Hello,
I've been a regular, happy user of the InSync Miniforms since 1998. When I moved east, I ordered a year's supply at once (cheaper shipping). Now I'm down to my last two boxes. I went to their Web site to order more, but it seems the company has gone under. I had no idea this was coming. I would've ordered dozens of boxes if I had a clue.
By some miracle, do you know of any distributor who might have a back supply they would be willing to sell me? I'll take whatever they've got.
Sadly,
[Reply to me and I will forward your mail to her.]
Greetings:
I am trying to find written resources on Roman Catholic/Orthodox Canon Law concerning menstruation in medieval times. It appears that women were restricted from attending worship during such periods, apparently based upon the biblical book of Leviticus.
No one seems able to help me with this, so I am turning to you!
And: I had another question, related, but I thought perhaps "outside your ball park." Anyway, here goes! Nocturnal emissions of semen render one ritually impure for a short period, according to Leviticus (a reflex, I think, of the "pagan" ideas of incubus/succubus). In medieval canon law, the question (as I understand it) was: Can a priest celebrate the mass after such an experience the previous night? Answer: Only it it were inadvertent; but if he went to bed thinking of lusty damsels and thus precipitated the event, no!
Can anyone cite text on this?
Many thanks.
Lloyd Bailey
lloyd@duke.eduProfessor of Hebrew Bible
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina U.S.A.
The approximately 4000 items of this museum will go to Australia's largest museum . . .
if I die before establishing the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health as a permanent public display in the United States (read more of my plans here). I have had coronary angioplasty; I have heart disease related to that which killed all six of my parents and grandparents (some when young), according to the foremost Johns Hopkins lipids specialist. The professor told me I would be a "very sick person" if I were not a vegetarian since I cannot tolerate any of the medications available. Almost two years ago I debated the concept of the museum on American national television ("Moral Court," Fox Network) and MUM board member Miki Walsh (see the board), who was in the audience at Warner Brothers studios in Hollywood, said I looked like a zombie - it was the insomnia-inducing effect of the cholesterol medication.
And almost two years ago Megan Hicks, curator of medicine at Australia's Powerhouse Museum, the country's largest, in Sydney, visited MUM (see her and read about the visit). She described her creation of an exhibit about the history of contraception that traveled Australia; because of the subject many people had objected to it before it started and predicted its failure. But it was a great success!
The museum would have a good home.
I'm trying to establish myself as a painter (see some of my paintings) in order to retire from my present job to give myself the time to get this museum into a public place and on display permanently (at least much of it); it's impossible to do now because of the time my present job requires.
An Australian e-mailed me about this last week:
Wow, the response to the museum, if it were set up in Australia, would be so varied. You'd have some people rejoicing about it and others totally opposing it (we have some yobbos here who think menstruation is "dirty" and all that other rubbish). I reckon it would be great to have it here. Imagine all the school projects! It might make a lot of younger women happier about menstruating, too. I'd go check it out (and take my boyfriend too) :)
Hey, are you related to Karen Finley, the performance artist?? [Not that I know of, and she hasn't claimed me!]
Letters to your MUM
Brazilian uses your comments for her dissertation
Harry Finley,
My name is ***. I'm a researcher of social anthropology at Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil.
I've been studying the discourses about the suppression of menstruation for more than two years. I work mainly with Elsimar Coutinho's thesis [read about it], and its repercussion between gynecologists and patients.
Today I came across the Museum of Menstruations's thesis, and it was fantastic!
I felt extremely happy to see all the discussions you have been developing all these years about this subject.
I'd like to congratulate you for the site, and ask if I could use it as a reference for my dissertation. [Yes! The British magazine New Scientist also enjoyed and used the opinions of you, the visitors to this site. Read these views.]
Thank you very much for the site, and for the attention.
Hope to get your answer soon,
Use gloves with the Instead menstrual cup, she writes
I've been using them [see the Instead cup] about 1-1/2 years and love them. Removal can be messy and I've sent a message to Ultrafem [Web site]. I suggest including disposable gloves in their packaging (similar to those in hair color packages). Don the glove for removal. Once the cup's removed, simply turn the glove inside out - no messy hands and everything's all neat for the trash can. Doesn't help much with the environmental concerns but it prevents embarrassing messes in public restrooms. I'm going to buy a bag of disposable gloves at the pharmacy and keep a few in my purse for those delicate times.
