Periods Gone Public

Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf

• Publisher: Arcade
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781628727982
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The first book to explore menstruation in the current cultural and political landscape and to investigate the new wave of period activism taking the world by storm. After centuries of being shrouded in taboo and superstition, periods have gone mainstream. Seemingly overnight, a new, high-profile movement has emerged—one dedicated to bold activism, creative product innovation, and smart policy advocacy—to address the centrality of menstruation in relation to core issues of gender equality and equity. In Periods Gone Public, Jennifer Weiss-Wolf—the woman Bustle dubbed one of the nation's "badass menstrual activists"— explores why periods have become a prominent political cause. From eliminating the tampon tax, to enacting new laws ensuring access to affordable, safe products, menstruation is no longer something to whisper about. Weiss-Wolf shares her firsthand account in the fight for "period equity" and introduces readers to the leaders, pioneers, and everyday people who are making change happen. From societal attitudes of periods throughout history—in the United States and around the world—to grassroots activism and product innovation, Weiss-Wolf challenges readers to face stigma head-on and elevate an agenda that recognizes both the power—and the absolute normalcy—of menstruation.

JOURNEY TO "THE YEAR OF THE PERIOD"

chapter one

SURFING THE CRIMSON WAVE

We’ll never have gender equality if we don’t talk about periods, but 2016 signaled the beginning of something better than talk: It’s becoming the [era] of menstrual change.

—Newsweek, April 20161

MENSTRUATION IS CERTAINLY HAVING ITS moment. Periods have been around since the beginning of time—and stigmatized, sidelined or, at best, ignored for just about as long. So why have they suddenly become a topic fit for public consumption, a modern cause célèbre?

When I first dove into the issue on January 1, 2015, public discourse was sparse and cautious to the point of apologetic. According to its records, The New York Times used the word menstruation just four times a year during the entire twentieth century (415 times in total).2 Fast-forward to 2015, menstruation topped 167 mentions in the five top national news outlets that year, more than triple the four prior years combined.3 And the coverage was serious and substantive, far beyond glossy magazine ads or fodder for sex and health columns. Cosmopolitan magazine trumpeted it “The Year the Period Went Public,” and then by the close of 2016 proclaimed a new era of “Period Power.”4 Emblazoned across Newsweek’s April 29, 2016, cover was an oversized torpedo-like tampon on a blood-red background with the headline, “There Will Be Blood. (Get Over It.) Period Stigma is Hurting the Economy, Schools and the Environment.”5

Much of the attention was spurred by activists spanning the globe who had staged protests to demand that government address the economic burden of menstruation by eliminating the “tampon tax” and by helping draw attention to the plight of the impoverished and homeless in accessing menstrual products and hygiene facilities. Petitions calling for policy and action collectively garnered many hundreds of thousands of signatures. Social media ignited an outcry, too—including viral stories and trending hashtags directed at then candidates, now president of the United States, Donald Trump (#PeriodsAreNotAnInsult) and Vice President Mike Pence (#PeriodsForPence) for deriding or otherwise implicating menstruation on the campaign trail. Athletes and artists captured headlines when they talked about periods while running marathons, competing in the Olympics, or walking the red carpet at the Emmys. And a new generation of inventors and entrepreneurs aimed to disrupt the traditional menstrual hygiene market, offering not just more imaginative, healthier options than old-school tampons and pads, but making a modern case for how we talk about periods and consider the ways we manage menstruation.

The question of how we arrived at this loud, proud era requires that we know at least a little bit about from whence we came. Of course, there are myriad mythologies that have surrounded menstruation throughout time—from scripture to superstition, legend to lore, and, in between, countless customs, rituals, and beliefs. These could easily fill volumes, an encyclopedic series. In order to get us to the modern-day story, what follows is something more akin to a “greatest hits” album, a history of the world vis-à-vis periods with a special look at menstrual moments, debate, and developments in the United States and around the globe over the past century.

Keeping the Faith

Nearly all of the world’s religions and core spiritual teachings have had something to say about menstruation. The overarching theme is perhaps best summarized by this ominous, apocalyptic quote from the King James Bible, Esdras 5:8: “Menstruous women shall bring forth monsters … ” I’ve searched high and low for literal and contextual interpretations of this scripture gem (and even the curious word menstruous) to see if it might mean something other than the obvious. In any event, in the context of periods, it is hardly an outlier.

