What did European and American
women use for menstruation in the past?
Humor
Not an Easter bunny, but a water bunny!
I traveled to London on business. Of course, Aunt Flow [see more names for menstruation] had to come along. When I was changing in one of the restrooms where I worked, I noticed the big red sign on the inside of the door warning of impending doom should I flush my feminine items and to please use the "water bunny" near the sink. Having traveled before, I thought, "Hey, I can handle this without looking like an idiot." I placed my "items" in the "water bunny"; it began to make this horrible, loud churning noise. I was mortified at first, thinking the entire building must hear it, too!
I washed my hands and tried to convince myself that no one else had heard that damn bunny growling. I was in denial - all was right with the world until I walked into my office and got a standing ovation from the other 15 or so people working there.
I'm not sure if I learned anything from the bunny, but it was a scream over a couple of pints later.
I love your Web site - you totally rule!!!!!!!
After I asked about the bunny, she added,
As far as I can tell, it was some sort of water disposal unit for sanitary pads and tampons. The noise it made was similar to a kitchen sink garbage disposer, but it was quite a bit louder. It was mounted into the wall, with a "deposit" door that was approximately 6 inches square.
I was working in a secured building not far from the American Embassy. I wonder if other office buildings have these little "animals" in their restrooms?!?!?!?!?!
Hope this helps. Thanks for the great site!!!!!
Participate in French feminist archive symposium in Paris
Hello,
We are a French association called "Archives du Féminisme" dedicated to the history of XXth century feminism in France. Next to a "paper" archive center, we are currently designing an audiovisual archive center whose goal is double : 1) finding and keeping copies of audiovisual material made so far on feminist and women's issues in France; 2) recording the life and work of feminist personalities in France.
We are organizing a symposium next June in Paris. We would like to invite an institution which has undertaken the same kind of work in another country in order to present it to us.
Have you heard of such an undertaking?
You can visit our Web site, which will give you more information about what we do:
http://buweb.univ-angers.fr/ARCHFEM
Hoping to hear from you,
With kind regards,
Laure Poinsot
Female musicians who write about menstruation: E-mail her!
Hello,
I am searching for female musicians who write about menstruation, and all that comes to mind is "Blood in the Boardroom" by Ani Difranco. If you can think of any artists, Web sites, etc., please e-mail me at alana_pearlman@hotmail.com
Thank you!
Menstruation and Islam: where to find the truth
I was researching a paper I wanted to write on menstruation when I found your Web site this afternoon. Being a Muslim from West Africa I had to find out what you wrote about Islam and menstruation (here) and what Muslims from the rest of the world think about it. I got to the point where I felt I had to just write and enlighten you and some other Muslims about it when I read the above mentioned topic by the Muslim lady. All I want to tell you is that if you are looking for any information about Islam and menstruation do not look beyond that. It is the comprehensive information given by the Prophet (SAW) and legal ruling regarding menstruation second ONLY to Quran 2:222. Any other so-called religious opinion written not backed by evidence from the Quran or Hadith is just the individual's opinion and inapplicable.
I want to add that touching the Quran by a menstruating lady is subjected to different rulings by the major religious scholars based on their interpretation of the Quran and Hadith.
MUM got God's curse wrong
Just wanted to note that the statement on your Web page on Religion and Menstruation (did I spell that right?) about Eve was wrong. (Religion page.)
God's curse on her was NOT that of bearing children (much as some parents might think so) but it was in having SORROW in child bearing. This is one of the reasons why people tend to think of periods as being part of the curse - they certainly produce sorrow, and they are necessary for child bearing in this fallen world. Without the fall of mankind, Eve would become a mother without experiencing the sorrow of periods, discomforts during pregnancy, or pain during labor (a few women actually can labor and deliver with NO pain!! - written with a tone of true awe!). Here is the Bible passage to which you might refer:
(Genesis 3: 14-20, just to be fair): 14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return. 20 And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
You have an informative site! Thanks for all your work!
Brazilian comment, British comments
Dr. Nelson Soucasaux, who has contributed many articles to this site - see one at the top of this page - contacted the Brazilian newspaper O Globo to ask them to look at this site. Dr. Soucasaux translated the item about MUM, below, that a man wrote. I reproduce this because of the first sentence, which is probably the attitude of the vast majority of men everywhere. It's a "women's subject."