[By the way, I almost know too much about Instead to write a compact section for it in the History of the Menstrual Cup section. The original company asked me for some historical facts it could put into its initial advertising campaign, and much later a lawyer for the plaintiffs against the original company called me to New York to provide information for him. (The suit was about the way the company was run, not about the quality of Instead.) Most of the members of the biophysics laboratory at Johns Hopkins University that developed the cup visited this museum and donated the Halloween costume of a staffer. The company has had new management for years and it seems to be a fine cup. One of these days I'll sort through my information and make a section for it.]
Zero Pantees lives! says its inventor
Dear Harry,
We were amazed to see our ads [here] appear on your Web site and to read your description of the 60's and 70's.
I am the inventor of the Throwaway Pants and we still market the Zero Brand in substantial volume.
If you would like to contact me I would be delighted to fill in any gaps that you may have in this market place which has found many new outlets throughout the world. [I replied that I did want to learn more; I'll add that to the Web site when it happens.]
Regards,
David Sallon
Managing Director
Dailys Ltd
Unit T4 Tower Close,
Redwither Industrial Complex,
Wrexham,
LL13 9WB
www.dailys.co.uk[The grandson of the woman for whom the Anna Health Sponge is named wrote me a funny e-mail in January, 1999.]
What did women use for menstruation in rural Georgia (U.S.A.) and what beliefs did they have about childbirth and menstruation?
Hi,
I'm researching for a book I'm writing that will cover the 20th century from 1912 on through present. What sort of protection would a farm woman in Georgia (U.S.) living in the vicinity of Atlanta (Lawrenceville south to Newnan) have used. What superstitions if any were there regarding menstruation? Also, if you know of any superstitions regarding childbirth and the disposal of afterbirth and baby's cord I would appreciate knowing this. If you can tell me where to find this information that would be great too. The superstitions would have varied greatly within the state.
Thank you for any assistance you can give.
Christine Durgan
christinedurgan@msn.com
Swedish woman sends "male" version of this site
Hej,
I found a "male version" of your site (especially check out the rude word list and the Penis Owner's Manual).
http://www.penisowner.com
She uses cloth diapers instead of pads - and, Is her engine running?
In your April 28 update, you posted an e-mail from a woman who listed the different ways she has tried dealing with her bleeding and has not found a completely satisfactory method yet [read it].
She said, among other things, that she tried Glad Rags reusable pads [see some], and they moved around more than she liked. Has she tried other types of pads? I have tried Lunapads, which have a very well-made set of wings with snaps, to help keep them in place. (I found them too small, though; they tend to bunch up the crotch of my underwear with all the snaps done up. On the other hand, I wear pretty large undies when I'm bleeding.)
What works best for me is cloth diapers. They come as a square, so I cut them in half and put a zigzag stitch in the raw side to stop it unraveling. To use the resulting rectangle, I fold it in half, then in thirds (like a business letter). It looks pretty large, but I find that its length helps keep it in place and prevents spotting on the bum on my undies, and the width overhangs the sides a bit so that if it does move, there's still lots of material. I find them very comfortable and soft, because there are no seams to bunch up. I have to change them every 2 hours, but I had to do that with commercial disposable pads too, so it doesn't phase me.
Maybe the woman who wrote you could try this. A package of unfolded cloth diapers is cheap and it doesn't take long to hem them. (Actually, they can go through one wash cycle with no hems and stay relatively intact, so you don't even have to the first time.)
As for explaining what they are to people to happen across them, just say they're pads. It's no different than if they had noticed a package of Always in the bathroom. (Or put them in a drawer where nobody looks.)
On a completely unrelated subject, I wrote you awhile ago with my favourite menstruation euphemism, "My transmission is going to fall out" [see It feels like your transmission is going to drop out in the Canadian words and expressions section]. My husband has expanded on the theme and has started asking how my engine is running, how my gears are shifting, whether my transmission fluid is leaking, or if my transmission is still loose. (We just had an engine mount replaced on our car, so I imagine a reference to that is going to make it into the vocabulary pretty soon.) [Read more expressions.]
