See a Modess True or False? ad in The American
Girl magazine, January 1947, and actress Carol Lynley
in "How Shall I Tell My Daughter" booklet ad (1955) - Modess . . . . because ads (many dates).
 
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THE MUSEUM OF MENSTRUATION AND WOMEN'S HEALTH - 1996
The Most Flattering
of All Diseases
This is not menstruation (for those who still regard it as a disease),
this is tuberculosis, the subject of a great
and readable book by Catherine Ott called Fevered Lives: Tuberculosis
in American Culture Since 1870 and just published by Harvard University
Press.
The menstrual connection to this Web site is twofold: in the last century
some physicians believed a female consumptive's spitting of blood was vicarious
menstruation! And Dr. Ott has been one of the conduits of knowledge from
the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History - where she is an
historian - to this museum, having visited MUM with six Smithsonian
Fellows and brought copies of outlandish patents for menstrual devices as
museum-warming gifts. She has also smoothed the way in the Smithsonian for
MUM researchers to use that museum's collection in menstruation.
But back to tuberculosis. Flattering?
"Consumption is the most flattering of all diseases, as well as
the most insidious and fatal," wrote Dr. Elizabeth Bigelow in her 1876
senior thesis at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She had seen
what the disease had done to her own family.
"Consumption [which included tuberculosis]
set the standard for white middle-class beauty in the nineteenth century,"
writes Ott, and "pale, bedridden, wasting women and men quickened the
romantic pulse of Victorian readers both here and abroad."
One reviewer called the book "The best kind of social history."
It's readable, has extraordinary pictures, is full of cultural and medical
information, and surprised me page after page!
Two Users
Comment on the Menstrual Cup Instead
PRO (mostly): "Right now I am sitting here browsing the
MUM and not worrying at all about the Instead that is all snug and warm
inside me. I am a major advocate for Instead. I think any woman who uses
o.b. would not have a problem, but there are many out there who can't even
use an applicator-less pon, let alone put (oh dread) a cup in oneself. The
only problems I have found are: if I wear one for more than 4-6 hours the
blood smell is super intense when I take it out. And the other one is I
can't "relieve my bowels" without major leaking. But I think it
is still worth it. I also get really bad cramps when I use tampons; with
Instead they are much less active. Finally I have been able to babble about
Instead to someone who seems to like them; I thought I was the only one!!!
One more thing: there is something about the name that I don't really like."
An industry source told your MUM director - me - that the Instead
people started marketing the cup on the Pacific coast of the U.S.A. because
a larger percentage of women there than elsewhere in America use o.b. tampons,
which have no applicators and must be inserted with the fingers, just as
Instead must be. I do favor a menstrual cup, but one more like The Keeper, which can be used for
a decade or more, according to the company. But hey! I'm just a guy,
as has been gleefully pointed out to me on several occasions. I am
humble about the question of what women should use, and very humble
about being a guy. I can only present as many facts as I can; you choose.
CON: "The ones I tried didn't fit and leaked . . . and I
can't imagine trying to change one in a public restroom because of the mess
on my hands."
My comments on Instead and cups
go on for several items, and messiness is probably the main concern most
women have. E-mail me if you want
to comment on menstrual cups.
OBGYN.NET Featured MUM as Hot Find!
The folks at The Physician Reviewed Network for Ob/Gyn [obstetrics
and gynecology] Practitioners, a truly extensive and useful site
for folks interested or working in these fields, linked this museum
for a short time in late November as its featured Web site.
Welcome! and Thanks! and your MUM has some chicken-soup
information for your patients, and even you, on each page! You
will feel better in seconds! See?
More Girls Than Boys Born After Dioxin Accident
Dioxin somehow influences the estrogen in a woman's body. The German
newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (28 Aug 96) reported the
results of a study published in the British medical publication Lancet
(Volume 348, page 409) that almost twice as many girls as boys were born
to mothers exposed to high levels of dioxin after the dioxin accident at
Seveso in July 1976. And the seven mothers with highest blood serum levels
of dioxin all had girls!
Dioxin in varying levels is present in many products used in menstrual
protection, such as pads and tampons, and is a powerful poison. Dioxin exposure
is also linked to higher rates of cancer.
You May Use Instead For 12 Hours
I thank a securities analyst for this information from Bloomberg Business
News (20 Nov 96): Ultrafem, the maker of the new menstrual cup Instead, now says the Food and Drug Administration has
approved Instead's use for up to 12 hours in the vagina. The FDA
had initially approved it for only eight hours, but the company put 12 on
the packages.
