May 25th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/486046904/ // CC BY 2.0
Only a latter-day Rip Van Winkle could avoid knowing that this month marks the 50th anniversary of the FDA’s approval of Enovid, the world’s first birth control pill. Hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles have marked this anniversary.
Many incorrectly credit the pill with giving birth to feminism. As Elaine Tyler May notes in the current issue of Ms., the pill didn’t start the feminist movement but was in the right place at the right time:
The timing could not have been better. The feminist movement gained momentum just as the Pill became available. With the ability to control their fertility, women could take full advantage of new opportunities for education, careers and participation in public life.
But in the midst of all this celebrating, we’ve neglected another anniversary: 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson’s congressional hearings about the pill’s safety profile, which arguably did launch the women’s health movement. Continue reading...
Tags: Activism, birth control pill, drugs, FDA, feminism, government agencies, oral contraceptive pills, women's health movement
Posted in Activism, Birth Control, Pharmaceutical, books | 2 Comments »
May 21st, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
http://www.flickr.com/photos/santarosa/ / CC BY 2.0
Laura Eldridge’s new book In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women (Seven Stories Press, 2010) isn’t kidding with that subtitle. The last time I remember reading so much detail about contraceptive options was poring over Our Bodies, Ourselves when I was in my 20s.
Eldridge reviews every method of birth control known to modern woman–and, importantly, some that aren’t widely known. She even briefly reviews the history of contraception in 19th and 20th centuries, reminding us that birth control is not a new invention. People, especially female-bodied people, have struggled to control their fertility from pretty much the first moment humans figured out how it worked.
In Our Control differs from Our Bodies, Ourselves in offering more than just the mechanics of both hormonal and barrier methods: Eldridge provides a history of each method and analysis of the political and cultural contexts of their use in the 21st century U.S.
For example, the chapter about the morning-after pill (also known by either the brand name Plan B or as emergency contraception, EC) discusses the political battle to achieve Federal Drug Administration approval, including Susan Wood’s resignation from the FDA’s Office of Women’s Health over what she believed to be “willful disregard of scientific evidence showing Plan B to be safe.” Continue reading...
Tags: Birth Control, books, hormonal birth control, Laura Eldridge
Posted in Birth Control, Reproduction, books | 1 Comment »
April 25th, 2010 by Chris Hitchcock
This week was a big one for media coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Pill. And it looks like this is also being taken as an opportunity to reflect on women’s history over the past 50 years, which will also be a good thing. Women often lose our history, and those of us who are 70 now grew up in a very different reality than those of us who are 20. I am 45, smack in the middle of that span, and it’s very interesting to me to look both forward and back. We are living through incredible changes in social history, and we need to know this to understand what is going on today and what will happen tomorrow.
The pill made the front cover of Time magazine. The author, Nancy Gibb, makes some very good points about how the existence of the pill changed young women’s ideas about the possibility of planning a career path that included being sexually active (probably in the context of marriage) but with control over the timing of pregnancy.
There’s a Time editorial here.
And there are a few interviews with Nancy Gibb, the author of the Time article, on Time’s own web page, on CNN, and NPR (Gather.com).
In the Huffington Post, Christianne Northrup discusses important social and medical context for decision-making about contraception, including the Pill.
Katrina Onstad wrote about the pill’s birthday in Chatelaine magazine.
Books and book reviews on the anniversary of the pill:
Michelle Goldberg reviews a new book about the pill in the American Prospect.
Tags: birth control pill, Media, oral contraceptive pills, social history, the pill turns 50, women's liberation
Posted in Birth Control, Media, Newspapers, Pharmaceutical, books, magazines | Comments Off
March 3rd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: anatomy, art, books, vagina, vulva
Posted in Art, anatomy, books | Comments Off
February 22nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by David Linton, Marymount Manhattan College
Dana Medoro, The Bleeding of America: Menstruation as Symbolic Economy in Pynchon, Faulkner and Morrison, Greenwood/Praeger, 2002. Pp. 198. $98. ISBN 0313320594.
One of the ways the taboos surrounding menstruation find expression is through absence. For instance, until recently menstrual references in American novels were rare. Contemporary writers, particularly women novelists such as Joyce Carol Oates (The Tattooed Girl, 2003) and Erica Jong (Parachutes and Kisses, 1984) and occasional men such as John Updike (The Widows of Eastwick, 2008) and Philip Roth (The Dying Animal, 2001), have more frequently used period reference to advance a plot or to symbolize something or other, but historically the menstrual cycle has generally been off limits. Similarly, literary criticism has tended to ignore or avoid an examination of the social, cultural and psychological significance of the cycle within the literary marketplace. There is, however, in the area of scholarship one significant exception.
In 2002 Dana Medoro published a seminal study of menstrual references and symbolic allusions titled, The Bleeding of America: Menstruation as Symbolic Economy in Pynchon, Faulkner and Morrison.
Here’s the way the publisher describes the book: Continue reading...
Tags: books, guest post, Menstruation
Posted in Language, Literature, Menstruation, books | Comments Off
February 8th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
If I correctly understand the terms of SHM’s copyright agreement with Oxford University Press, I am permitted to publish this unedited version of my review as a “pre-print” article. The final version will be available only from Social History of Medicine.