"COISA DE MULHER * : Perhaps for being a man, I confess I never imagined that someone could take menstruation so seriously and create a museum about the subject. The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health site is informative, curious and amusing. Besides scientific information, it presents a list of words and expressions for menstruation, methods women used for menstruation in the past and an excellent section of paintings having menstruation as subject." [P.S.: * "Coisa de Mulher": A Brazilian colloquial expression that means approximately "things that are specific of women." (Nelson)]
Anna Simpson, an English molecular biologist, contributed many items to the science section over the years, and last month commented on the contribution MUM made to an article in the British New Scientist magazine, which, by the way, called this site a "gem of a Web site" (Lifting the Curse, in the print edition subtitled The Cyclic Universe, dated 16 March; the Web site has it archived and accessible).
Harry,
I haven't e-mailed you for a while, but I had to write to say congratulations on your mention in New Scientist last week! I hope you get a lot of hits from it - they did print the Museum's URL at the end of the article, so I'm sure you'll get more than a few curious people.
Actually, I was a little disappointed by the article. Perhaps it's not fair to expect what is essentially a science reporting magazine to give much space to personal views, but they didn't talk at all about people who feel there are positive aspects to menstruation. I've been spending a lot of time writing fiction recently, and I've definitely noticed a cyclical aspect to how creative I feel and how easy it is to write.
When I mentioned it on an e-mail list I subscribe to, a few other women said they had noticed the same thing with their writing. I did a search in the literature for anything to do with creativity and menstruation, but didn't find much. Someone should do a study :-)
Hope everything is going well with you, and you're having luck with your search for an alternative income.
[I've become a portrait painter to, I hope, eventually enable me to devote the majority of my time to getting the museum set up in a public place.]
Northern Ireland woman looking for menstrual cup
Hi,
I have discovered your site by accident, but it has captured my thoughts. I'm a resident of Northern Ireland and even though we do not still keep pigs and chickens in our back gardens, we are some what behind the times in regard to the U.S.A.
I have asked at my local pharmacists about any products like Instead or the Keeper and got reactions from blank to horror at my request.
Do you know of any similar product available over here?
Many thanks
[I don't believe there's a "European cup," but both Instead and The Keeper have Web sites. See this site's pictures and history of cups.]
Keeper menstrual cup
Hello, Harry,
Your Web site is very enjoyable - a pleasure!
I thought you might get a kick out of my little "public service announcement" about the The Keeper (on the MUM site and its own site):
http://www.mollykiely.com/molly/psa.htm
Best regards,
Molly Kiely
A Dutch woman writes about The Keeper, what her mother made, and new products in The Netherlands
Hello, Harry,
I just re-visited your site and remembered how my mom used to make washable pads from old underwear. It is the terry kind and she would cut the underwear into strips that fit the crotch bit.
A friend of mine uses burp-cloths as washable pants, she tells me that folded in half they are the perfect size and of course they are nice and soft and absorbent and cheap.
Myself, I am a very content user of The Keeper (on the MUM site and its own site), stem cut off completely. On the heavy days I use a cloth pad as a back up in case of leakage, just as I would on the blue Mondays that I used slender Kotex tampons. I never was a tampon person, but on some occasions (swimming on a group holiday or something like that) it was the only option and it always was uncomfortable. That's why I was reluctant to buy The Keeper, but one day I took the plunge (keeping in mind that I would get a total refund if it didn't work). Ever since the first time insertion and taking it out went easy. Since I have cut of the stem I don't feel it at all; before I felt it but not to an uncomfortable level.
I have made a section on the Keeper and washable pads on my Dutch homepage, because the site of The Keeper representative is not very informative. Just about the day after I put it online she made a link to my page ;-)
By the way, I don't know which are the newest items on the disposable menstrual products racks in the USA, over here last year we have seen the introduction of:
-string disposable pads (with wings, I believe)
-string disposable daily pads (I don't know the regular word for these in English)
-black string disposable pads (in case you wear dark underwear)
-tiny daily pads, a box fits in your hand palm, by Libresse
Are Jules Michelet's journals that record his wife's menstruation translated into English? Anybody know?
