Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Five Things You Should Know About the Three Vs

April 9th, 2013 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest post by Kati Bicknell, Kindara

Now I know in the title of this post I say “Five things you probably don’t know about your vagina,” but really it’s about more than your vagina. The V Book, by Elizabeth Gunther Stewart and Paula Spencer, is basically the owner’s manual for all people who have any of the following V’s — vagina, vulva, and vestibule. Don’t know what a vestibule is? Read on, my good friend!

I am a bonafide vagina nerd myself, and when I read this book I learned a BUNCH of things that I did not know. Here are my top five:

  1. So we all know (now) about cervical fluid, but did you know that it’s not the only substance produced by your lady bits to keep things running smoothly? Your vulva actually produces a thin waxy substance, called sebum that lubricates the folds of your labia! It’s a blend of oils, fats, waxes, and cholesterol. If it didn’t, your labia and everything else would be all friction-y and chafe when you walked, had sex, moved, did anything really. That blew my mind. Thanks, body!
  2. Have you ever wondered how the vagina is simultaneously quite small, (i.e., sometimes even putting in a tampon might be uncomfortable and “stretchy”) and also somehow stretches to accommodate a baby passing through it? I definitely have. Well, it’s all thanks to your rugae! Rugae are small pleats that allow the vagina to be both very small and compact, and then to expand to many times its original size when necessary. Rugae is kind of like ruching! You know, the process of using tons of fabric and then scrunching it so it becomes a smaller form. I’m wearing a ruched jacket at this very moment, actually. It makes you think, if you wore this dress to the prom, are you subliminally broadcasting “HEY! THIS IS WHAT THE INSIDE OF MY VAGINA LOOKS LIKE”?
  3. Vestibule! (I told you we’d get here.) Okay! So the vestibule is important enough to be included in the three V’s of the V book, and yet I was like, “where the heck is my vestibule?” Well, it’s the place in between your inner labia. Here it is on Wikipedia, with an image that is ***not safe for work,*** unless you work in the field of sexual health, in which case, click away!
  4. Labia (as in the labia majora and labia minora). This word is actually plural. If you are referring to only one lip it’s called a labium.

  5. Only in rare instances is a human female born with the hymen completely covering the vaginal opening. Most hymens are a little circle of very thin skin that partially covers the vaginal opening, but still leaves space for menstrual blood and cervical fluid to come out. Here is a hilarious and educational video explaining more about this. [Editor's note: Many sex educators today call it the vaginal corona, not the hymen.]

And there is a LOT more info in that book. Tons. Go pick it up today and learn more than you ever thought possible about vaginas, vulvas, and vestibules!

Cross-posted at Kindara.com March 29, 2013.

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Posted in anatomy, books, Language | No Comments »

Portnoy’s (Menstrual) Complaint

January 1st, 2013 by David Linton

One way of telling how comfortable a man is with the biological facts of women’s lives is how he responds to calls for him to go shopping for menstrual products or to have physical contact with a woman’s menses.

Depictions of this challenge have occasionally been a subject of humor on TV shows such as in the episode of King of the Hill titled “Aisle # 8″ in which the bumbling Hank Hill has to enter the fearful menstrual aisle of a supermarket or, for contrast, in an episode of Californication when the father of a daughter who has just had her first period heroically fends off other customers to get her the last package of pads on the shelf.

An early literary description of a menstrual product shopping moment, one that was deeply traumatic for the character, is in Philip Roth’s 1967 novel, Portnoy’s Complaint. Set in a psychoanalyst’s office during a single rambling session, Alex Portnoy relates a terrifying incident from his childhood when, at the age of eleven, his mother sent him out to buy a box of Kotex:

“It was years later that she called from the bathroom, Run to the drugstore! bring a box of Kotex! immediately! And the panic in her voice. Did I run! And then at home again, breathlessly handed the box to the white fingers that extended themselves at me through a narrow crack in the bathroom door. . . Though her menstrual troubles eventually had to be resolved by surgery, it is difficult nevertheless to forgive her for having sent me on that mission of mercy. Better she should have bled herself out on our cold bathroom floor, better that than to have sent an eleven-year-old boy in hot pursuit of sanitary napkins!” (43-44)

