Laura Capossele: «We women are moody, it's our power»

"It's like that, we women are moody."

An assist for husbands, brothers and children.

«We are moody in the true sense, referring to the moon. Not in the derogatory sense that males have always given, and sometimes still give, to this value."

Waxing phase and waning phase.

"Exactly. Our whole being is based on the cyclical nature of the menstrual cycle, which occupies not only those five days of blood, but our entire life."

Not just childbearing age?

"No. As little girls we wait for the event of the first menstruation, as teenagers we think we have to experience it as a difficulty and with the first intercourse we begin to be afraid of not seeing it. Growing up, however, if we want a child we are afraid to see them; when the child is born they return. In menopause, and in the entire phase preceding it, you ask yourself: will I still see them?

Laura Capossele, 41, is a menstrual educator. If at this point in the interview male readers think they should turn the page because it doesn't concern them, they should think again. As for girls and ladies, there's no need to even explain. Graduated in obstetrics, home in Villasor, married and mother of a 9-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy, since 2017 she has been one of the two hundred Italian teachers of the Custodi del Femminino training company, an association that works on female awareness and educates, this the company name, "to the beauty of feminine cyclicality". Meetings and workshops, the last one (organised by the Vox Day cooperative) last Wednesday, at the Flumini di Quartu library, with many little students, their mothers and some fathers.

New age stuff someone must be thinking.

«Not so new. Menstruation has always existed, simply in recent years we are discovering that they are not just "women's things", but that as long as we all live together they are "everyone's things".

What do you explain to the girls who attend your workshops?

«To little girls and often to mothers too, you know? I explain that menstruation is not just the five days of blood, but that the body works an entire month for it. A work that happens internally – through communication between the brain, uterus and ovaries – and which also receives external influences."

Like stress?

«It has as much impact as what happens to us. I mean everything is connected."

How does he come to talk about the moon?

«We follow a cyclical nature that leads us to appear different, changing. In the first phase of the cycle we are producing estrogen, the body prepares to welcome and we are therefore more welcoming, more predisposed towards the outside. Conversely, after ovulation, in the premenstrual phase, we will be more turned inwards. Like the moon, we center our light towards ourselves because we need to return to our autumn-winter."

In waning moon mode?

«Yes, and it is a phase that is not accepted by others. We would always need spring-summer, ready to always guarantee the same performances with the same energy. The trouble is that women themselves do not accept this phase, because the fact of not always performing in the same way, in a linear male society, leads you to feel inadequate, not up to par. And to work much harder to do the same things you did easily two weeks before."

Does this mean that we can count on less energy at work too?

«In reality this is not the case. We express irritability, nervousness, anger, however destructive-constructive energies which, if directed in the right way, can be used profitably. I teach girls and their mothers that even in this phase, when we seem to have less energy, we actually have some. Like nature that works in autumn to prepare for winter rest."

Yes, but it says that a woman struggles much more during the premenstrual phase.

«The fact is that it is a more physical energy, so much so that it is difficult to reason mentally, to work, I will explain to give an example, with an Excel sheet. While, on the contrary, one is at the height of creative power. Here, we need to work using this physical energy, this creativity, without making the mistake of consuming it by focusing on the fact that we don't understand something. So the headache ends up coming."

Are your workshops attended only by girls and mothers?

«Even from many women who try to have a child that doesn't arrive. After graduating in 2004, I worked for several years in a clinic in Quartu where I dealt with assisted reproduction. I have seen and see that, even before embarking on this journey, we experience the weight of the mentality of our time based on planning, on everything and immediately. In short, at a certain point women decide they want a child and plan their agenda. But it doesn't work like that, frustration sets in and you end up experiencing the search for a child in a mechanical way, without even the pleasure."

How do you help them?

«Starting from the beginning. They tell me "we've been trying for a month and it hasn't arrived". Here, I explain how the menstrual cycle works. It is necessary to start from the knowledge of one's own body."

How old are these students?

"Between 26 and 44, the average age is around 35."

In short, from little girls to adult women, there is no exact awareness of how our body works.

«It's like this. Not just the little ones, I have also had to explain many things to women with children. Once, when I worked in the ASL service, after the pap test a sixty-year-old lady asked me if I could help her with the mirror because, she said, "I've never seen myself there". But, look, we also need to work a lot on the males...".

How?

«By talking about it, dispelling the taboo linked to the menstrual cycle. Talking about it, explaining the mechanisms of the body, helps to defeat ignorance which is what leads to fear."

Is it also important in respect education?

«Yes, against violence against women, bullying and any other abuse. The fact of being aware of our own body, and of the body of others, and of knowing what pleases us and what we don't like, makes us understand what we want and what we don't want when we relate to others."

She also has a profile on Instagram and TikTok…

«It's called The Moon Is Me. I see so much misinformation, so much unawareness. I get a lot of messages. Women trying to have a child, and then kids. Things like “we were petting clothes, he had dirty hands. Isn't it because I got pregnant?".

Piera Serusi