Susan Antilla also writes in the article that "There's a reason
women haven't switched in droves to the menstrual cup. And that reason isn't
because it's so tidy to use." (Italics added). This is the problem
I have mentioned before. If it were designed
to be used again, like The Keeper
cup, I might recommend it, but the Keeper itself has sold so few (around
15,000) since it started in the late 1980's that it is not trackable by
Information Resources, a Chicago-based marketing research firm. Why? Probably
because of a generic messiness and inconvenience in inserting and withdrawing
the device with your fingers. Not many women want to deal with it. But
even a cup with an insertion device marketed in Australia, Gynaeseal,
flopped in the past few years.
The Bloomberg article mentions that Instead is one size only (The Keeper
has two sizes, for women who have and have not had children), and will not
fit everybody, unlike a diaphragm, which is fitted individually. This causes
leakage in some women, one of the vexing problems women have with any menstrual
product.
I must mention that Ms. Antilla interviewed me by phone for the
article. She was dumbfounded that there was actually such a thing as MUM
(I can't believe it either, actually) and frisked me for some information
on the history of menstrual cups, which I surrendered.
But try Instead out. Call 1-800-INSTEAD for a sample, and see
it on the Web: www.instead.com
By the way, Michael Bloomberg, who founded and runs the aforementioned Bloomberg
Business News, is a college classmate of mine. Hm, if this billionaire -
he really is! - could help support his and your Museum
of Menstruation . . . .
Comedy Central
- Gasp! - Drops
by MUM
The Museum of Menstruation makes its debut on American television on
The Daily Show on the Comedy Central network
from New York. [It was broadcast in December of 1996.]
While being filmed, Beth
Littleford grilled the MUM director about the exhibits, with producer
Stewart Bailey occasionally whispering into her ear. Viewers should get
an idea of the museum and its founder (moi) from the 2-3 minute segment,
boiled down from more than an hour of taping.
You'll know who I am by the glare off my forehead; also,
Beth is awfully good looking.
She questioned my motives for starting MUM - so what else is new?
- but liked the job I did in putting the exhibits together. Beth seemed
impressed by the wealth of information, but had to laugh at - well, see
for yourself (unless they edit it out)!
The producer's girlfriend had read the
long, great article about MUM by Nancy Young
in the current BUST magazine (apparently a
book from Harpers due in the summer of 1999 will contain this interview),
and suggested that maybe his show could do something with it. I guess this
is how things happen, folks.
Although the first American TV treatment of the museum, TV networks in Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada have
already done segments on MUM. Typical, right?
MUM Proud of Listing in Europe: Lifestyle.co.UK
About a month ago MUM got this e-mail: "Congratulations, your site
is a quality resource and will shortly be featured @ Lifestyle.co.UK. We
apply stringent criteria to our listings and it is indeed in recognition
of your good work. Lifestyle.co.UK, Europe's best crafted directory, features
top level subject sites only."
What you'll find there is an incredible mass of links to museums,
universities, etc., all over the world. It's the best reason to get
an Internet provider with unlimited usage time for you.
It's a pleasure to know that virtue is rewarded! Well, anyway, at least
hard work on a worthwhile subject is recognized, even if the subject gives
most people the willies.
BUST Magazine Strikes Again! German TV Tapes at the Museum
The second German network to shoot a tour of MUM, RTL2 - the first was
Pro 7 six months ago - arrived one evening to see what all the fuss is about
regarding menstruation. Its representative in Los Angeles had read about
MUM in BUST (see the item about Comedy Central, above) and rushed the news
to the Old Country.
If the TV folks find MUM worthy, Germans will tour the museum as part
of a weekly one- hour program with a studio audience which features two
German celebrities, newly chosen each week, and a good-looking, very cheerful
woman in a heart-stopping short black dress who runs things. She
asks the celebs what they think about four or five short tapes dealing with
the world of, er. . .well, I'll just say it: erotica.
Menstruation equals erotica? For most people, not exactly, but
it IS naughty to talk about it, I guess, and especially to show anything
associated with it, which MUM does in spades.
RTL2 sent me a recent show featuring Germany's most famous boxer and
a cute, prim actress maybe in her thirties; they are the celebs. The videos
the woman in the black dress asked them to consider included a show of the
works of the California artist Ramos, who specializes in photorealistic
oils of nude women writhing in cocktail glasses, etc.; and a clip of female
bodybuilders strutting about and pumping their pecs, mostly Americans -
of course!