[She later added the following.]
Actually, I can't take the credit for any of the expressions. The original version came from an artsie friend of mine in second year university, and my husband the anthropologist came up with the rest.
It's not really all that strange [about using diapers]; when my periods started again (after two years of nothing due to pregnancy and lactation) I was caught completely unprepared, so I grabbed one of my son's clean diapers while I went to the store to pick up a pack of pads. Much to my surprise, the diaper was way more comfy than my usual brand of pads. I am now a convert.
Yeah, the companies are always coming up with something else that we ABSOLUTELY NEED to have. There are special pantiliners for thong underwear now! (Presumably so women who want to show off their feminine curves with tight pants don't have to be inconvenienced by their feminine bodily functions.) Special diapers for different age children, for boys and girls, for potty-training (whatever happened to "big-girl pants"?). Special bras that push your boobs all around your chest. Special hair dye for men. Special beard-hair dye! Holy moly! Talk about a consumer culture.
The washable pad sites that spring to mind are
Lunapads - www.lunapads.com
Eco-Logique - www.eco-logique.com
(both Canadian)
Many Moons - www.pacificcoast.net/~manymoons/
This is the lady I mentioned, who has the patterns right on her Web site.
Pandora Pads - www.pandorapads.com
There is also the Australian site, www.menstruation.com.au, which has tons
of information and also sells "Pleasure Puss" cotton pads.]
[The Canadian writer has a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering.]
A Canadian wants to work for the future museum
I have just been back visiting your site, which is great! I discovered it about a year ago. I just wanted to say that when, not if, you get the funding for the museum - I would love to apply for the position of librarian or archivist!
Awareness of fertility
Dear Webmaster,
I've recently launched www.fertilityawareness.net, and posted a description of your website in my annotated bibliography (http://www.fertilityawareness.net/biblio.htm). Could you let me know if you would like changes to the description of your organization?
Also, if you'd like to link to fertilityawareness.net, I'd be delighted!
Thanks for your wonderful work.
Sincerely,
Katie Singer
Courteney Cox in a menstrual ad?
Hi, there,
Here's a possible research project for someone. I recall, long before the "Friends" era, that Courteney Cox was in an ad for some kind of menstrual product. At the time, I only recognized her as the girl who Bruce Springsteen pulls out of the audience to dance onstage in his "Dancing in the Dark" video. Alas, I can't recall the product -- I'm thinking maybe Tampax -- but it was in both print (magazine) and TV ads.
I imagine you won't get much help from her publicist on this one.
Enjoyed the site!
She finds a long-gone booklet on this site
Tracing a path to a Web site is like figuring out exactly how one event came to pass. I landed here from a Keeper [menstrual cup; see it here] Web site, which was from a "save your pennies" Web site, which was from an article on MSN. Well, however I got here, I wanted to tell you that you just MADE MY DAY by having the pamphlet "Growing Up and Liking It."
When I was ten years old - many years removed from needing to know such things - I lived overseas where there was precious little American culture, food, anything. While walking through the halls of the senior high school and snooping through the detritus of fleeing seniors, I found the booklet. And hung on to it.
When I got back to the States many years later I actually ordered the products (still not needing them, mind you). They sent back my quarters and dollar bills - I don't quite remember why - but I never did get my starter kit. It never occurred to me that I could just walk down to the store and buy whatever it was I wanted. Culture shock. I had lived in Tehran, Iran.
Now I can read the long-gone booklet once more, thanks to your site. I don't know that I'm actually going to be able to read the whole thing without passing out from laughter, but I'll try. Interesting memories of an interesting time.
Coooooooooool site. Thanks.
Friend of Felines [So am I - see here]
Is the museum serious?
Since nothing is considered humorous anymore, and everything is so serious (and politically charged) these days, your project makes perfect sense. I can't tell at all when you are being serious or when you're just pulling my string. I had an art teacher at Illinois State University who actually did use her menstruation in a painting. The medium is the message, apparently. [The "project" is serious, but I do have a sense of humor.]
Tell your "first story" to the Web site
Hello,
You were kind enough in the past to add a link to my site, and I am hoping you'll share my latest add-on. I've created a poll for women to take identifying their reaction to their first period. I've also added a place for them to share their first period story (first bra story or first kiss - guys are welcome, too!). All they have to do is go to the url below and click on "Firsts - You Write," and they can reach both.
