A woman from Central Asia writes about her menstrual customs
Alfiya sent a word and a phrase used for menstruation in Kyrgyzstan, and commented [see more for other countries]
"Guests came - I think this word combination is common.
"Damnation - this, I think, is concerned with the biblical subject about Eve. I call it so because it's a habit, but I don't understand why it is called so."
She added a joke she read in a magazine [read more jokes]:"After 10 days of delay even menstruation is a holiday."
And she answers the question, Would you stop menstruating if you could? (Here are many more of your answers]:Well, my answer is NO. Here are some reasons:
1. I don't feel any discomfort when my periods come. Now we have tampons and sponges which let us forget all troubles concerned with menstruation.
2. Maybe some women would laugh at this reason, but I think menstruation lets me feel myself like a REAL WOMAN. And I'm really proud of it!!! I see my magic influence on men. It's great!
3. Did you ever try to have sex on such days? This sensation is beyond dreams! I would never renounce it.
Hi!
Well, let me first introduce myself. My name is Alfiya [who said to use her name; I normally don't], I'm 22, and the country where I live is called Kyrgyzstan. My nation is Tatar. Anyway I have to deal with Moslem traditions. [Read other readers' comments about Muslim and other traditions.]
In all the course of the history of this religion menstruation was considered as something dirty. That's why women of reproductive age have no admittance to mosque (Moslem church) and to cemeteries right up to the present day. And the idea came about that it's a deadly sin for a woman if someone sees her menstrual blood. Menstruation was the reason why a woman was considered as a person of second rank. Of course, during history traditions suffered some modifications. So now we have a "Western" conception about menstruation.
By the way, most of women who write their opinion [here] say that menstruation is a hell and it's significant that American and Canadian women have early menopause. I think it serves just as evidence of a lack of health because if a woman hasn't any problems with "women's health" she should not feel any discomfort. And as I know (I mean my grandmother's) menopause comes to women in our area not earlier than 55-60 years of age.
I honestly don't know what women used in the past here. But now we have all modern means of hygiene. The most comfortable, I think, are tampons. But it's just my own opinion.
Thank you for your attention. And especially thanks for this site. It's very interesting. [Thanks very much for writing!]
She complained to Johnson & Johnson, waxing poetic - and it worked!
Just toured your site. Well done! [Thanks!] My boss, a public health nurse [in Nova Scotia, Canada], asked me the question "When were tampons invented?" I wasn't sure, but having watched the "Moral Court" episode [an American television program originally seen in late 2000, and obviously not only in America] you were on I replied, "For longer than you would think," and told her about your museum. On to the Internet and there you were! She thanks you for the info. [Commercial menstrual tampons probably started in America in the early 1930s. Tampax made the first one with an insertion tube, in 1936. Women have probably made their own for thousands of years - see hieroglyphics from about 1550 B.C.E. for a contraceptive tampon - and tampons have been undoubtedly used for a similar length of time for medical purposes.]
On the lighter side, I had a little poem (letter of complaint) which I wrote to the manufacturers of one of the first "minipads" in the early seventies. I sent the poem to "Johnson & Johnson" in Toronto and received a reply from J & J "Montreal." They asked that I return any remaining product so that they might send it to their product-development lab to ascertain the cause of my complaint. I figured I had done everything by way of my explanation to describe the problem, except draw a picture! However, it wasn't long before we were able to purchase oval pads with all-over padding. : )
The letter read:
Johnson & Johnson
Toronto, OntarioThis is a letter of complaint,
With regard to your Mini Pads so quaint.A delicate subject, I realize this,
But on this one you are amiss.On each one are corners four,
As painful a thing as I've ever worn.But the thing that really takes the cake,
Even enough to make me wake,Is when the end, with adhesive free,
Rolls over and pulls the hair right out of me![A clever poem! You were right to complain.
The same company wanted to find out what women liked and disliked in menstrual products in the mid-1920s and commissioned "the mother of modern management," Dr. Lillian Gilbreth, to investigate and report to the company. She did so in 1927 in what may be the first formal report on women's feelings about these products. Women in the twenties also complained about the square ends of pads, which irritated them. So the company has a track record, although a short memory - and why wouldn't a company want to know? It wants something that sells!]
Anyone know of any good sites about the history of contraception?
I have always been curious about "old" ways of dealing with menses (pre-20th century). Your site is very informative. I'm going to refer friends to it. (I teach 6th graders - this is an important topic!!)
Anyway, thank you for gathering all of this information!!!
Question: Are there any sites that you know of that discuss birth control the same way your site discusses menses???? If not, have you thought of starting a site for that???? [I would need a lot of help doing it, but it's a terrific topic, especially if it's combined with the story of the attempts to suppress it.] I've searched high and low for information of "old" forms of contraception, but the info is sparse (at least where I've looked). [Send sites to me.]
