"On a philosophical level, Seasonale and other extended cycle pills ignited a conversation about what it means to have a period, and whether our eagerness to suppress our menses is reflective of internalized patriarchal forces. In 2006, a filmmaker named Giovanna Chesler tackled the surprisingly controversial subject in an hourlong documentary, Period: The End of Menstruation? "Women are not sick," she told the New York Times in an interview the following year. "They don't need to control their periods for 30 or 40 years." A vocal group of feminist activists agreed with this assessment, arguing that skipping your periods is unnatural and that marketing menstrual suppression products sends the wrong message to girls: that there is something wrong with menstruating. "These messages underscore that women's natural functions are defective, dysfunctional, and in need of medical intervention," Chris Bobel, a women's studies professor and author, told Ms. magazine in 2010, neatly summing up this line of criticism. "How is this feminist?""