New address for menorrhagia Web site
Hello,
Several months ago our sites exchanged links. I am writing now to let you know that my page on Menorrhagia: Overlooked Causes of Heavy Menstrual Bleeding site has a new URL name. The old name was
http://www.mindspring.com/~sandysimmons/menorrhagia.html. The new name is
http://www.ctds.info/menorrhagia.html. The title and the content of the page remain the same. Only the domain name has changed.
I will be deleting the current page, www.mindspring.com/~sandysimmons/ in the near future. I would appreciate it if you would update the link to my site to reflect its new domain name. That way it will help the search engines find my new site and your site will avoid having a broken link when the old site is deleted.
Thank you,
Sandy Simmons
Washable pad company Glad Rags
Hello Harry,
We love your site and have linked to it from our resources page: http://www.gladrags.com/resources.html. We see that you have linked to us from you links page thank you. Would you also be interested in linking back to us from your two mentions of GladRags on http://www.mum.org/collectionwash.htm and http://www.mum.org/collwaspadsnap.htm so that visitors to your site can find out more about Glad Rags? Let us know what you think and we will look forward to sharing Web site visitors with you!
Sydney
Web Manager
GladRags
http://www.gladrags.com
Her female gynecologist didn't know about menstrual cups
Left: Current American cups (cups sit in the vagina and collect the menstrual discharge)
Read a short history of menstrual cups, and see some old ones.
You know, I just discovered your Web site because I was looking for some general information for my gynecologist.
She was horribly embarrassed on my last visit because her"medical history" form asked: "How many pads//tampons do you use in each cycle?"
I wrote in the margin. "Zero. I use the Keeper." (Heehee.)
She had no idea what I was talking about. She'd never heard of such a thing. She hadn't even heard of Instead.
And she was all frazzled about it because she seemed to think it was HER JOB to know. (I tend to agree. If our doctors don't know, how can we get good medical advice?)
My girlfriend and I have been using the Keeper for almost four years now. And while we both had a hard time in the beginning learning how to insert and remove it without discomfort, now both of us are practically advocates for the company. My girlfriend has an easier time with the product than I do, she has experienced very little leakage and her cramps and discomfort have been greatly reduced since she started using the Keeper. (When I first suggested it, she curled her lip, rolled her eyes, and asked me if this was another one of those "weird feminist products."
But I get the last laugh here. ;) )
Unlike her, I always have leakage problems so I have to wear some kind of a pantyliner or pad, but it's more for "insurance." I doubt it's the Keeper. I have leakage problems no matter WHAT I wear. Any type of tampon . . . Instead . . . sponge . . . doesn't matter. They all leak. Pads too. Of all of them, the Keeper leaks the least.
We are both very pleased with our Keepers and wouldn't trade them for anything unKeeperlike. She developed a severe latex allergy a number of years back, but the Keeper doesn't seem to bother her at all. Instead caused a mild reaction and her doctor told her not to use it anymore so that she could avoid a harsher allergic reaction like anaphylactic shock. I found Instead to be too leaky. It also seemed messier to me.
What I find most disturbing are the reactions of other women when the topic comes up. They react with disgust, disbelief, and suspicion to anything so "different." I don't really understand it. These cups are so much CLEANER and healthier than pads and tampons. They don't smell bad.
There isn't the risk of toxic shock. They aren't as expensive. And once you learn to use them properly for your own body, they are less messy. (Although I can't attest to the long fingernail problem. My nails are very short.)
I hope we never lose our alternatives. And I believe that efforts like yours to collect all of this wonderful information are what keeps those avenues open. Thank you so much for your work to make this information available. It is a very refreshing alternative to what we are force-fed by television advertising and prevailing cultural attitudes. It makes a difference!
Sincerely,
(28 year-old Michigan law student)
German music group and Holiday Inns
Dear Sir:
I don't know if you knew this or not but there is a German (?) rock 'n roll group named "Sanitary Napkin." Did not see this on your table of comments.
They used to have sanitary napkins disposal bags in the drawers at Holiday Inns (motel). My Dad used to get after me about taking them home as souvenirs. I had no idea at the time as to what they were to be used for. I thought they would make a good utility bag. You don't see too many in the motels now. [See some disposal bags from around the world.]
Civil defense used to have instructions in their manuals back in the 50's and 60's concerning sanitary napkin disposal. Again, I had no idea.
Later, Sani Knapp, the writer, added,
A late friend of mine once stated that a sanitary napkin is the next best thing to the greatest thing in the world.
All the best to you and yours for the holidays,
Sani
In the Sanitary Spirit,
Sani Knapp (from Sweden)
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
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.
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:
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!]
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.