Lara Freidenfelds, The Modern Period: Menstruation in Twentieth Century America, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. 242. £31/$60. ISBN 978 0-8018 9245 5.
Lara Freidenfelds, an historian currently teaching in Women’s Studies at Wellesley College, has written a thorough and engaging history of menstruation in twentieth century USA. Her title, The Modern Period, is more than a succinct description; it cleverly references her discussion throughout of how advancing Progressive values shaped beliefs and practices surrounding menstruation. These Progressive values included faith in scientific rationality, belief in the value of education, and unqualified endorsement of technological progress. The ‘modern period’ also references the evolution of menstrual management practices into a coherent whole and the movement away from practices and beliefs considered old-fashioned, such as worries about catching a chill or the use of cloth pads. Her analysis throughout addresses the class implications of modernization; that is, the perceived need to adopt modern practices of bodily presentation and self-control for class mobility. Such modernization, asserts Friedenfelds, is a key component of Americans’ ability to see themselves as middle-class across great gaps in education and income. Continue reading...
Tags: beliefs, books, history, manners, menstrual etiquette, Menstrual Taboo, oral history, tampons, tradition
Posted in Communication, Girls, Menstruation, New Research, books | 1 Comment »
January 26th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Our Bodies, Ourselves is seeking up to two dozen women to participate in an online discussion on sexual relationships.
Stories and comments may be used anonymously in the next edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, which will be published in 2011 by Simon & Schuster.
We are seeking the experience and wisdom of heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans women. Perspectives from single women are encouraged, and you may define relationship as it applies to you, from monogamy to multiple partners. We are committed to including women of color, women with disabilities, and women of many ages and backgrounds.
In the words of the brilliant anthology “Yes Means Yes,” how can we consistently engage in more positive experiences? What issues deserve more attention? And how do we address social inequities and violence against women? These are some of the guiding questions that will help us to update the relationships section in “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”
The conversation will start Sunday, Feb. 14 (yes, Valentine’s Day) and stay open through Friday, March 12.
Participants will be invited to answer relevant questions (see sample below) and build on the responses of other participants. We’ll use a private Google site to post questions and responses. Continue reading...
Tags: books, Communication, Sex, sexuality
Posted in Activism, Communication, Sex, books | 1 Comment »
December 27th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
One of the reviewers for the forthcoming edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves, who blogs anonymously at Mom’s Tinfoil Hat, is seeking contributions for the chapter she is reviewing.
I am busy reviewing and contributing to the second chapter of Our Bodies, Ourselves that was assigned to me. It is called “Unique to Women” and is about screening tests and medical procedures. I am trying to get through the technical side of writing this: checking on new screening guidelines, new screening tools, and such scientific type things. But, I really want to take into account the needs and points of view of many women, including disabled women, women of color, women from different cultural and religious backgrounds, women who are trans, men who are trans, women who are survivors of sexual abuse and/or assault, women who work in the sex industry, women who are polyamorous, women who are gay, women with piercings and tattoos, women of size, etc.
Her deadline is New Year’s Eve, so please contact her ASAP if you can contribute.
Tags: books, Health Care, medical procedures, Our Bodies, Ourselves
Posted in Health Care, books | 1 Comment »
November 19th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
I think few people would consider menstruation per se a disability, with exceptions for menorrhagia and unusually painful periods. But I’ve been reading a bit in the field of disability studies lately, for both professional and personal interest, and starting to think about disability differently. I’m currently reading Susan Wendell’s The Rejected Body and finding it especially powerful and provocative.*
She writes of disability as social construction; that is, disability cannot be defined solely in biomedical terms but must be considered in terms of a person’s social, physical, and cultural environment. A person is disabled when they live in a society that is “physically constructed and socially organized with the unacknowledged assumption that everyone is healthy, non-disabled, young but adult, shaped according to cultural ideals, and, often, male” (p. 39).
A feminist philosopher by training, Wendell points out that feminists have long sustained criticisms that the world has been designed for the convenience of men and male bodies. Continue reading...
Tags: disability, pain
Posted in Menstruation, Philosophy, books | 4 Comments »
October 27th, 2009 by Elizabeth Kissling
From November 2009 Redbook magazine
Well, we do, of course. But the editors of Redbook magazine assume that the topic is not of even the slightest interest to their readers.
The clipping at the left is from the November, 2009, issue, which I found at my neighborhood laundromat. It’s from a larger sidebar that lists three books for the month with capsule reviews: Lit by Mary Karr is headed “With the Club”; Lauren Grodstein’s A friend of the family is headed “In the Tub”; and Elissa Stein and Susan Kim’s Flow: The cultural history of menstruation receives the heading “One to Snub”. In case the text is too small or the image isn’t visible in your browser, the review reads as follows:
You welcome it, bemoan it, or just live with it. However you feel about your period, we’re pretty sure most of you would rather spend your cash on a three- to five-day supply of Ben & Jerry’s than this 250-plus-page tome that teaches you about menstruation in the animal kingdom and the origin of tampons.
Apparently Redbook editors know their readers; one only has to travel about 15 pages further into this issue to find the featured cover story about questions you’re too embarrassed to ask your doctor. You know, questions about periods and other things down there.
Tags: books, Humor, irony, magazines
Posted in Menstruation, books | 13 Comments »
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
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