Thanks for your help, I'm hoping to see more poll-goers select "celebrate," and maybe traffic from your site will generate more of this response.
Kathleen Coudle King
University of North Dakota - English/Women Studies
http://www.angelfire.com/nd/wannabe
Your MUM is pretty cool
Hi there, Mr Finley!
My name is *** and I am 28 years of age. I live in Australia and wanted to tell you how excellent your site is. I bet you hear that all the time, but really - it is so great!
I was also impressed that you are a guy and actually care about this stuff. You are pretty cool in my books.
Regards,
*** :)
But she said a prayer for MUM
When I was married to my first husband in the 70's, he wanted to have sex whether I was on my period or not. I would tell him, "No, it's that time of the month" and he would say, "That's okay, I like my meat rare." [Read more words and expressions about menstruation.]
This is definitely the strangest thing I've ever heard of as someone's interest, especially a man. I'll say a prayer for you.
Have a bloody good day,
New Zealander has a theory about menstruation
I have a theory:
PMT = Patriarchal Menstrual Taboo
As we live in a male-defined-and-valued world, what it means to be women has been demonized, trivialised and made inferior. It is no wonder women hate their periods and still refer to it as a curse. In fact, the male Christian lords did write in their Bible that because of Eve all women would carry the curse of her disobeying HIM.
Women's her-story has been absent from our world, except in fragments.
The physiological tensions set up about bleeding can make the body turn in on itself and produce pain.
I ask you, how can something so natural be so painful? Pain, it has been said, is the resistance to life's natural flow (spiritual idea). When understood on the level of women's herstory and spirituality that have been kept from us then it becomes understandable why women would like to be free of menses.
After all, men are - the world is their world - and there are very few work places that accommodate a menstruating woman. We as women have to 'pretend' to be like a man in that sense, yet if his nose bled every 28 days you can be damn sure that he would be made to accommodate it, even rid him of it.
Our lack of awareness of our own bodies as women, coupled with our having been conditioned into a world of male values (patriarchy) has robbed us of knowing ourselves even in this, the 21st century. Our menstrual blood, for instance, was once considered the most sacred blood on the planet, freely given, no sacrificial beast was needed, and once upon a time we as women knew how to cease menses until having a child was contemplated. Menses was also a time for sisterhood, hence the menstruation huts of other cultures; we in the West have lost this knowledge. And when it is mainly men who give us advice on menstruation, how can we really know of our own bodies' functions. The model for medicine was always a male - female was considered something less because she was not male. Men have an inherent deeply rooted core fear of women who bleed, who can give birth (the true creator).
Enough for now.
My e-mail address, if anyone wants to follow this up, is unity1_nz@yahoo.com
Thanks for letting me air my theory - I am still researching.
Brooklyn, N.Y., April 23, 2002 - The Brooklyn Museum of Art today announced the gift of Judy Chicago's iconic feminist installation The Dinner Party from The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation. The Dinner Party will be on temporary view from September 20, 2002 through February 9, 2003 in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery on the fifth floor and will be permanently installed in 2004 on the fourth floor of the Museum.
Photo by D. Woodman, who a few years ago at my request helped a student having problems with the gallery owner when exhibiting her show of menstrual art in New Jersey.
Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party to receive permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum of Art through a gift from The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation
(This is a press release from the Brooklyn Museum. Judy Chicago generously donated her print Red Flag to MUM. See her in the opening sequence of Menstruation: Breaking the Silence, a video made for Canadian television, and also showing this museum, MUM, when it was in my house.)
Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman said, "We are extremely grateful to The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation and to its president and BMA Trustee Dr. Elizabeth A. Sackler for making this truly remarkable gift to the collection and for providing The Dinner Party with a permanent home where it will be seen by generations to come. An extraordinary work of art, it is as relevant today as it was when it was first created in the 1970s.
"It has been an honor and a joy to guide The Dinner Party back to the Brooklyn Museum, where it was seen more than two decades ago. It is my hope that the permanent housing of The Dinner Party provides ongoing visual joy and intellectual opportunities for all who come to visit. It is a monumental work that I feel certain shall anchor its place in history, awaken our sensibilities to the past, and inspire possibilities for the future," stated Dr. Sackler.
