Rebekah Kuschmider

If you could get your period to last only 20 minutes, would you?

Musician Kid Rock has announced that he intends to run for the Senate as a Republican in Michigan. Athlete and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner has teased about a run as a Republican in California. Neither would-be candidate has filed the official candidacy paperwork as of this time. I hope they don’t. At least not until they learn something about governance.

So, who is more actively feminist this week? Ivanka, who can’t articulate a White House policy for bettering the lives of women? Or Beyoncé, who is shelling out big bucks to better the lives of women?

You should teach your kids what to do if they encounter a gun, but we as adults should do what we can to prevent that from happening in the first place. One group of adults who can be especially helpful on that front is pediatricians. Some of them are hoping to be part of an effort to reduce gun accidents by talking to parents about gun safety.

Sexual orientation is not a lifestyle and gay people are not a monolith. Much as women are all individuals with different wants, needs, and preferences, so are gay people, bi people, asexual people, polyamorous people, and pansexual people (also people who present gender differently that the usual male/female binary but gender identity is a different thing than sexual orientation and will likely be the subject of a whole different essay).

Legendary author J.K. Rowling is begging fans of her series about the young wizard not to purchase a handwritten, 800-word story she wrote as a prequel to the Potter tales.

The New England Journal of Medicine is reporting promising results from an experimental vaginal ring for STD prevention. Like the rings for birth control, this device is a flexible ring that a woman inserts into her vagina. Instead of releasing birth control, the ring releases anti-bacterial or anti-viral medications to stop STDs before they take hold.

You see abortion, whether you believe in it or not, is a thing. Abortion, whether it’s legal or not, is a thing. Abortion, whether it’s safe or not, is a thing. In all of human history, there have been women who were pregnant when they did not wish to be and they found ways to end the pregnancies.

Periods happen. They just do. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It’s just a thing. Like how hunger happens, or or a sneeze happens. It’s a body thing that… happens.