Whew! Now there’s a Freudian field day, and from a time when Freudian technique was in full fashion. More than 30 years later, in The Dying Animal (2001 ), another Roth character seems to have made some progress, at least on the surface. Perhaps his analysis has succeeded. A senior professor, the 62-year-old David Kepesh, plays out an erotic fantasy with a 24-year-old graduate student, Consuela Castillo. Kepesh, a serial womanizer who considers himself an erotic master, is stunned when she tells him that a former boyfriend liked to watch her take out her tampon, realizing that he has never done anything like that. His sexual competitiveness requires that he immediately enact the same scene. However, the act throws him into a state of Portnoy-like humiliation:

“Then came the night that Consuela pulled out her tampon and stood there in my bathroom, with one knee dipping toward the other and, like Mantegna’ Saint Sebastian, bleeding in a trickle down her thighs while I watched. Was it thrilling? Was I delighted? Was I mesmerized? Sure, but again I felt like a boy. I had set out to demand the most from her, and when she shamelessly obliged, I wound up again intimidating myself. There seemed nothing to be done – if I wished not to be humbled completely by her exotic matter-of-factness – except to fall to my knees to lick her clean. Which she allowed to happen without comment. Making me into a still smaller boy.” (71-72)

Though there are more scenes in this book and others by Roth that employ menstrual details to capture character and advance plots, these two embody deep-seated male confusion and anxiety about how to deal with menstrual encounters. The candor Roth exhibits, as is often the case with his writing, is admirable for its openness to exploring taboos, but one also wishes he was able to provide more nuanced treatments of women’s experiences as well. Perhaps we should turn to Joyce Carol Oates in search of such treatments. Perhaps in a future post.

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HALLMARK – When you care enough to send the very . . . ??

August 6th, 2012 by David Linton

Hallmark greeting cards and related trinkets have long exemplified wholesome, up-tempo, Norman Rockwell-styled sentimentality, often packaged in clichéd verses and trite images of puppies, kittens, flowers, babies, sunsets and other references guaranteed to elicit a smile, a tear, or a warm glow. However, as rude humor has spread its influence, expressed most vividly and viciously in celebrity roasts and the Comedy Central show, Tosh .0, Hallmark was not to be left behind. A visit to the racks of cards, books, and novelties at your local card shop reveals a wide variety of snarky items offering cheap shots at a wide variety of groups, hobbies, and practices.

Not Guilty by Reason of Menopause

Among them are several items that attempt to poke fun at what are thought to be characteristics of women in some stage of the menstrual cycle, notably PMS or menopause. Setting aside the fact that the items perpetuate the common misuse of the term  menopause when what is meant is perimenopause, consider a small book presently on sale titled, Not Guilty by Reason of Menopause.

It is comprised of more than 50 pages, organized in double-page spreads, each of which offers a completion to the phrase, “You might be menopausal if. . .”

A few examples will suffice:

“. . . you think about the ‘til death do us part line in your wedding vows a little too often.”

“. . . you tell all your children they’re not your favorite.”

“. . . when your husband proposes a romantic vacation, you suggest ice fishing.”

Collectively, it amounts to an anthology of mean-spirited nastiness with little redeeming humor. Women are depicted as crazy, stupid, vicious, obese, and every other negative stereotype imaginable.

And with each insult women are expected to smile sweetly at being the butt of a bad joke. Of course, to express outrage or even mild annoyance with these sorts of put-downs is to risk of being accused of lacking a sense of humor or, worse yet, of being “politically correct,” the favored dismissive term of those who demand that their repugnant values are somehow benign or lacking in impact or intent.

We’ve come a long way from the days of 1910 when Hallmark was founded and especially from 1944 when the company adopted the slogan that is still theirs today, “When you care enough to send the very best.” In this case one might ask, “The very best of what?”

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Posted in books, Humor, Media, Menopause | 3 Comments »

Menstrual Considerations in Fifty Shades of Grey

July 25th, 2012 by Laura Wershler

SPOILER ALERT: Plot details in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy are revealed in this post.

Second book in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

Fine literary fiction it is not, but the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by E.L. James can certainly claim to be libido-boosting storytelling. Deirdre Donahue at USA Today summarized the books’ appeal in 10 reasons ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ has shackled readers. She pretty much nailed it. And she’s read the books, which is more than can be said for other writers, including this one who implied that heroine Anastasia (Ana) Steele signs a contract to become hero Christian Grey’s submissive in a BDSM relationship. She doesn’t.

