New this week: Growing
Up and Liking It, 1972, "menarche" booklet
from Personal Products Company (U.S.A.), maker of Modess pads
Letters to your MUM
How did 19th-century women hold their pads in place?
Hello,
What a truly wonderful and informative site!!! [Thank you!]
I was wondering if you could help me. I work in a historical village,
depicting the 1860s, but finding any information regarding rags and how
they were secured has so far proved elusive.
I've made period drawers, and as they are basically a waist band and
two tubes that gap over each other. I was wondering quite how a woman would
have made sure the pads/rags were going to stay in place. Any help you
could give me would be greatly appreciated!!!
[They probably wore a piece of cloth around their waists and attached
the rag-pad to it. There's very little evidence of this, however. There
may have been commercial belts at this time. See also What
did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?]
I was also wondering, the knitted pads from the Norwegian display:
could they date them?
I really find that your site is extremely helpful, informative, and
an eye opener! [Thank you!]
Hi, Harry,
Here's a link I thought you might be interested in.
Vinnie's an artist in New York who started
making tampon cases for his friends so they could have something sturdy
and take a little more pride in their menses, instead of shame. It grew
into a full-fledged business.
A new menstrual cup?
Dear Harry,
I heard rumor of a new insert much like instead. It eliminates leakage
by using the heat of your body to cling to your vaginal walls (?). I was
wondering if you had more information.
I think it is disposable.
Thank you
I have never heard of this. Does anybody have information?
Is your cat an ENTJ? ISFP?
Or just a CATT?? (More about cats)
Hi, Harry,
I haven't visited in a while, but realized that I have never written
to tell you how much I enjoy your truly educational and entertaining site!
Menstruation (I call it "The Time of the Month Club" as in "Book
of the Month Club":)) is just a fact of life and you're helping people
get used to it.
Anyhow, having revisited, I discovered with pleasure your new cat-links (cat-lynx) page. Here's a real treat for you to
add to the page (wanted to give you something back for all of your hard
work in assembling the page). [Many thanks!]
This is a parody of the "Myers-Briggs"
personality test for humans (someone REALLY had a lot of time on
their hands to assemble this - but I'm so glad they did)
Also, if you scroll down the page to the bottom of the test, you'll
find a link to a hysterically funny recipe for cookies
that resemble cat poop! [Mmm! Oh, boy!]
Enjoy and thanks again for contributing to the demystification of one
of women's oldest bodily functions. [Glad to do it.]
How would Myer-Briggs rate a two-faced cat?
Hang on tight: this will unsettle you:
I was robbed at gunpoint
Three days ago, on the way home from work, a teenage
black boy aimed a pistol at me and took my money.
I was walking where I should not have, on a service road lined with
huge garbage cans behind a deserted mall about a half mile from my house.
I used it whenever I wanted to shorten my trip home by five minutes, usually
after I had bought groceries at the Safeway - Safe Way! - store, but it
was almost always deserted and shielded from observers right and left by
concrete walls and a steep grassy hill.
For years I told myself that I shouldn't walk it, but always did.
This time about halfway down the road I heard a noise behind me, looked
over my shoulder and saw someone 10 feet behind me. I continued walking
for a few seconds until I heard from my right rear, "Take out all the
bills in your pocket and drop them on the ground, dog!"
I stopped, turned, and quickly threw out all the money I had; the wind
blew the $13 every which way. He was 15 feet from me, aiming a pistol at
my chest.
"Keep walking," he said, and I did.
"Stop," he mumbled. For the first time I felt terror. Why
would he want me to stop again?
I slowed down; I didn't want to stop.
"Keep walking!" he said louder. I must have misunderstood
"DON'T stop."
I walked without turning around until I was out of the road and across
the deserted mall parking lot. I glanced back. He wasn't there.
After I walked home - I was numb - I dialed the emergency number 911
and told the woman what happened. At times I wept and she said, "Stop
it! I can't understand you! You're safe now!"
I spent the evening with the police; it was the first time I had seen
the inside of a police station not on television or in the movies. We cruised
the neighborhood in an unmarked car with tinted windows, so no one would
see me, but couldn't find the kid. The cops were nice; I just wish there
were more of them.
And I found out from police radio conversation about my case what a
number-one male is: a black man. Many of the police I talked with were black,
including the first one who drove to my house.
I still see the pistol aimed at me and feel lucky to be alive. But I'm
not as scared as I had been for many months last year, when I had coronary
angioplasty for heart disease, because the disease still works silently
- or am I getting better? - whereas the pistol, for now, has had its chance.
OK, so what does this have to do with menstruation?
Plenty.
Menstruation is immoral and so is this site,
which I will close right after this update.
I called the membership hotlines for Aryan Nation
and the National Rifle Association for one-day processing to defend my
Second Amendment rights to guard myself from homosexuals, dark people,
derelicts, ****** kids and feminists and ******ing liberals, those ****ed
pantywaist ****-***, rappin', *********-kissing, pot-smoking *****heads
and ******s and devil worshippers!
You know who you are and you're going to get
what you deserve!
After replacing my lazy, food-guzzling, stupid
*****ing cats - everyone was right about them but me; Thanks, people! -
with eight dogs, I am pointing the howitzer in the living room at my grass
near the sidewalk to vaporize those *******, ***** and ************ed kids
if they walk on my lawn again!
Thanks for the wake-up call, you *****, ****-faced
and ******** kid! I hope you shoot yourself and **** yourself, too, you
miserable ****ing, good-for-nothing half-*****, ****-*****/*************-*****!
And this from me to your friends and family:
****** *****-***!!
Just kidding! Hey, relax! I'm OK! Feeling much
better!
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:
"whenIs")
A comprehensive site from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich will put right any doubts:
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?
Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law,
finances and fund raising to the board.
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!
New this week: Growing
Up and Liking It, 1972, "menarche" booklet
from Personal Products Company (U.S.A.), maker of Modess pads
© 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