Essay Critique of Fleishman's "Women Bleed" by Charlize Leigh https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e en-us 2020-11-23 10:27:57 UTC 2026-01-17 23:02:22 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f970.png Critique charlizeyeah https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e/wish/951791661 The creative fiction essay entitled Women Bleed is in fact an empowering, well-written work of writing that satisfactorily encompasses the stigma surrounding menstruation and how central it is to the life of a woman. The author, Rachel Fleishman, wrote this essay for the purpose of describing in great detail the struggles one faces in coming to terms with the long-desecrated bodily function of menstruation, exclusive to people born female. After carefully perusing her work, I came to the conclusion that she indeed fulfilled her purpose and imparted the message successfully. The essay tackles circumstances that women of all ages and  of different social backgrounds in different periods of their life experience with regards to their menstrual cycle. It discusses ow they learn to handle it despite it being regarded as a shameful and filthy thing, how it marks the end of their childhood and its absence denotes the beginning of new life, and how this all ties in together. Her doctorate degree in Medicine inherently establishes her knowledge on the topic which fortifies the strength of her conveyance of the message through the text. The tone is empowering, cautionary, and empathetic all at once. It reveals much about life as a woman and reminds the reader of the beauty of this particular natural reproductive function. It succeeds in displaying the "real life" aspect of creative nonfiction, which entails the writer's incorporation of their own personal experiences in the work as well as that of other people in relation to such events. Fleishland shared her own story and included the experiences of fellow women having menstruation or the lack of it. The selection is also based on the writer's deep reflections about the subject matter. Through such rumination did she realize how the stigma is harmful to women and causes them to disparage and mishandle their menstrual cycle. The writer certainly completed her research on the topic as well, as she wrote the text with much expertise considering that she is a doctorate degree holder in Medicine and she shared about the experiences of women other than herself. Complementary to that, she read much about the topic in order to complete her work and discuss the issues at hand. Lastly, she wrote and communicated her points and story arcs very well. The author constructs her sentences very well and uses specific wordings in a way that comes across as intelligent rather than pretentiously verbose. She employed different techniques and even literary devices like metaphor, symbolism, and imagery in her work. Overall, this work was very skillfully produced and the rigorous effort the author put into writing this was definitely not put to waste.]]> 2020-11-23 10:45:49 UTC https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e/wish/951791661 Women Bleed [Link] charlizeyeah https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e/wish/951792943 by Rachel Fleishman]]> 2020-11-23 10:46:18 UTC https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e/wish/951792943 charlizeyeah https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e/wish/953094920 2020-11-23 16:48:45 UTC https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e/wish/953094920 charlizeyeah https://padlet.com/charlizeyeah/w7ttqu6yt10lg51e/wish/953878930 But the blood, and the periods between the blood, contain a nuanced power easily lost or silenced in the daily orbit of life. Our own bodies can teach us to know ourselves. As our tides rise, we find a dome to our bellies, a thickening of mucus, that beg us to slow down and open our bodies to touch. The subtle plumping of breasts, the tenderness of nipples, beget more than just flaunting and feeding; reading their swell predicts our futures by telling us that soon, so soon, we will bleed. Mindfully, these subtle changes and varied narratives sculpt a universal thread of strength in the banal but discrete details of living as women. As we read our own bodies, let us understand the rhythm of our own selves the way we understand our own gaits. And with this understanding, we can stride forward with a purposeful grace.

Women Bleed, Rachel Fleishman, M.D.
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