Until he meets Ana, Christian’s sexual history has included only BDSM relationships, those involving bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism.  BDSM plays a role in their love story, but the most sadistic thing that Ana submits to is a shot of Depo-Provera. re:Cycling readers know what I think of this contraceptive: I. Am. Not. A. Fan.

As a menstrual cycle advocate, I pay attention to menstrual mentions wherever they appear. It was impossible for me NOT to hone in on how James handles menstruation and birth control.

Christian quickly ascertains that Ana, a virgin when he meets her, is not using birth control. (His unflinching communication about sexuality is one of the books’ most appealing aspects.) As their sexual affair begins, he uses condoms. Within a week or so he asks when her period is due and says, “You need to sort out some contraception”. But our hero is a rich control freak, so he arranges for “the best ob-gyn in Seattle” to come to his home on a Sunday afternoon. Ana, the narrator:

“After a thorough examination and lengthy discussion, Dr. Greene and I decide on the mini pill. She writes me a prepaid prescription and instructs me to pick the pills up tomorrow. I love her no-nonsense attitude — she has lectured me until she’s as blue as her dress about taking it at the same time every day.”

Alas, Anastasia, just 21, is the perfect example for why researchers with the Contraceptive CHOICE Project are recommending that women under 21 use long-acting reversible contraceptive methods. She forgets to keep taking her pills when she and Christian briefly break up. It’s back to condoms for this couple, until Dr. Greene reappears, confirms Ana is not pregnant, and, after Depo-Provera’s side effects are dismissed as irrelevant because “the side effects of a child are far-reaching and go on for years”,  gives her the shot. I almost had to stop reading.

I get it that James uses Depo-Provera as a plot device, as becomes apparent. But the author’s decision to give Ana Depo-Provera is not in keeping with either Dr. Greene’s or Christian’s characters. I don’t believe for one minute that the best ob-gyn in Seattle would give Depo-Provera to any patient; she’d recommend a Mirena IUD. As for control-freak Christian, he is adamantly committed to Anastasia’s safety, evidenced in many ways. He would never consent to her taking a drug with these potential side effects: weight gain, digestive problems, depression, loss of bone density, vaginal dryness, and — especially — loss of sexual sensitivity and desire. Never! And he’s too smart not to know this.

Christian’s occasionally expressed distaste for condoms also seems to be a plot device considering he uses them so skillfully, and without obvious diminishment to either his or Ana’s pleasure, through 986 pages of the 1594-page trilogy. The tearing of foil condom packets is a leitmotif that in no way hinders this man’s exceptional “sexing skills”.

But James gets full marks for this: Christian Grey is not afraid of blood. While making love in a spacious hotel bathroom, he gently removes Ana’s tampon and tosses it in the toilet. Later, sitting on the bathroom floor, Ana remembers she has her period:

“I’m bleeding,” I murmur.

“Doesn’t bother me,” he breathes.

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Posted in Birth Control, books, Literature, Menstruation, Sex, Virginity | 6 Comments »

SHE’S BACK! – AND SHE’S SINGING!!! CARRIE, THE MUSICAL

March 27th, 2012 by David Linton

At a social gathering, if you were to causally ask, “Can you think of a film or novel that includes any mention of menstruation,” it’s likely that the first (and often only) reply would be “Carrie.”  In both movie versions (Brian DePalma’s 1976  classic and the made-for-TV treatment in 2002 by David Carson) as well as Stephen King’s 1974 novel upon which all subsequent versions are based, the opening scene features the menstrually ignorant Carrie getting her first period in the shower of her high school locker room.  The response by the other girls is a quintessential “mean girls” moment: they pelt her with tampons and pads as they chant in evil glee, “Plug it up!  Plug it up!”

Now, as they like to say in horror movie tradition, “She’s back!”  This time the story is given a Broadway musical treatment.  The new production, which just concluded a well attended run at the off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theater on Christopher Street, was a remounted version of an earlier staging attempt in 1988 that was a colossal failure.  It had only five performances and became a cautionary tale of everything to avoid with producing a Broadway show.

The new and improved “Carrie” employs most of the songs and book of the earlier version but cuts back on the gore and Gothic elements, shifting the emphasis to relationships and character.  In doing so menstruation takes on greater significance than in any of the earlier iterations, including Stephen King’s original novel.  The play evokes Eve’s Curse in all its primordial essence.



