If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause
and are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
Marie Claire magazine (Italian edition) featured several
of the above artists in an article about this
museum and menstruation in 2003. The newspaper Corriere della Sera (Io Donna
magazine) (Milan, Italy) and the magazine Dishy (Turkey) showed some of
the artists in 2005 in articles about this museum.
 
|
 
The Art of Menstruation at the Museum of Menstruation and
Women's Health
Magic and Medicine in Menstruation, booklet
from Schering Corp., U.S.A., 1934
covers 1 & 2, p. 3 New Guinea menstrual hut carving
An American pharmaceutical company produced this booklet for either
doctors or their patients - or maybe both. The drug it promoted, Progynon,
the "follicle hormone," apparently is estrogen, and it's interesting
to read the suggested uses for it in that early era of hormone discoveries.
Scientists are today still studying the mysteries of hormone influence and
fluctuation.
The warm-up act however is a loose and smug - that's the usual treatment
- recounting of menstrual beliefs and customs throughout the world, past
and present. I'll bet you a man wrote it; we guys can smell testosterone
in ink. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of many of the re-tellings or for
the original stories, but it may encourage you to investigate the sources.
I put the enlarged footnote references on a separate
page (in some browsers it's possible to hold down
your mouse button over the link references until a choice window appears; if so, select "open
in a separate window" in order to have your references ready, if you
are that sort of reader).
Unfortunately the booklet doesn't say where the engravings come from.
The booklet identifies the first engraving, below
and enlarged, as a carving above the entrance
to a "house of seclusion," probably a
menstrual hut, in New Guinea. Is it a woman with her legs spread, her vagina releasing
a large drop of blood? Compare Judy Chicago's "Red
Flag." See more booklets from companies.
NEXT ARTIST: Art of Menopause by
Coni Minneci
|
The inside front cover and page 3 lie beneath
the
enlargement of the cover drawing, below.
|
NEXT artist: Art of Menopause by
Coni Minneci
See more booklets from companies.
Next artist: Art of
Menopause by Coni
Minneci
See all the artists in the links in the left-hand
column.
If you create or own art concerning menstruation or menopause and
are interested in showing it on thesepages (it's free!), contact MUM
See
also Bea Nettles' art The Moonsisters
© 1999 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute
work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission
of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
|
|