Dear Harry:
Fabulous site! So interesting, entertaining, and informative. Thank you!
I am a San Francisco-based writer at work on a book about blood and am writing a chapter on menstruation (I grew up with five sisters, no brothers, so "the curse" was a frequent subject of whispered conversations among them).
I'm wondering what you know about Jules Michelet, the 19th-century French historian who, I'm told, recorded explicit details of his young wife's menstrual life in his journals. Do you know, for instance, if Michelet's journals have been translated into English?
Any leads or thoughts would be appreciated.
Much obliged,
Bill Hayes
"Bawdy language" with contributions from MUM
I thoroughly enjoy your Web site and the thought and sensitivity which has gone into it, to say nothing of its comprehensiveness.
I am currently putting out a new and expanded edition of a book entitled "Bawdy Language: Everything you wanted to do but were afraid to say." It deals with sexual language and the language of the bathroom through the ages. I have a chapter on menstruation; many of the phrases and expressions are quite similar to those you have collected [here], but they are put together in a narrative fashion. I have also found a few new ones on your site which people have contributed. I would be pleased to make that chapter available to your site, if you should be so interested. I would also like to make mention of your site in my bibliography. OK? [Happy to help!]
Best regards,
Lawrence Paros
MUM helps teach
I found your site by accident. I'm greatly, greatly, greatly impressed. I'm a male who teaches a course called Sociology of the Family. It includes a unit about the uniqueness of women and includes menstruation. This site is an amazing source of data.
Thanks for doing the leg and mind work to put it together.
Dear Sir,
I stumbled upon your impressive museum while searching for information about menstruation for a Theories of Human Communication college project. I must say that the museum's collection has proven to be very valuable for our research. Thank you for creating such an in-depth archive cataloging the taboo subject of menstruation.
Sincerely,
Dolly blankets, peer-we-odd, The Keeper, and, um, yes, Cunt!
Just found your site! It's great.
Some more names for period [on this page] are (Canada) "I'm on the rag," "Ragging," "The Cardinal is coming for a visit," referring to the Catholic religion; he wears red!
My mom told me they used to actually use rags when she was a teen! Her friends and she used to call them "dolly blankets" or "baby blankets" as in "Do you have any dolly blankets? The Cardinal's visit came early."
I can't imagine all that she went through, she is 67 now. (2002)
We read a wonderfully inspirational book by a lady named Inga Musicio it was called "Cunt," which changed our lives. I used to be a little squeamish about periods, and now I realize a lot of my paranoia and fear were based on t.v. ads for "feminine products." Like there was something dirty about us that needed to be cleaned up! Inga writes in her book about this, and jokes about there not being any such thing as hygiene products for men! I.e., ball wipes!!! I laughed out loud at that one!
Our daughter knew all about periods at three years of age, when she would play grown-up, she would often pack tampons or pads in her purse, for her peer-we-odd.
Thanks again for the site, and we have heard a lot of good things up here in Canada about The Keeper. It's sweeping the nation! Must buy one soon, as my sea sponges are running out. :) Never heard of that one? Read "Cunt" - you won't regret it. Or have a problem with the word!
**** ********
Canada
Breast cancer site
Hi,
I was browsing MUM (great site!) and came across your links section at:
http://www.mum.org/NetCon.htm
I believe that your users would benefit from a link to our site,
www.breastcancer.org
We are a non-profit organization, and offer a broad range of medical, personal and practical information from over 50 of the world's most respected breast cancer experts. Our mission is to help women and their families make sense of the complex information about breast cancer, and guide them to the best decisions for their lives.
Breastcancer.org offers monthly live chats, online discussion boards, and over 400 pages of expert-reviewed original content.
I encourage you to look over our site, as I believe it speaks for itself.
Thanks for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Marisa C. Weiss, M.D.
President and Founder
www.breastcancer.org
Founder, Living Beyond Breast Cancer
www.lbbc.org
Canadian washable pads company
Greetings Harry!
My name is Michelle Booth. I first off would like to say how much I love your site! It's an extremely informative compilation of hard-to-find information. Thank you!!