Since it was first presented at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1979, The Dinner Party has been seen by more than a million people at fifteen venues in six countries on three continents. The Brooklyn Museum, where it was on view October 18, 1980 through January 18, 1981, was the fourth venue. The Dinner Party is a symbolic history of women in Western civilization. Triangular in configuration, The Dinner Party employs numerous mediums including ceramics, china painting, and needlework to honor women's achievements. An immense open table covered with fine white cloths is set with thirty-nine place settings, thirteen on each 48-foot side, each commemorating a goddess, historic personage, or other important women. Ishtar, the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, Theodora of Byzantium, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Sojourner Truth, Sacajawea, Susan B. Anthony, Emily Dickinson, and Virginia Woolf are among these 39 women selected by Judy Chicago to have their own place settings at the table. The Dinner Party rests on a porcelain surface, the Heritage Floor, inscribed with the names of 999 women.
The Dinner Party took more than five years to complete. For two years (1974-1976) Judy Chicago worked alone in her Santa Monica, California studio, conceiving and executing her extraordinary vision. The undertaking proved so ambitious that eventually 400 women and a few men from all over the country became involved, volunteering their time, from one month to several years.
"One of my aims in creating this work was to end the ongoing cycle of omission in which women's achievements are repeatedly written out of the historic record and a cycle of repetition that results in generation after generation of women struggling for insights and freedoms that are too often quickly forgotten or erased again. I am honored that The Dinner Party has found a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Elizabeth Sackler's act of generosity and vision demonstrates that one individual can still make a difference, in this case, interceding in history to help ensure an ineradicable place for women," stated Judy Chicago.
Along the first wing of the triangular table are place settings representing women from prehistory through classical Rome, beginning with Primordial Goddess and ending with Hypatia, symbolic of the decline of the classical world. The second wing begins with Marcella, denoting the rise of Christianity and concluding with Anna van Schurman in the seventeenth century. Recognizing the American Revolution, the third wing begins with Anne Hutchinson and moves through the twentieth century to the final place settings paying tribute to Virginia Woolf and Georgia O'Keeffe, suggesting a time when women began using a uniquely female voice in literature and art.
Each place setting includes a 14-inch, hand painted china plate, sculpted in spiraling forms suggestive of flowers, female genitalia, or butterflies. The artist once said of these forms, "My images are about struggling out of containment, reaching out and opening up as opposed to masking or veiling."
Also included with each place setting are ceramic flatware, a ceramic chalice, and a napkin with an embroidered gold edge. The place settings rest upon elaborately embroidered runners, executed in a wide variety of needlework styles and techniques taken from the periods in which the 39 women had lived.
The Heritage Floor is composed of 2,304 white luster-glazed triangular-shaped tiles inscribed in gold with the names of 999 women selected by a research team of twenty people over the course of more than two years.
Judy Chicago, whose name has become synonymous with feminist art, grew up in Chicago and later took the name of her hometown as her surname. She was educated in California and her early exhibited works included minimalist, abstract, and early feminist art. In 1970 she started the first Feminist Art Program at California State University, Fresno. The Dinner Party, at once representative as well as conceptual, utilizes a wide range of crafts generally regarded as women's work in order to, in Judy Chicago,s words, "tell women's history through women's crafts."
The Dinner Party was purchased by The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation from the Judy Chicago Charitable Remainder Trust, which will help support Through the Flower, a non-profit arts organization whose mission involves expanding the vision embodied in The Dinner Party. The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation seeks to raise awareness of the contributions of women in all areas of art and culture with a specific focus on feminist art.
Elizabeth A. Sackler, a public historian, was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Museum of Art in the fall of 2000. Dr. Sackler is President and CEO of the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation and President of The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation. The founder and President of the American Indian Ritual Object Repatriation Foundation, she is also a member of the National Advisory Board of The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., where Judy Chicago, an exhibition of more than eighty works of art spanning forty years, will open October 11, 2002.
A series of educational programs and lectures related to The Dinner Party and feminist art, sponsored by The Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, will be presented at the Brooklyn Museum of Art during the course of the exhibition of The Dinner Party from September 20, 2002, through February 9, 2003.
