In 1976, Carrie made history as one of the first movies to graphically depict menstrual blood on screen. It's a dreamy scene. Carrie peacefully showers unaware of the blood pouring down her leg till she sees it on her hands. Oblivious as to what menstruation is, she panics and thinks she's injured. Going to her classmates, she begs for help only to be pelted by tampons. This obviously traumatic occurrence is only exacerbated by her religious fanatic mother, who recites Bible verses at her and says that menstruation is God's curse upon Carrie for sinning. These stressful events lead to Carrie developing telekinesis as a response and eventually killing her classmates at prom after the whole pig blood incident. 

24 years later, Ginger Fitzgerald, the titular character of the 2000 movie Ginger Snaps, gets attacked by a mysterious animal on the night of her first period. While initially brushing it off, she starts going through changes, both pubescent and lycanthropic. It's hard to tell if she's experiencing a particularly hard puberty or simply becoming an animal. She and her sister Bridgette race against time and nature to stop her transformation. Ginger ultimately transforms and racks up a serious body count in the process. 

In both these films, the girls get their periods later than average. They both have a desire to stay the same, to have their bodies unchanged. Womanhood is something the girls fear. They don't want to grow up. Ginger wants to remain different from the girls in her class and to be nothing like the adults she despises. She sees growing up as giving into the suburban culture she constantly rebels against, going so far as to make a suicide pact with her sister that they either will run away or be dead by 16. Carrie doesn't even know that puberty is something that happens. She is painfully uneducated, so any changes in her body are inherently horrifying. Both girls remain stunted and frozen in their girlhood until traumatic events occur and rip their innocence away. And violence inevitably follows. 

Menstruation is violence. The body literally sheds pieces of itself every month. Blood, guts, cramps, mood swings, migraines, this pain is inherent to menstruation. You can bleed through bedsheets, pants, and tampons onto seats and chairs. There is an expectation to keep this blood hidden. To not talk about the pain or how disgusting it is to bleed for a week straight. Not to mention conditions like PCOS, PMDD, and endometriosis, which make menstruation that much more agonizing for some. This is ignored, though. Tampon boxes are pink, and pads are covered in pretty designs. Period products are labeled as "feminine hygiene." There is an inclination to make menstruation cute and acceptable, but not in these movies. To the girls, menstruation is disgusting to them. They are revolted by their own blood and, in Ginger's case, the bodily changes that happen with them. But these girls don't hide their blood, though. It's shown to us constantly. In the bathroom, in the shower, at school, at prom. They are covered in it. And not just them. Other people, too. 

The girls literally leave a trail of blood in their wake. Their menstrual blood isn't contained. It leaks out and covers others. Either infecting or killing them. Ginger infects a boy named Jason after having sex with him. One of his symptoms is also menstrual-like bleeding. Obviously, Carrie winds up covered in blood, but so does her date, and even her mother, after she stabs her to death. Ginger's sister Bridgette is not immune; at one point, she drinks the blood of one of Ginger's victims to placate her. This blood is infectious. It's unavoidable. It stains. It gets on other people. It covers them physically, head to toe. 

This menstruation ushers in a bloody womanhood for the girls. One marked by destruction and a lack of control. Obviously, puberty brings about some wild feelings and desires, but the dominant one in the girls is destruction. Their sexual coming of age is marked by violence. Ginger wants nothing more than to be different from the boy-obsessed girls in her grade, but after her period, she develops an appetite for more than just blood. Carrie also engages with her sexuality. She goes to prom and dances with her crush, Tommy, all while rejecting her mother's warped views on sex and sin. But both their dates end up dead or wounded. Their carnal desires become an expression of brutality. For Ginger, it's not just to have sex with someone but to consume them. She literally attacks Jason and infects him during sex. Carrie's date ends up dead and covered in blood. They express the violence in their bodies by enacting it on others. They kill, they injure, they maim. Their sexuality is dangerous and even deadly. 

Both the girls ultimately have no control over what they do. They have no control over their bodies, their feelings, and their blood. For Carrie, destruction is a cataclysm. It's something that has been building up inside her and has to be released. For Ginger, she gives in to carnage after trying in vain to repress it. The need just becomes greater until she eventually transforms into an animal. In both of the girls' cases, the ending is death. But their deaths aren't exactly seen as a punishment. They aren't punished for having sex, for developing, for becoming women. It's just the logical end to absolute violence. This anger and rage and destruction isn't viable. It can't be contained, and it can't last. This destruction, like menstruation, is scary. The journey to womanhood isn't cute or pretty. It's bloody and violent and painful. Both Carrie and Ginger express the ultimate fear of womanhood through these movies. The fear that once you lose control over your body, thoughts, actions, and innocence, you will never be able to get it back. The fear that your desires will be the death of you.