Thank you again!!!
From the woman who sent the shortest response (so far) to Would you stop menstruating if you could
Thanks so much for your site. I think it's excellent and have recommended it to my friends. I believe we are in the same area. I am in Baltimore so if there is anything I can do to help with your project, feel free to let me know.[Many thanks! Anyone know enough about the history of contraception to get us started?]
By the way, I remember Pursettes tampons. Blue cellophane wrappers.
Heard a story once about a girl who was being accused of taking drugs and the school principal went through her purse and not knowing what it was asked if it was some type of drug.
Family Friendly Fun and Special Needs Resources
I just visited your Web site and this is why I am contacting you.
Our Web site -
Family Friendly Fun and Special Needs Resources, http://www.family-friendly-fun.com, offers access to mind, body and spirit-enriching information that enhances the quality and enjoyment of family life with special needs -
is building a selective resource directory of Web sites that offer mind, body and spirit-enriching information that enhances the quality and enjoyment of family life with special needs.
Your site is certainly one of them.
Our site offers a broad range of information relevant to family life, such as arts, crafts, literature and music, exhibits and museums, domestic arts, business, finances, investing and retirement planning, hobbies, collecting and collectibles, disability resources, special education, homework help, special events and holidays, genealogy, adoption, pregnancy and birth, fun and games for kids, teens, family and seniors, parenting, pets, women's issues, relationships, food, nutrition, cooking and recipes, gardening, health and fitness, medical and alternative remedies, Internet safety, home decorating and improvement, nature and ecology, sports and recreation, inspiration and spirit, vacations and travel.
Thanks,
Steve and Louise Price
http://www.family-friendly-fun.com/
See menstrual art
Please check out my newly launched Web site, which features a gallery of my menstrual paintings, interviews with scholars on the blood mysteries posted monthly, spiraling moon workshop info, a live journal and more.
Feel free to add my site to your links page! I'd love it if you did.
And many thanks for your long, hard work on raising menstrual awareness through MUM!!!!
Vanessa Tiegs
s p i r a l i n g m o o n
San francisco, California
415 . 566 . 2425
http://www.spiralingmoon.com
[See more menstrual art, on this MUM site.]
The future looks good!
Hi,
This is a long time favourite expression of mine:
I'm a really tough broad, I've been rolling my own tampons for years. [Read more funny stuff.]
Take care - great site. The best of your memories are yet to be.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Lynne Bradley
President, Tarot Canada
http://TarotCanada.tripod.com/
If you're psychic, think "Honk"!
http://shareyourworld.com/UndercoverAngel
Check out my portfolio!!
Gladrags, washable pads
I found your site via the Gladrags Web site. What an incredible resource!
Thanks for your work. [Happy to do it!]
She really likes this site!
Dear Harry,
I bumped into this site by a fortunate search-engine accident. I was about to close the page, but I started browsing to make sure it was one of these things that makes me say, "Give me a break!"
Anyway, I'm glad I looked into it. And this is the best Web site I have ever seen. I am so impressed! The rich content, the healthy attitude, the tone. I feel proud of it! This is a liberation, a deep emotion and so much more. It is the first time that I feel a good, constructive, healthy dialogue is taking place on this subject. "Dialogue" is the word that does impose itself for me because of the diversity of the fields (history, science etc...) and because I feel part of it.
Thank you so much,
28 years old, French European living in Canada.
P.S.: Of course you should be director of the museum [read the future of the museum]. If there is anything I can do to help/support/promote the museum, please let me know, and please put me on your e-mail list if there is one. [No e-mail list - I'm swamped - but I used to publish a newsletter, Catamenia, which stopped with the advent of this Web site.
[I immediately took her up on her offer by asking her to translate a contribution completely in French, below, to the Words and expressions page I had just received. She did it! Many thanks!]
Dans les années 83-84, on disait entre adolescentes (et adolescent): le débarquement des Malouines en références à la guerre des Malouines.
Autrement, plus gentil, les ragnagnas, qui dénote l'état grognons dans lequel on se trouve pendant ses menstruations.
Pour designer les serviettes hygièniques, les "pattes à cul" ou "patacul," je ne sais pas comment l'écrire.
[Read her translation:]
During the years 83-84, we used to say among us teenagers, the debarkment to the Falklands, in reference to the Falkland war.
Otherwise, a nicer one, is the ragnagnas which underlines the cranky mood of the menstruation time. To refer to the hygienic pads, the "sextab," I don't know how to spell it.