Menstruation is commonly assumed to be part of the reproductive package of pain foisted upon Eve in the familiar story of Genesis 3:16. As punishment for succumbing to temptation and eating the forbidden fruit, Eve and her descendants are explicitly burdened with the suffering of childbearing. Scripture would imply that menstruation, too, is a result of original sin, a sign of humanity’s grand fall from grace. But beyond the vast array of interpretations of the biblical “Curse of Eve,” there is no shortage of explicit examples of distrust, even disgust, for women’s monthly blood. Here are some of the ways periods are still regarded today for many of the world’s believers far and wide.

According to the Jewish code of law, Halakha, physical contact (including and especially sexual) is prohibited during the days of menstruation and for a full seven days after, also known as the phase of Niddah. The biblical source for this rule, Leviticus 15, focuses on the unclean state of menstruation and bodily secretions. For married women, a state of purity and cleanliness is only restored after immersion in a ritual bath called a Mikvah—still a common practice in many modern Jewish communities.

It is believed in Buddhism that menstruation causes women to lose or leak some of their Qi—life force or spiritual energy.

Islamic women are not supposed to touch the Quran, enter a mosque, or offer the ritual prayer during menstruation. A verse in the Quran specifically forbids sexual contact as well. During the holy month of Ramadan, menstruating women are not permitted to participate in the required fast between sunrise and sunset during the days they have their period.

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, partaking of sacraments during menstruation, especially communion, or touching holy items like the Bible or religious icons is strictly off-limits.

During her cycle, a Hindu woman is forbidden from entering not only temples but also her own kitchen; she must not bathe, take naps, wear flowers, cut her nails, have sex, or touch others. Many are ostracized and banished to remote menstrual huts.

Shintoism keeps menstruating women out of shrines and temples, even off sacred mountains.

And then, just when all hope in any period-loving spirituality is lost, there’s Sikhism—which professes positivity around the menstrual cycle and reassures that a woman’s blood is a natural and fundamental component of life. Gurus strongly counter and condemn those who deem menstruation unclean and instead assert that impurity comes from the dark recesses of one’s heart and mind alone. Accordingly, there are no restrictions placed on menstruating women, who are free to carry out fundamental religious principles—meditation and prayer, visiting houses of worship, and partaking in voluntary, selfless service—as well as go about their daily lives.

Of course, when it comes to religious practice and perspective there is always room for analysis, interpretation, even excuses. Alternative explanations of the passages from Leviticus 15, for example, offer a nod to encouraging the procreative process; for a woman with a twenty-eight-day cycle, the rules make it much more likely that any sex being had is at a time when ovulation, and therefore conception, is most likely. And among the more benign interpretations of the Ramadan fast exclusion, which applies similarly to those who are pregnant and breast-feeding, as well as the sick and elderly, is the acknowledgment that menstruation is a taxing physical state that creates greater need for daily nourishment. Perhaps, but these explanations doth protest a bit too much. Claims of weakness and impurity … these are precisely how menstruation has often been leveraged as a means to exclude women from full civic or social participation. It transcends and extends far beyond religious customs and bleeds its way into public life. (I know, I know. Blood humor is an oxymoron.)

Among the Ancients

It is hard to start with anything but the bombastic, oft-quoted proclamation by Pliny The Elder—Roman author, naturalist, and military commander who perished in AD 79 under the lava that flowed from Mount Vesuvius and blanketed Pompeii. Said Pliny: “Contact with the monthly flux of women turns new wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seed in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees fall off, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives of bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison.”

Does this make menstruation magical … or maleficent? Is this a statement of fear of women’s extraordinary power? Or disgust with women’s bodies and blood?

