first case of PMS in her first few weeks at SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy. This leads to thunderstorms, lightning bolts, and rain. In the dorm hallways. For bonus points, all the magical fun ''also'' triggers menstrual discharge in every other girl in the dorm. Including the ones who had just finished with this month's visitor.

* In Myth/NorseMythology, [[DaddysLittleVillain Gjalp]] attempted to [[NauseaFuel drown Thor in a torrent of her menstrual blood]] Though in later versions, it's not menstrual blood, but [[{{Squick}} urine]]. In both versions, however, Thor stops the torrent by throwing a rock at her and plugging up... well, yes.

* Justine Larbalestier's ''Literature/Liar2009'' also connects menstrual cycles and [[spoiler: lycanthropy. There is an excellent scene in the book when the reader is certain that the parents are locking up their daughter for having her period until it is revealed in the second half of the book that she is a werewolf.]]

* The third chapter of ''Manga/CellsAtWork Lady'' has PMS as the cause of the abnormalities that attack the cells that work in the female body.