As a matter of fact, the show seems to be a window on America, which
Europeans regard with mixed wonder and contempt. The producer told me he
loves the States, and has crisscrossed it many times in old cars for fun.
And the title of the show is Peep.
Well then, all roads lead to the Museum of Menstruation, don't
they? Westward, Ho!
You're thirsting for more, aren't you! You wish you had
started a Museum of Menstruation - admit it!
Well, you'll have to wait till next week
to find out what happened!
Your MUM Just Can't Get Away
From Bad Company: Newt Gingrich and Some, Well, Interesting Web Sites! 
Yes, your upstanding, reputable MUM is AGAIN keeping company with low-life
Web sites in a book (see the other, socially better connected ones and museums
in America's Strangest Museums,
discussed several items below)! Non-Americans (and some Americans!) might
not know that Newt Gingrich is the conservative Speaker of the House of
Representatives in the U.S. Congress, and if the president and vice president
of the U.S. die, he's the president. This worries many people, even
conservatives.
With no active participation on my part, the book "Things On The
Net..." (see the green box with a cartoon of the Speaker) devoted pages
40-41 to this museum, and was actually respectful. It should have
been, considering what else it had to deal with: The
World Sex Guide, Heartless Bitches International, The Penis Size Survey,
Gay Hankie Code, Skin Disease Weekly, Rectal Foreign Bodies - you
get the idea.
Now I know you'll want to buy one, so here's how: the deservedly
purple paperback is now in stock at
many bookstores (I bought mine at a Scribner's),
including all B. Daltons and Barnes
& Noble Superstores, as well as Spencer
Gifts. It's also available through a 24-hour orderline: 1-800-266-5564
(U.S.& Canada) or 609-863-1014 (worldwide). Or get it online from a
book "store," Amazon.com.
Classy authors send free copies to the people they include in their
books, but these fellers whine, "We're sorry we have to ask you for
the budget-busting $8.95 retail price, but we'd never earn our Junior Achievement
merit badges if we didn't."
When will our MUM walk the straight and narrow?
Seeing the Menstruating Uterus
 Many women feel the effects of
their own menstruation - but who has seen a moving, menstruating uterus?
Dr. Jason Birnholz and Frances Kent of Highland Park, Illinois (USA), report
in Medical Imaging International (Jan-Feb 1996) about their creating
moving images of a menstruating uterus using
ultrasonography (sample at left). Not only does this investigation unveil
the workings of a normal menstrual flow, it can be used to pinpoint structural
causes of abnormal bleeding. One of these days I hope to get a moving
copy for museum visitors and this MUM site. Hey, didn't you always want
to see what's causing all the fuss?
(The image is courtesy of Dr. Jason Birnholz)
MUM Makes the Sylvia Comic Strip
Rummaging through the museum this evening, and stumbling over Mack C. Padd, MUM's distinguished cat, I found the Sylvia
comic strip from 5 August 1995 discussing this museum, which many people
probably have not seen. A great lady from Los Angeles,
now fighting cancer, clipped it out and sent it to me a year ago.
(Used with permission of Nicole Hollander)
Tampax Reaches Out
Tambrands e-mailed me last week, suggesting I add their
two links (Tampax & Troom)
to the MUM site. I just did! They are also in NetConnect.
The SCA Mølnlycke company in Tønsberg, Norway, the largest
producer of menstrual pads and tampons in Norway, created an exhibit about
menstruation in their county museum (!) on
the occasion of the company's 50th anniversary. Lasse Gjertsen faxed MUM
that the company would send more information about the exhibit in the next
few weeks. In the meantime, look at the Website
of a non-American manufacturer of menstruation products!
Instead Bent the Rules!
A securities analyst kindly sent me information about Instead, the new
menstrual cup (see below), which indicates that
the parent company (Ultrafem) advertised that the total time a woman came
safely wear it as 12 hours, not the eight that the Food and Drug
Administration approved. And the company altered the composition of the
product after the FDA approved it. It's not clear that either change will
harm the wearer, and I believe the FDA and Ultrafem are discussing the changes.
Ultrafem based its increased length of usage on tests showing that the bacterial
count in the menstrual blood in the cup did not increase when retained four
more hours.
Another securities report calls holding shares in Ultrafem "risky,"
because of doubts that enough women will want to deal with the insertion
and removal process, leaking, as well as other reasons. Education is the
key, the report says, and I agree.
A similar product, Gynaeseal in Australia - it even had (has?) an
insertion device - failed recently because of a "total lack of interest"
on the part of the Australian public and government. I thank Megan Hicks
of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, for this information.