From the ancient Greeks, the answer appears to be a little of both. Aristotle perceived menstruation as a sign of female inferiority and a deformity; in his treatise, On the Generation of Animals, menstrual blood is portrayed as a lesser sort of semen. But he also attributes mystical prowess to menstruating women and wrote in his grand analyses, On Dreams, that “if a woman chances during the menstrual period to look into a highly polished mirror, the surface of it will grow cloudy with a blood-coloured haze.”6

This tension is similarly demonstrated within the etymological roots of the word menstruation itself—directly linked to the ancient Latin mensis (month), which in turn relates to the Greek mene (moon), from which the English words for both are derived. Hence, the monthly, lunar cycle. But around the world, there are many more complex and intriguing connectors. For example, the word ritual comes from the Sanskrit r’tu, which translates to menstrual (also rooted in the words arithmetic and rhythm); and the word taboo is from the Polynesian tapua, meaning sacred and, quite literally, menstruation. The American poet, Judy Grahn, author of the 1994 book, Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World, offers a fascinating exploration of some of the most potent derivations and definitions. In particular, she notes the conflicting roots of taboo and sacred, zeroing in on the alternating fear and awe of menstruation. Writes Grahn, “Besides sacred, taboo also means forbidden, valuable, wonderful, magic, terrible, frightening, and immutable law.” She points out that in European culture it is regulation, and not taboo, that is linked to menstruation: in German, the word regel, and the French regle, and the Spanish las reglas each mean rule and regal … and, again, literally, menstruation.7 How telling that words reflecting a combination of order, regularity, and a dose of something sacred, special, even royal, can convey so much about the ever-present struggle to reconcile the very power of women’s bodies with the establishment’s desire for power over women’s bodies.

Where in the World?

Around the globe, and since the beginning of recorded time, societies have found ways to segregate, subjugate—and every so often, even celebrate—the menstrual experience. A quick rundown of some of the more notable customs spanning ancient to modern history that I’ve seen referenced: Native American women of the Tlingit tribe were reported to be prohibited from lying down or chewing their own food during menstruation; they would instead sleep propped up with logs and be supplied with masticated food. The South American Ticunas subjected menstruating girls to flagellation. In Siberia, Samoyed women were segregated and had to “fumigate with reindeer hair” before they could be considered clean. Ancient Persians confined menstruating women to an isolated portion of the house, where no fire was to be kindled, all wood was removed, and the floor was strewn with dust; post-period, they were said to be treated to a washing with bull’s urine.8

Reindeer hair and bull’s urine are hard to come by these days. But there are plenty of assumptions that still abound. Among them, the touch of a menstruating woman will cause milk to curdle, vegetation to spoil, and bread not to rise. In Japan you may have a hard time finding female sushi chefs—not because of fears they’ll rot the fish but due to the prevalent myth that menstruation causes an imbalance in taste, thus rendering women incapable of seasoning the unagi.9 (As if that’s not enough, the sushi establishment also claims that women’s hands are too small and warm to prepare rice properly.)

Meanwhile, a handful of examples demonstrate menstrual reverence and empowerment, especially when it comes to marking a first period. Ceremonies involving an abundance of food, family, friends, and gifts are customary in parts of South India, Bali, and Bangladesh. Among the Zulus of South Africa, a goat is slaughtered and the girl is secluded with her friends, emerging the next day to be bathed, smeared with red clay, and taught lessons for adulthood by a circle of women. In some parts of Ghana, West Africa, girls may be seated under beautiful, ceremonial umbrellas when they begin menstruating.10 And try Googling the phrase First Moon Party and you’ll discover a surprising array of Pinterest-worthy ideas and parenting blogs that address the ways some modern American families acknowledge and celebrate first periods, including specialty party games like “Pin the Ovaries on the Uterus” and PMS goody bags.

According to Gloria Steinem, there are examples, too, of entire matrilineal cultures—sometimes called “matriarchal,” though that implies domination, rather than balanced societies—where reverence for women’s bodies was a core tenet. Before Europeans arrived in North America, women often controlled reproduction, and when they menstruated were deemed to be especially powerful: a phoenix who bled yet did not die. Here and in early Africa, for example, men sometimes put menstrual blood on their bodies to denote bravery in battle. Menstrual huts were common, a place where women were separated from the community for various reasons ranging from fear to respect. (Steinem shares a joke told among some Native American women: “What did Columbus call primitive? Equal women!”) Suggests Steinem: since patriarchy and control of reproduction may be only about six hundred years old on this continent—and probably no more than five thousand years elsewhere, a fraction of the time humans have been around—it may be more appropriate to say that periods have been stigmatized for as long as patriarchy has been around.11

An American Story

The modern evolution of menstruation in the United States did...