Actually, there are two themes and plot lines at work in the play, and one is far more affecting that the other.  One involves Carrie’s plight amidst her adolescent peers who are crudely stereotyped as either slut, air head, dumb jock, nice jock, naïf or the solitary good girl with a conscience.  Scenes involving Carrie and this crew are predictable and unmemorable.  However, the scenes where Carrie’s relationship with her mother is developed are riveting.  And it is in these scenes where the deep significance of menstruation in a girl’s life, in her relationship with her mother, and in her sense of her place in the world are explored.  The staging, costuming, lighting, and especially the operatic delivery of the aria “When There’s No One,” by Carrie’s mother (Marin Mazzie) lay bare the social and psychological meaning of Carrie’s menarche

In part, the elevation of the mother-daughter relationship may be due to the powerful performances of Marin Mazzie and Molly Ransom who plays Carrie.  Both have riveting presence, and their duets churn with love, conflict, and torment.  Carrie’s confrontation with her mother over her failure to provide her daughter with any preparation for the onset of her period, her plaintive cry, “Why didn’t you tell me?” and her mother’s fanatical response are movingly captured in their duet, “And Eve Was Weak.”

A common criticism of King’s novel is that it associates menstruation with fury, danger and destruction, a macabre extension of discredited Freudian notions of menstrual hysteria.  While not completely eschewing these bleak associations, the musical at least softens and complicates them by focusing on Carrie’s desperate striving to become a fully realized young woman which, tragically, requires her to reject and, ultimately, to kill her oppressive, dominating mother.

Some might find he final confrontation between mother and daughter over the top for its pumped up Grand Guignol evocation of blood and horror, but I found it deeply moving.  Continue reading...

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Posted in books, Media, Menarche, Menstruation, Theater | No Comments »

Tina Fey’s Menstrual Musings

January 31st, 2012 by David Linton

Tina Fey, true to her reputation for being feisty and transgressive, tells two amusing menstrual tales in her recent bestselling book, Bossypants.

 

The first is, appropriately for a “tell all” memoire, about her menarche.  The story, familiar to thousands of other women, relates how her mother gave her a “first period” kit from the Modess company that contained two pamphlets, “Growing Up and Liking it” and “How Shall I Tell My Daughter,” and pretty much left her on her own.  Fey’s humor derives largely from exaggeration and in this case she compares the Modess box stashed in her closet to a Freddy Krueger nightmare figure lurking in the dark: “Modessssss is coming for you.”

 

She goes on to describe the moment of the period’s arrival when she was ten years old and performing in a choral concert.  She claims that her surprise was not so much that she got her period but that the fluid wasn’t blue as she’d been lead to expect from TV ads.

 

The second, and more interesting, story is about how as a writer for the long-running TV series, Saturday Night Live, she managed to get the Kotex Classic sketch on the air.  Fey refers to it as “my proudest moment as one of the head writers of SNL.”  (The anecdote was also published in the March 14, 2011 New Yorker.)  The ad parody has become an SNL classic in itself and an indispensible inclusion in any discussion of the history of menstrual references on television.

 

The Kotex sketch is a send-up of the trend at the time for nostalgia sales pitches such as the Coke Classis campaign.  Written by Paula Pell, it features women proudly flaunting their Kotex belts and bulging sanitary napkins, even in a swimming pool and while wearing low cut, tight evening wear.  A man in the ad comments approvingly, “Them  girls are Old School!”

 

Fey describes how the men at the studio who had to approve the scripts balked at selecting it.  Their resistance was eventually overcome once the women explained the exact nature of the unfamiliar menstrual technology and how it was worn.  As Fey puts it, “They didn’t know what a maxi pad belt was.  It was the moment I realized that there was no ‘institutional sexism’ at that place.  Sometimes they just literally didn’t know what we were talking about.”

 

Beyond the fascinating behind-the –scenes access that Tina Fey’s book provides to the working of an influential TV show – and lots of other settings as well – she has also offered a glimpse of the menstrual social gap, the chasm of ignorance that separates women and men when it comes to understanding even the most rudimentary details of menstrual management.  In this case she was able to educate the men and succeed in producing a memorable – and perhaps even liberating! – piece of TV comedy.

