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Desrtopa comments on Many of us *are* hit with a baseball once a month. - Less Wrong Discussion
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The fact that there is a huge amount of variation in the discomfort involved, and many women do not suffer particularly in the process, probably prevents too many people from concluding that the experience ought to be unpleasant. The fact that men don't have to deal with it at all, and it doesn't negatively impact their lives, also seems like an incentive against rationalizing it as positive.
Additionally, I don't think it's all that accurate to say that the incidence of menstruation was that frequent before birth control. My understanding is that bleeding during pregnancy is comparatively rare, though not unheard of, and that significant numbers of women do not menstruate or have a reduction in menstruation during breastfeeding. It is also my understanding that women have traditionally started reproducing not long after the onset of menstruation, or even sooner (the age of menarche appears to be decreasing, but pregnancy is possible prior to a girl's first period). If these understandings are correct I would expect that the modern Western experience of roughly-monthly ovulation and menstruation is rather novel.
Plus, birth control already reduces or eliminates many women's period.
If that's the main reason, we should expect to find that many more rationalization memes existed before birth control became widespread.
Can't judge from personal experience (obviously), but I've heard some say that they could block menstruation with pills if they wanted, but prefer not to just so they know that their reproductive system is working correctly.
So well, it's not like it's a painful agony-filled experience. A minor inconvenience, but one that can be coped with. Just like any other basic biological upkeep functions like eating, sleeping, and excretion.
My understanding is that it's been practical to prevent menstruation with birth control pills for decades, but only recently have pharmaceutical companies started marketing and advertising pills for that purpose. Previously they were all sold in sets with placebos on the assumption that women wouldn't want to disrupt the cycle they were familiar with.