New this week:
Words and expressions for menstruation (Spain) - Would you stop menstruating if you could? - humor

Would you stop menstruating if you could? (new entry)
Words and expressions for menstruation (new entries, for Spain)
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

PREVIOUS NEWS
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Letters to your MUM

Menstruation a disease?

A bloody menses is a disease!

Viktoras Kulvinskas, in his book "Survival Into the 21st Century" presents a detailed report on how only female animals, including humans, who have a breakdown in their immune systems suffer from a bloody menstruation. There is evidence that females not exposed to the pollution of society do not suffer from this bloody disease. Check it out...

[I have not read or even heard of the book - has anyone? I'm no biologist or physician, but a very heavy period sometimes indicates a problem; all periods are bloody. Lack of blood would in itself indicate a problem.]


Praise for the museum

Dear Mr. Finley,

Thank-you for pursuing your great idea for a menstruation museum. I am a first time visitor to your fantastic Web site and have spent the better part of the day perusing it. What a fun and informative thing it is; so much so that I'm forwarding your site to the females in my life. How I wish I had this information when I first began menstruating some 30-odd years ago. [Thank you!]

With gratitude,


Have you seen slapping girls at menarche in the movies?

I recently read the article on your site about the above custom. I remember seeing a French movie about 10 years ago that involved this tradition. The mother slapped her daughter's face and told her it was so that her cheeks would always stay pink. I cannot remember the name of the movie or even much about it unfortunately. I also do not remember if the family involved were Jewish but I always had the feeling that this was a French (or just generally European) custom. [Does anyone have information about this custom in the movies?]

If I remember any more I will let you know.

Great site!


When did the tests with the famous blue liquid start? Why?

Dear Mr Finley,

First of all my compliments on the wealth of information you have made available through your Web site. [Thanks!] There is something particular which has intrigued me for some time and have tried to research. I am interested to find out more about the 'sanitary towel tests' featured in television advertisements and particularly the use of the blue watery liquid which is used in these ads.

Do you have any information on how these "tests" came to be considered "informative" and the advertisement agencies reasoning in devising the colour scheme?

Yours sincerely,

[I suggested in the Lillian Gilbreth article that the blue liquid may be related to the popular practice of making pad boxes blue in America in the 1920s, and maybe was a kind of advertising. Many people seem to be spooked by using red, the approximate color of the menstrual flow. Showing the tests themselves probably arose when advertisers thought that women would be impressed seeing some kind of "proof," as was and is done in the advertising of detergents.

[Earlier I suggested on a Canadian business-television program that if menstrual-pad products and the liquids in "tests" should be red, then toilet-paper wrapping should be brown and yellow.

[Does anyone know the answers to the writer's questions or have other explanations?]


Link to menstruation site:

Hi,

I would like to be linked to your site. The Web address is

sacredcycle.com.

Thank you,

Gina Cloud


Call for Submissions: "The 100 Best Things About Menstruation"

Looking for one-liners up to three paragraphs describing a "best thing" about menstruation: Health-related, cultural, artistic; an experience shared with an older or younger relative, or with a partner; a dream, political statement, joke, proverb, and/or something overheard at a party; scientific, sexual and/or religious . . . .

Be creative, be precise, and make it a one-liner up to three paragraphs.

The book will start out with best thing #1:

"Menopause."

Which is a "joke" given to me by a woman in Australia - however, I think it accurately expresses the menstruphobia most people feel, and is a good starting point for the general audience the book is aimed at.

From there, the book is a journey through all stages and aspects of the lifetime menstrual cycle - and the last several "best things" will be about menopause. So hopefully the reader will be brought full circle - they will recognize their own menstruphobia in the first best thing, but by the end of the book, they may be surprised to find themselves feeling a bit . . . menstrufriendly!

Please include contact information for you and/or your group EXACTLY as you would wish it to appear in the book - I think it will save a bit of hassle down the road!

Any best things that don't make it into the book will be included in a section on the Menstrual Monday Web site entitled "More Best Things About Menstruation." I'd like the book to be a snapshot of the worldwide menstrual movement in year 2000 - so just like a group photo, there's going to be some adjusting and moving people around and asking people to tilt their head a bit to the left, etc. . . i.e., as editor of the book, I may e-mail back and ask you to expand your best thing(s), or give some specific examples . . . so I hope that's not going to put anybody off!!!

Here's another sample best thing:

#43. Cramping at the Savoy

I know it's traditional to lie in bed with a hot water bottle or heating pad when one has cramps, but I can remember working in a fast-food restaurant, and one day when I had my period, I'd worked an eight-hour shift from 6 am to 2 pm, and later that night, went dancing at 9 pm . . . I can remember being on the crowded dance floor, and shouting up to my partner, "the dancing's made my cramps go away!" and him shouting back (although I could barely hear him above the music): "GOOD!!!"

So maybe the whole purpose of having cramps is to propel us onto the dance floor!

Working deadline is October 1, 2000, for submissions.

Please feel free to e-mail me with your "best things," and any questions or comments you may have!

Geneva Kachman [who has written poetry and essays on this site and had toxic shock syndrome. She founded Menstrual Monday.]

www.menstrualmonday.org


You have privacy here

What happens when you visit this site?

Nothing.

I get no information about you from any source when you visit, and I have no idea who you are, before, during or after your visit.

This is private - period.


Is this the new millennium or even century?

You can get the correct information if you go to these pages published by the U S Naval Observatory:

http://psyche.usno.navy.mil/millennium/whenIs.html (that`s a capital "i" in

"whenIs")

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/faq/docs/millennium.html

A comprehensive site from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich will put right any doubts:

http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/new_mill.html


Tell Your Congressperson You Support the Tampon Safety and Research Act of 1999! Here's How and Why


Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a Public Official For Its Board of Directors

Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.

What public official out there will support a museum for the worldwide culture of women's health and menstruation?

Read about my ideas for the museum. What are yours?

Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law, finances and fund raising to the board.

Any suggestions?


Do You Have Irregular Menses?

If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome [and here's a support association for it].

Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked me to tell you that

Irregular menses identify women at high risk for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which exists in 6-10% of women of reproductive age. PCOS is a major cause of infertility and is linked to diabetes.

Learn more about current research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University - or contact Jane Newman.

If you have fewer than six periods a year, you may be eligible to participate in the study!

See more medical and scientific information about menstruation.


New this week:
Words and expressions for menstruation (Spain) - humor

Would you stop menstruating if you could? (new entry)
Words and expressions for menstruation (new entries, for Spain)
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

PREVIOUS NEWS
first page | contact the museum | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | washable pads | LIST OF ALL TOPICS

privacy on this site

© 2000 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