Adam Husted
Public Information Associate
Brooklyn Museum of Art
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
Call for papers: MENSTRUATION: BLOOD, BODY, BRAND
THE INSTITUTE FOR FEMINIST THEORY AND RESEARCH
WWW.IFTR.ORG.UK
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY, United Kingdom, 24-26 January 2003
An under-explored territory for the scholar of the body-in-history, the menstrual has remained one of the last taboos of both cultural and academic discourse. A recurrent motif in specifying the body marked female, menstruation has nevertheless remained on the periphery of the feminist second wave. This interdisciplinary conference will bring together various previously disparate critical approaches to construct an evolution of menstruation. It will examine and revisit visual, literary, medical, legal, autobiographical and historical texts.
Keynote Speakers
Julie-Marie Strange
Marie Mulvey-RobertsProposed Papers/Panels
- Visual Culture and Menstrual (in)Visibility
- Menstrual Technologies
- The "Speaking" Body
- Revising the History of Menstrual "Disorder"
- Theorising the Menstruating Subject
- Female Bodies and "Emission"
- Enlightenment's Menstruator
- Taboo and Totem
- Menopause and Ageing Femininity
- Psychoanalysis and Hysteria
- Race/Blood
- PMS
- Advertising Menstruality
- Maternity vs. Menstruation?
- Vampiric/Gothic Menstruation
- Menarche and the Invention of the Teenager
- Periodicity and Images of the Natural
- Dioxin and TSS
- Gaps in the Civilising Process
- Class and Menstruality
- Feminist Waves and Menstrual Evolution
- Menstruation, Statute and Work
- The Wisdom of the Wound?
- Representations of the Bleeding Body[The MUM director was invited to talk about this museum either in person or by video tape.]
300-Word Abstract Deadline 31st August 2002
Abstracts by Post or by Email Attachment to
Andrew Shail
School of English
Queens Building
The Queen's Drive
University of Exeter
Exeter EX4 4QH
UK
Phone: (01392) 264265
Fax: (01392) 264361
Email: a.e.shail@ex.ac.uk
Participate in three UCLA studies
Dear Mr. Finley,
My students and I are currently conducting three online studies relating to menstruation. We are seeking volunteer participants, women age 18-50, to take a few moments to complete anonymous surveys. I would greatly appreciate it if the Museum could publicize our efforts.
These studies have been approved by the University of California Los Angeles Office for the Protection of Research Subjects; participation is on a strictly anonymous, strictly voluntary, and unpaid basis.
Participants can access each of the surveys by clicking on the Web links below:
Disgust and the Menstrual Cycle
http://hillinfo.orl.ucla.edu/disgust_survey/
Subjective Changes over the Menstrual Cycle
http://hillinfo.orl.ucla.edu/cabin_fever/01_info_sheet.asp
An Investigation of Opinions about Incest and the Menstrual Cycle
(for women over 18)
http://hillinfo.orl.ucla.edu/menst_cycle
Many thanks in advance,
Cheers,
Dan
Daniel M.T. Fessler
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Department of Anthropology
390 Haines Hall, Box 951553
University of California Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553
tel. 310 794-9252
fax 310 206-7833
Email: dfessler@anthro.ucla.ed
Participate in panel about possible dangers of menstrual products
Hello, folks,
My name is Gabrielle Roesch and I work at the Environmental Center in Bellingham, Washington, at Western Washington University (U.S.A.) and I am trying to pull together a women's health panel focusing on the toxicity of feminine hygiene products, i.e., tampons, pads, dioxin, bleach, etc., and possible dangers and alternatives. I already have a naturopath physician on the panel but I lack activists and/or educators on the subject.
Please contact me as soon as possible if you are interested in being involved or if you know anyone who might be interested.
Thank you so much,
Gabrielle Roesch
earth@cc.wwu.edu
360-650-6129 or 360-392-3535 (U.S.A.)
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.
Did your mother slap you when you had your first period?
If so, Lana Thompson wants to hear from you.
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." (publisher's site)
My guess is that Spaniards will regard the cover as risqué, as many Americans would. And the book, too. But, let's celebrate!
I earlier 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.