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Posted in books, Celebrities, Humor, Menstruation, Television | 2 Comments »

Menstrual Moments in Modelland

January 25th, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Jaime Hough

 

Tyra Banks wrote a young adult fantsy novel. And it’s a NYT bestseller. The book, titled Modelland, is about the journey of one awkward-looking girl who is whisked away to a magical boarding school which trains girls to become supermodels with superpowers, known as Intoxibellas. It’s kind of like Harry Potter, if Harry Potter revolved around modeling and was a battle between conventional and unconventional beauty rather than good and evil.

But I’m probably making it sound bad and it’s not, really. Modelland is the story of Tookie de la Crème,1 a girl unnoticed by her classmates and mostly ignored by her family, whose life is turned upside down when she is recruited for Modelland. The reader follows Tookie to and through her first year at Modelland as she, along dozens of other girls, trains for the chance to become one of seven Intoxibellas, supermodels with superpowers, in her graduating class. At Modelland Tookie makes her first real friends while becoming embroiled in a mystery involving the school’s headmistress, known as the BellaDonna, and the world’s mysteriously missing foremost supermodel, Ci~L.2

I read Modelland because I was curious and because I have long been fascinated by the public persona of Tyra Banks. What can I say? We all have our guilty pleasures. Most of Modelland is, for the most part, what you would expect, especially if you’re familiar with Tyra’s moneymaker, America’s Next Top Model. However, I was completely surprised by the fact that Banks chose to use menstruation as a key plot device to develop Tookie’s character. Below are excerpts from the book dealing with menstruation and my brief analysis of how these menstrual moments [MMs] function in the novel and could potentially function for the intended reader.

 

MM1: Not Yet A Woman

Menstrual Moment One comes near the beginning of the book when Tookie has just come home from her day at school and the readers are being introduced to her dysfunctional family. In particular, we’ve just met Tookie’s younger, dumb blonde little sister, Myrracle.

“Don’t laugh at me!” Myrracle said, frustrated. “I’m on my periodical right now! It makes me forgetful!”

“It’s period, not periodical!” Tookie growled.

Myrracle smirked. “How do you know? You haven’t even gotten yours yet!”

Tookie turned away, her face flooded with heat. Myrracle never resisted the urge to reminder her that she had gotten her period already, even though she was two years younger.3

 

MM2: Menarche

In Menstrual Moment Two Tookie has just spent her first night at Modelland and is about to start her first day of classes. We follow her as she prepares for class.

 

Disoriented, Tookie stumbled into the large, sterile-looking community bathroom. As she did, a dull pain shot through her legs, hips, and stomach. She doubled over, feeling as though she was about to vomit. Perfect, she though. I’m sick on the first day of school. . .All at once , every single girl in the bathroom doubled over in pain, gripping her stomach and back just as Tookie had. . .Tookie shut her eyes, wincing again with another pain. “Piper, my back and tummy are killing me!” she whispered.

Piper shrugged. “Join the club, Tookie. Every new Bella started menstruating at the exact same time this morning.”

“Wait. What?”

“You’ve never heard of menstrual synchrony, or the dormitory effect?” Piper asked. “Menstrual synchrony is a theory that suggest that the menstruation cycles of women who cohabitate-think army barracks, female penitentiaries, convents, and university dormitories—synchronize over time. It usually takes months for the alignment to occur but her at Modelland, it seems to have happened in twenty-four hours.”  Continue reading...

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Posted in books, Celebrities, Literature, Menstruation | 9 Comments »

I’ll read for the cure, but I won’t drink the pink Kool-Aid

October 19th, 2011 by Laura Wershler

OPINION

Every October it’s the same thing:  Buy pink, think pink, drink the pink Kool-Aid.  All in pursuit of (mostly) the cure for breast cancer.

Forget the cure. I’m much more interested in preventing the disease. As such, I’ve refused for years to walk or run for the cure to breast cancer. Not only am I concerned that too little of the money raised by such events is being spent on prevention research, I also don’t like what can only be called the commodification of breast cancer.  For more on this check out thinkbeforeyoupink, a program of Breast Cancer Action.

In addition to these concerns, I find some of the breast-cancer fundraising and awareness-building activities being promoted this year to be nothing short of cringe-worthy.