If I may comment on this testimonial, I would say that "ragnagnas" is fairly common; it is a variation on "ragnes" that you mention on Mum site [words and expressions] and has some humorous connotations. I believe "ragnagnas" might be more common than "ragnes," even though the proper name "règles" is of course the most common of all. I've never heard the other words that this fellow country person of mine mentions!
Glad to be of help. Any time!
She wants more anthropology - so do I!
Just discovered your site. I love it, think it's fascinating, wonderful job.
Loved loved LOVED the booklets stuff. I had Growing Up and Liking It when I was 11 or so - that would have been 1975/76 - my mother had been a gym teacher in the 60s and still had a copy in her files. I remember being horrified by the image of womanhood it scolded me I should want (I was a fairly dreamy, bookish girl, not yet aware of the dyke I would become, but CERTAINLY not about to become the weeping girl with her head on her ruffle skirted vanity table in one of the booklet's illustrations).
I would be very interested in seeing a bit more on your site about the anthropology of menstruation, links to pertinent articles or even a synthesis through some of the key ideas. I'd like to see more about the ways that different cultures have regarded menstruation. [Me too! Could folks send me links or even compile a list of links? I'm happy to publish articles about these subjects - you get the credit and copyright.]
Thanks for taking this plunge; will return often.
From Toronto, Canada
(Aged 36 and experimenting with Instead [menstrual cup] for the first time.)
[She later added "being a woman" to the list of words and expressions about menstruation.]
This site kept her attention
Hello,
I found your Web site on menstruation very interesting! I was very surprised to find out it had been written by a man, since I've known men to have a somewhat irrational fear of subjects regarding menstruation. I read most of your Web site, and that in itself is a big compliment, since Web sites usually do not manage to capture my attantion for much longer than 5 minutes. Thanks for a very interesting read!
P.S. :Please visit my Web site for Death Row inmate Jamie McCoskey at http://members.tripod.com/save_jamie
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.)
If you had a party or created a ritual to celebrate your first period, we would be interested in hearing your story and seeing your videos, pictures.
This would be for possible inclusion in a television documentary called
Reinventing Rituals, Coming of Age in a Modern World for Vision Television, in Canada.Series consultant is Ron Grimes, internationally recognized expert on ritual and the author of numerous books on ritual including his most recent, Deeply Into the Bone, Reinvented Rite of Passage.
These three one hour specials, Coming of Age in the Modern World; Marriage Separation and Divorce; and Birth and Death are co-production between Northern Lights Television in Toronto and Ocean Entertainment in Halifax for Vision Television Network. They will air on Vision TV, a Canadian specialty channel whose mandate is to cover multi-faith, multicultural stories about the human spirit.
Reinventing Rituals will explore exotic cultures and ceremonies that may, on the surface, bear little resemblance to the hallmarks of our own lives. We will witness dramatic initiation ceremonies from Africa, complex funerals from New Guinea, and elaborate wedding and courtship rituals from South America. Viewers will become acquainted with traditional rites from many different cultures, contemporary and historic.
However, at the core of this series are the North Americans who are exploring new ways to mark transitions. We'll meet parents who are preparing to spend their children out in the mountains to spend grueling days and nights in initiation ceremonies; individuals who are approaching the end of life determined to design all aspects of their own funerals; and expectant couples who are redefining appropriate behaviour in the birthing room. This series is about these men and women and their quest to reinvent traditional rites of passage; but it's also about the connections that can be drawn between these modern pioneers and their counterparts in other times and places.
Program #1 The Bridge: Coming of Age in the Modern Reinventing Rites of Passage.
Reinventing Rituals is a compelling series of television documentaries that explore the dramatic resurgence in ritual and how it is being interpreted or recreated in order to give meaning to our lives.
From first menstruation ceremonies to vision quests, traditional societies have used ritual to help young people mark and make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. All but abandoned by Western culture, initiation rituals are suddenly becoming more popular.
The increasing profile of street gangs, drug wars, and teenage promiscuity in our communities have contributed to rising the popularity of the coming of age rituals. Many parents fear that if they do not provide an initiation scenario their children will initiate themselves using sex, drugs or dangerous behaviour. By enrolling their children in complex and often dramatic initiation rites, families can help young people make the difficult transition to adulthood. In this program we meet youth at the National Rites of Passage Institute in Cleveland Ohio who have spent the past year in a coming of age program. And then we'll join up with teenagers who've enrolled in a 10 day-long program outside Calgary, Alberta as they prepare to spend three World
If you are interested and/or need more information, contact
Deannie Sullivan Fraser
reinventing_rituals@hotmail.com
902-423-9056 phone
902-423-9058 fax
SNAIL MAIL: Ocean ENTERTAINMENT, SUITE 404, 1657 BARRINGTON STREET, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA B3J 2A1
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.
