I should have learned by now that voicing my political opinions on Facebook is never a good idea, but I did last night and as a result, a man I went to school with came back with, “Someone needs to change her tampon.”

I wasn’t even being overly emotional, I was voicing a reasonable and evidence-based argument that Tony Abbott is a bit of a moron.  I have to admit that I did use some naughty words, but that was more for emphasis of my distaste for certain racist political campaigns and some bad decisions in relation to certain environmental and educational budget cuts.

And then he pulled the PMS card.

It’s a trigger attack. Obviously this line is going to enrage almost any woman even more, and by becoming furious, as any woman would be entitled to be, she proves the man’s point.

It’s a trap that sexist morons have been leaning on for years. She can either retaliate, proving him ‘correct’ or back out, giving the man a false sense of having ‘won’. I backed out.

A friend kindly pointed out that any man who needs to use the PMS line is obviously lacking in any kind of intelligent argument or general decency. That friend happened to be a woman and this man’s response was, “Cycles are in sync.”

This happens to women who voice their opinions all the time.

It’s unfair, it is blatant sexism and even as a joke-at a woman’s expense-it reinforces the inequality that men and women have been working towards straightening out for decades.

A woman can’t be emotionally invested in an issue without some dumb arse somewhere telling her she’s “on her rags”. It’s sexist, it’s unfair and it needs to stop. It should have stopped about 40 years ago. It should never have started! But it did, it continues and it needs to stop.

Even when men use the line just to push a woman’s buttons, it genuinely does stop women from voicing their ideas. It really does.

There are women and girls out there who don’t want to stand up for themselves and their opinions because they don’t want to be seen as an unattractively emotional and angry feminist.

There’s an unfair stigma around the word feminist so that instead of simply meaning, ‘a believer in gender equality’, it implies ‘angry and emotional bitch’.

It shouldn’t be that way. If you believe that men and women are and should be treated as equals; congratulations, you are a feminist. It’s not a bad thing and no one should be embarrassed to admit it.

In fact, every decent person should consider themselves a feminist, perhaps not an active one but a feminist at least. By not doing so you’re suggesting that you don’t believe that men and women are equal and you are probably not a very nice person. Gender equality is a sensitive issue, stay away from an argument by simply saying that you believe we’re all equals, and mean it and act like it.

And don’t ever put a woman’s (or a man’s) opinions down to a by-product of PMS. Very, very uncool.

And if you were wondering, this is the video that I posted that started it all.