I certainly won’t be attending boobyball 10 next month.  This auspicious event is put on by Rethink Breast Cancer, a Canadian non-profit geared to building awareness in the under-40 crowd. Too bad Rethink’s booby fetish seems more appropriate for the under-12 set.

And I won’t be wearing an “I love boobies” bracelet anytime soon.  Nor will students at a middle school in Kelowna, British Columbia, where the bracelets were recently banned because the message was deemed “offensive.” I’d ban the $3.99 over-priced plastic wristbands just for being silly.

The bracelets, along with other silly “I love boobies”  promotional products, are sold by keep-a-breast.org, the mission of which “is to help eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support.”

Although I’m sure both of these organizations mean well, I want to scream, “Enough already!”  I know I don’t fit either org’s demographic, but still, enough already.

What I will attend, this evening, and with some hesitation, is the inaugural Read for the Cure event in Calgary.  For $90 I’ll enjoy wine and nibbles, hear three Canadian female authors read from their work, and take home three books by these featured writers.

Marina Endicott is one of three featured authors at Read for the Cure in Calgary, Alberta on October 19.

Read for the Cure is a Canadian endeavor launched in Toronto in 2006 by two women from the same book club who had recently completed treatment for cancer.

“Acknowledging the important role of reading in their lives, and the wonderful support they had received from their fellow members during their treatment, they saw an opportunity to harness the energy of enthusiastic book clubs and readers to raise funds for cancer research.”

I love books, I love my own book club, and I’m going to the event with a dear friend whose mother died of breast cancer.

While breaking my self-imposed boycott of cancer-related fundraising events, I plan to ask a few questions of my fellow attendees:

What’s your take on the mammography screening controversy?

Are you aware of the connection between healthy ovulatory menstruation and breast health?

What do you know about vitamin D and cancer prevention?

I’m also hoping to engage representatives from the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the Cancer Research Society — the two recipients of the event’s proceeds — in discussions about the current research projects they’re funding.  Do they know about the Breast Cancer Prevention Study being conducted by Grassroots Health to explore the association between vitamin D levels and breast cancer?

Tonight, my drink of choice will be red wine. Here’s to a fun evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Continue reading...

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Posted in Activism, books, Communication, Health Care, New Research, Ovulation | 2 Comments »

Landing the Menstrual Part

August 15th, 2011 by David Linton

The ways in which a “menstrual stain” can signify embarrassment, shame, or even some sort of moral or career failure are surely infinite.  If not a literal stain even being associated with menstruation in the most benign way can be seen as perilous.  Sharra L. Vostral, a Keynote Speaker at the June 2011 SMCR conference, reviews this dynamic in her book, Under Wraps: A History of Menstrual Hygiene Technology.

And until the tennis star Serena Williams broke the taboo in 2009, no established celebrity, actress or athlete was willing to appear in a menstrual product advertisement. [Editor's Note: Brenda Vaccaro, with her "Make Mine a Double!" ads for Playtex tampons in the 1980s, was an earlier exception.] The notion that being publicly associated with menstruation (in fact, being a menstruator!) is a sign of failure or at least marginalization crops up in peculiar places.

For example, the novelist and journalist Carl Hiaasen is known for his snarky style as he lambastes Florida’s often bizarre and convoluted social political and ecological goings on.  His most recent novel, Star Island, features a young actress named Ann DeLusia who has been hired to double for a teen pop star who is frequently so drunk or drugged that her career would be ruined if her dysfunctional behavior were captured by the ever-present paparazzi.

One of the ways Hiaasen lets the reader know that the actress is in the lower tier of Hollywood hopefuls and desperate for a role is by revealing that previously she has been limited to appearances in obscure films, failed series and menstrual product commercials.  On three occasions he makes the same point:

  • If the stand-in job didn’t work out, “Unfortunately, . . . Ann would again be waiting on line with her friends, auditioning for soap operas and sanitary-pad commercials.” (p. 25)
  • At the start of her career “. . . she landed nonspeaking parts in TV commercials for an assortment of feminine hygiene products, including a recyclable contraceptive ring.” (p. 111)
  • Her mother quit speaking to her after “. . . one of my mother’s so-called friends called her up after she saw me on a Maxipad commercial. . .” (p. 160)

It’s too bad that Hiaasen couldn’t come up with a more creative and original way of illustrating the character’s career limitations than by signing on to the trite, and fading, prejudices about appearing in menstrual product ads.  He’s not as progressive as he might like to seem.