For the past three years I have been selling washable menstrual pads from my home in Quebec. This year I decided to put my business on the Web. I put a link to your site on my cool links page, hope this is cool with you. Thanks, Harry, take care and keep up the awesome work!
My web site is www.mamaelle.com
Michelle Booth owner, mamaelle
e-mail: mamaelleproducts@yahoo.ca
[Read about cloth pads.]
Artist's work on Web site
Dear MUM,
I was wondering if you would take a moment of your time to review the paintings displayed on my site. The focus of my work is to celebrate, inspire, heal and empower women. Through my works, I attempt to redefine Western femininity by reinterpreting and revitalizing aspects of female embodiment to give them new positive meaning. My philosophical outlook is Humanist/Womanist. I emphasize the personal worth of the individual through her beauty, intellect, strength, emotional, instinctual and intuitive qualities, as the central importance of human values, as opposed to specific religious or cultural beliefs. Through my images I create a new dialogue about female sexuality, reproduction and self worth. The figures are iconographic, representing an all inclusive, universal woman. My work contains a wealth of information about feminism, women's issues, health, psychology, history, legend, myth and spiritual beliefs, all of which have been interpreted by and created from the perspective of a female artist in the 21st century. However, this said, I feel the impact and intention of my art is reduced by being spoken -- what my art expresses cannot be translated into mere words. I hope you will stop by for a visit to see for yourself and hopefully consider adding my site to your Links section. I plan to add a link to your site as soon as my web tech gets in gear. My site is still a work in progress - I am adding a lot more written information that I think could be very inspirational and useful to your viewers. One example of this is the information I plan to include about Endometriosis in the Hysterikos Gallery which is a series of paintings based on the Uterus. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Amy E. Fraser
E-Mail: Amy@aefraser.com
Website: http://www.aefraser.com
Website Description: Amy E. Fraser's provocative, colorful images evoke intense emotion. These powerful paintings boldly express intimate and often painful views of the female experience. Ancient iconography is re-envisioned to depict modern womanhood from a fresh feminist perspective. The focus of the work is to celebrate, inspire and empower women.
[See more art.]
Masturbation: Popping your circuit breakers?
[A few years ago a woman sent me eleven boxes of mostly books for the museum, some of which contained amazing chapters about what people believed about masturbation in the 19th and early 20th centuries - and today. I put selections on this site {start reading here}. The writer, below, comments on these.]
I found your site by doing a search for "World's Dispensary," not masturbation. I was researching a totally different subject. [Dr. R.V. Pierce - see some of his empire - a patent-medicine giant in 19th-century America, created World's Dispensary Medical Association, among other things.]
I know it sounds weird, but there appears to be a scientific basis behind the practice [of masturbation] and certain health problems. At least in men, it depletes zinc levels, which is a nutrient involved in a lot of the body's processes. A couple of medical authorities in the 1978 and 1981 even pointed out that since zinc is so vital to proper mental function, this practice [masturbation] could lead to insanity. It also is a vital nutrient in digestion, growth, and the immune system.
I did a search on the Web for zinc and masturbation and ended up at some site where people were asking advice on their sexual troubles from a fella. Whether he was a doctor or a quack I do not know. But the questions from two guys that I read made it pretty plain that the practice was causing them some really worrisome health problems.
Adam Clarke wrote a Bible commentary that was popular among Methodists. In one place in it he went to great lengths describing all the health and mental problems he had personally witnessed caused by the practice.
It seems to me that folks who do this multiple times a day have to be doing something harmful to their body. It has to have some kind of effect on the nerves. If overuse of electrical outlets in our houses pops circuit breakers, some detrimental thing has to be happening in the human body.
Australian PERIODical goes monthly
Hi there, Harry,
I really enjoyed your site - it's very informative and interesting.
I do have something however that I think is rather amusing. Here in Australia we have a magazine called The Women's Weekly. Many years ago this changed from being a weekly magazine to becoming a monthly magazine, and many jokes were made about the magazine's name. As it was no longer weekly, many suggested it should be called the Women's Monthly!
Women's Wisdom: Health and Well-Being for Menstruation, Fertility, and Healing Arts and Artists Network
Hello,
Please consider our invitation to join the ByRegion Healing Arts and Artists Network.