I work in a federal government office, and two weeks ago I distributed six
Instead cups to interested co-workers. The one report I have so far gotten
back is negative. The tester simply didn't like the insertion and withdrawal
process.
But there may be enough interested women to make the product viable.
Menstrual Cups May Do the Best Job - If
Women Can Overcome Negative
Attitudes!
As discussed earlier (see below
for a discussion of cups in general), Ultrafem just started marketing
Instead (picture below) in the western part of the U.S.A. (Or buy
by telephone: 1-800-INSTEAD). It's a disposable
menstrual cup which costs less than 40 cents.
Women have been able to buy a re-usable cup since the 1980s, The
Keeper (see also MenstrualCentral) (below),
from a company in Ohio.
 Where Instead sits (from the Instead instructions,
with added color). Ring is dark red, pouch is lighter color.
The Instead people say women can keep the cup in about twice as long
as they would a tampon, up to 12 hours on light days. And users can
wear the cup during sexual intercourse for blood-free sex. As also mentioned
below, cups are probably the safest of all menstrual protection devices.
But many women are reluctant to insert their fingers into their vaginas,
especially during menstruation, and this may pose a problem for wide acceptance.
And there is the disposability factor - this is not biodegradable
material.
Finally, apart from the great merits of the product, I must mention again
that menstrual cups have been around for decades (see the item below). The
old Tassette and Tassaway cups were advertised in mainstream, national magazines
like Bazaar, even if The Keeper is less widely advertised (it deserves better).
Advertising folks are not telling the truth when they claim that - as Padette
also does in the next item down - Instead is the first really new thing
in menstrual protection in 60 years.
See also my protest below.
There is a recent New Yorker magazine cartoon showing a line of public
relations people in front of the door to PR hell. Above the door a sign
reads (approximately, anyway), "Abandon All Hype, Ye Who Enter Here."
I wish.
Always
Changing?
Speaking of claims to being new, I hope that everyone knows that all
these "New!" exclamations plastered on pad and tampon boxes
are usually hype at its worst. A Canadian observer of this Web site just
sent me an article about Procter & Gamble, which reveals that they make
over 200 versions of their Always pad, some differing by no more than a
millimeter in length.
I think it's simply a shameless attempt to delude women into thinking
that, at last!, this thing will work for me. Always is not the only
offender.
Try the Interlabial Padette!
Recently a graduate student called me and told me about the Padette
(below), a wedge of material the user places between the lips of her
vulva, not into the vagina (picture below).
 
Women use them on light menstrual days, for light urinary leakage or for
other light secretions, and the company - A-Fem Medical Corporation - says
it has the absorption capacity of a junior/regular tampon. The manufacturer
states that the pads stay put, without adhesives, unlike the shifting usual
pads, and they don't bunch up. Padettes are made from the "same materials
commonly used in leading tampon products, external pads and panty pads,"
without being highly or super absorbent. They are changed with each urination,
and either flushed down the toilet or wrapped and thrown into the trash.
If you live in Florida, find them in Walgreens drug stores. Otherwise, order
them by phone at 1-800-700-8716 (Pacific Standard Time 9-5). Ask questions
at 1-800-764-6864 (EASTERN Standard Time 9-5). They cost $7.05 for 48 (the
minimum sold, in two boxes), which includes shipping and handling.
I have two quibbles with the merchandising of this probably good
product:
-The actual name of the pad is Fresh 'n Fit Padettes. Shouldn't there be
an apostrophe after the "n," assuming the word is "and"?
-And the company claims it's the "first major innovation in feminine
protection in over 60 years." Sixty years ago was 1936, the year Tampax
came out. But the first commercial menstrual cup came out about 35 years
ago, and that was TRULY an innovation.
By the way, Instead, the menstrual cup which just appeared, makes the same
claim (see the two items, one right above, the other several sections below).
MUM Looks for Additions
Do you have or know of items which belong in the Museum of Menstruation?
These can be articles, books, ads, actual products (but unused!), packaging,
pictures or silly, kitschy things - and anecdotes or reports from any culture.
Actually ANYTHING concerning menstruation in any culture, however humble,
is a welcome addition to the museum and archive.
Scholars and the public from around the world look to the museum as a source
for cultural information about menstruation, and you can help them!
The museum is expanding its collection, and is seeking a completely public
place for its exhibits and archive - and future cafe, shop and meeting and
lecture halls.
Being considered also is a unique display of the history of women's health,
an expansion of the concept of the museum.
NEXT earlier news - Next later news
© 1996 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce
or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written
permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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