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Posted in books, Celebrities, Literature, Menstruation | 1 Comment »

How the Pill Gave Birth to the Women’s Health Movement

May 25th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmurch/486046904/ // CC BY 2.0

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.

That launch received a giant shove from Barbara Seaman, a magazine writer who published a book called The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill in 1969, and Alice Wolfson, a then-student and feminist activist. Seaman’s book documented medical risks of the pill–such as blood clots, decreased sex drive, mood disorders and certain cancers, and she alleged that the pharmaceutical industry had suppressed such information. Sen. Nelson was investigating other allegations against the pharmaceutical industry and read Seaman’s book, which motivated him to take on the pill as well.

At the time of the hearings, Wolfson was part of an activist collective known as D.C. Women’s Liberation. In discussing whether or not to attend the hearings, Wolfson and several other members discovered they all had experienced negative side effects of the pill, which their physicians had not warned them about. That revelation led to something bigger. As Wolfson later wrote in her memoir, “We went to the Hill to get information. We left having started a social movement.”

At the Nelson pill hearings, as they soon became known, medical experts delivered testimony about the known risks of synthetic estrogen, one of the main ingredients in birth control pills. No pill users were on the agenda. The only woman who testified was Dr. Elizabeth Connell, who expressed the fear that if dangers of the pill were publicized, women would give up birth control entirely. Connell said she worried that would lead to an explosion of unwanted pregnancies, or “Nelson babies.”

Alice Wolfson says she doesn’t remember the exact tipping point in the hearings that prompted her to speak up, but I like to think it was the moment when a medical researcher testified, “Estrogen is to cancer what fertilizer is to wheat.” Wolfson and other women raised their hands politely to comment, but when Sen. Gaylord refused to recognize them, they began shouting their questions.

Why weren’t we told about side effects?

Why aren’t any women testifying?

What happened to the women in the Puerto Rico study?

Why are you using women as guinea pigs?

Why are you letting the drug companies murder us for their profit and convenience?

The feminists immediately had the attention of reporters, and a movement was born. Seaman and Wolfson met during one of the breaks in testimony, and eventually worked together to create the National Women’s Health Network – still a vibrant and vital advocacy organization for women’s health.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Activism, Birth Control, books, Pharmaceutical | 2 Comments »

Book Review: In Our Control

May 21st, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling


http://www.flickr.com/photos/santarosa/ / CC BY 2.0

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.”

Eldridge extensively addresses the relationship between birth control and menstruation, focusing one chapter specifically on the use of hormonal contraception to reduce or eliminate menstrual cycles. She draws upon a wide range of resources to illustrate the cultural attitudes and contexts of menstruation, from stories of the role of birth-control pill co-developer John Rock’s Catholicism in the three-weeks-on/one-week-off dosing of the first pill to a Saturday Night Live parody of advertising schemes for menstrual suppression drugs (with Annuale, you’ll menstruate only once a year, but hold on to your fucking hat!).

The book also covers environmental impacts of contraception, the politics of HPV vaccinations, ongoing research into a birth control pill for men and natural methods of birth control such as fertility awareness–which Eldridge carefully distinguishes from the much-maligned “rhythm method.” She notes that the method approved by the Catholic church is properly called a calendar-based method and involves estimating when ovulation occurs and avoiding sex during that time. Fertility awareness, however, involves a more complex, systematic attention to physiological markers of female fertility. It requires careful monitoring of waking temperature, vaginal sensation, position of cervix and cervical fluid, as well as dates of menstrual flow and sexual activity. Eldridge cautions that fertility awareness is too complicated to be taught in a short chapter, and that observing and charting one’s cycle must be done “for a significant amount of time before you begin to rely on it for contraception.”

Laura Eldridge learned women’s health writing at the side of the late women’s health advocate and activist Barbara Seaman, and it shows. She contextualizes her work with her own experience and preferences, but provides thorough documentation so that women can more easily make their own decisions. This is women’s health activism at its best. Feminism isn’t just about choices, but about having access to information and resources to make informed, authentic choices–and that is only possible when reliable and comprehensive information is widely available.

Cross-posted at Ms. magazine blog.

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Posted in Birth Control, books, Reproduction | 1 Comment »

The Pill in the News

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.

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