We showcase Holistic Health Practitioners, Personal Growth Facilitators, Workshops, Schools, Bodyworkers, Artists, Musicians and providers of Healing Services and Natural Products. Regional visitors and locals alike can conveniently explore your area's rich and diverse Healing Arts and Artist Communities.
* Go to http://www.byregion.net.
* Select HealerPages.info or ArtistPages.info
* Click on your country, state, province or
region and look for "New Member Signup" in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
You are eligible for a free subscription to our Healing Arts Newsletter:
http://freesubscription.byregion.net
To view our current issue click below: http://newsletter.byregion.net
Please contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Peace and Prosperity,
Kristan Ranier
mailto:kranier@byregion.net
http://www.byregion.net
Canadian TV film about menstruation Under Wraps now called Menstruation: Breaking the Silence and for sale
Read more about it - it includes this museum (when it was in my house) and many interesting people associated publically with menstruation. Individual Americans can buy the video by contacting
Films for the Humanities
P.O. Box 2053
Princeton, NJ 08543-2053Tel: 609-275-1400
Fax: 609-275-3767
Toll free order line: 1-800-257-5126Canadians purchase it through the National Film Board of Canada.
Don't eliminate the ten Regional Offices of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor
The Bush Administration is planning to propose, in next year's budget, to eliminate the ten Regional Offices of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor. This decision signals the Administration's intent to dismantle the only federal agency specifically mandated to represent the needs of women in the paid work force.
Established in 1920, the Women's Bureau plays a critical function in helping women become aware of their legal rights in the workplace and guiding them to appropriate enforcement agencies for help. The Regional Offices take the lead on the issues that working women care about the most - training for higher paying jobs and non-traditional employment, enforcing laws against pay discrimination, and helping businesses create successful child-care and other family-friendly policies, to name only a few initiatives.
The Regional Offices have achieved real results for wage-earning women for eighty-one years, especially for those who have low incomes or language barriers. The one-on-one assistance provided at the Regional Offices cannot be replaced by a Web site or an electronic voice mail system maintained in Washington.
You can take action on this issue today! Go to http://capwiz.com/nwlc/home/ to write to Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and tell her you care about keeping the Regional Offices of the Women's Bureau in operation. You can also let E. Mitchell Daniels, Jr., Director of the Office of Management and Budget, know how you feel about this. You can write a letter of your own or use one we've prepared for you.
If you find this information useful, be sure to forward this alert to your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up to receive Email Action Alerts from the National Women's Law Center at www.nwlc.org/email.
Thank you!
Book about menstruation published in Spain
The Spanish journalist who contributed some words for menstruation to this site last year and wrote about this museum (MUM) in the Madrid newspaper "El País" just co-authored with her daughter a book about menstruation (cover at left).
She writes, in part,
Dear Harry Finley,
As I told you, my daughter (Clara de Cominges) and I have written a book (called "El tabú") about menstruation, which is the first one to be published in Spain about that subject. The book - it talks about the MUM - is coming out at the end of March and I just said to the publisher, Editorial Planeta, to contact you and send you some pages from it and the cover as well. I'm sure that it will be interesting to you to have some information about the book that I hope has enough sense of humour to be understood anywhere. Thank you for your interest and help.
If you need anything else, please let me know.
Best wishes,
Margarita Rivière
Belen Lopez, the editor of nonfiction at Planeta, adds that "Margarita, more than 50 years old, and Clara, 20, expose their own experiences about menstruation with a sensational sense of humour." (Later this month more information will appear on the publisher's site, in Spanish.)
My guess is that Spaniards will regard the cover as risqué, as many Americans would. And the book, too. But, let's celebrate!
Two weeks ago I mentioned that Procter & Gamble was trying to change attitudes in the Spanish-speaking Americas to get more women to use tampons, specifically Tampax - a hard sell.
Compare this cover with the box cover for the Canadian television video about menstruation, Under Wraps, and the second The Curse.
An American network is now developing a program about menstruation for a popular cable channel; some folks from the network visited me recently to borrow material.
And this museum lent historical tampons and ads for a television program in Spain last year.
Now, if I could only read Spanish! (I'm a former German teacher.)
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.
What did European and American
women use for menstruation in the past?
Humor
