Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

How do girls learn about periods?

May 1st, 2013 by Laura Wershler

How do girls learn about menstruation today? Who talks to them? Who do they talk to? Or do most girls rely on the Internet for information about periods?

Take this article by Elizabeth (bylines are first names only) – What I Wish I Knew About My Period – posted last week at Rookie, an online magazine for teenage girls. Not a teenager but definitely a young woman, Elizabeth (Spiridakus) shares the wisdom she’s gained through her menstrual experience. Here’s her sum-up:

These are all the things I wish someone had told me before I got my first period, and in the couple of years that followed. Most of all, I wish I had FOUND SOMEONE TO TALK TO! I had so many questions and fears about the whole business, and I think I would have been so much less self-conscious, and so much HAPPIER, if I had only had access to some friendly advice. So, talk to your friends! Talk to your cool older cousin or aunt or sister or your best friend’s cool mom or your OWN cool mom. Leave your questions—and your good advice—in the comments, because I certainly haven’t been able to cover all the bases here.

Read this again: “Most of all, I wish I had FOUND SOMEONE TO TALK TO!”

Photo courtesy of Laura Wershler

Elizabeth urges readers to talk to their friends, cool older relatives, or their own – or somebody else’s – “cool mom.” Great advice, but I have to ask:  Why aren’t cool moms and older relatives already talking to the girls in their lives about menstruation? Sharing friendly advice? Passing on wisdom from mother to daughter, woman to woman?

Suzan Hutchinson, menstrual activist, educator and founder of periodwise.com, a project dedicated to empowering girls and women to embrace the taboo subject of menstruation, has a few ideas about this. She thinks many moms don’t know when to begin “the period talk” or what to say, so they remain silent until their daughters start their periods, or they wait thinking their daughters will initiate period talk. She warns against this.

“We should all remember that when moms offer too little information or start providing information too late, girls often question their credibility and hesitate to return as new questions arise.”

Although Suzan’s mother talked to her about menstruation, she didn’t start early enough, before Suzan heard things from other girls that she didn’t understand. Her early menstrual experience included lying to her friends about getting her period long before she did at age 15. By then she was “too embarrassed to ask my much more experienced friends” and “too proud to turn to Mom.” She tried to deal with things on her own.

“I needed a period coach – someone to walk through things with me and instruct me…help me figure out what to do, when to do, how to do.”

A period coach. This is exactly what Elizabeth is for the girls at Rookie. Read the comments. Readers loved it.

She’s not the only one using the Internet to connect with girls about menstruation. Despite my reservations about a website operated by the company that sells Always and Tampax, the content of which deserves serious critique, I must acknowledge that thousands of girls are turning to beinggirl.com for period coaching, including tips on how to talk to their moms!

Moms shouldn’t be waiting for their daughters to talk to them. They need to find their own period coaches. Other mothers like Suzan Hutchinson and the mom who started bepreparedperiod.com.

The more information girls have the better. Brava to Elizabeth for What I Wish I Knew About My Period. But moms and cool older relatives have got to get in the game. Now. Don’t wait until the girls in your life come to you.

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Posted in Communication, Girls, magazines, Menarche, Menstruation | 6 Comments »

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month

March 20th, 2013 by Elizabeth Kissling

You’re busy celebrating Women’s History Month, the Ides of March, Pi(e) Day, St. Patrick’s Day, not to mention Spring Break and numerous lesser known awareness days and months. But don’t let Endometriosis Awareness Month slip away.

Endometriosis — when the uterine lining or endometrium grows outside of the uterus,  most commonly elsewhere in the abdomen on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and ligaments that support the uterus; the area between the vagina and rectum; the outer surface of the uterus; and the lining of the pelvic cavity — affects at least 6.3 million women and girls in the U.S., 1 million in Canada, and millions more worldwide, according to the Endometriosis Association. It frequently results in very painful menstrual cramps and other symptoms, and is notoriously hard to diagnose. There is no known cause, and while there are many treatments, there is no real cure.

Adapted from a photo by Ben Werdmuller // Creative Commons 2.0
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benwerd/3976375987/

So what can you do this month? Just talking about endometriosis — acknowledging it exists or sharing your own story might help a teenage girl realize that those gut-stabbing cramps aren’t normal or another woman to know that it’s not all in her head.

If you have endometriosis and have found a physician or other health care practitioner who is compassionate and has helped you find ways of coping, tell others — refer your friends. Many doctors don’t know that endometriosis often presents as, or with, gastrointestinal symptoms.

Does your local library have up-to-date books about endometriosis? Recommend materials that have helped you.

Share this post on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. (The little buttons at the bottom make it easy.)

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Posted in Girls, Health Care, Menstruation | 2 Comments »

Little Girls! Just Say Yes to Your Dreams!

March 18th, 2013 by Chris Bobel

Seen this one yet? (or the (eerily) related “Birth Control on the Bottom“?)

We posted “Sassy Girlz Candy Birth Control Pills” (written by Carissa Leone in 2011) in our regular installment Weekend Links on Feb 2. I had a mixed reaction. And when a couple re:Cycling readers described the video as “nasty,” I knew we needed to dig in a bit.

Let’s discuss.

There’s something very absurdly funny about eating birth control, even if the women are still tweens and the birth control is merely mulit- colored jelly beans intended to get young girls in the pill-popping groove before they are saddled with a baby and an half-finished high school education.

First of all, women CAN eat their birth control, donchaknow… Warner Chilcott brought to market their chewable, spearmint flavor oral contraceptive, Femcon Fe, for women who have difficulty swallowing pills and apparently, find stopping for 30 seconds to swallow water.

But I digress (I guess I just want to be clear that we are ALREADY munching our pills).

It is hard not to love how this sketch takes down the pandering to the girl tween market. Oh lordy. There’s so much potential there! (one estimate figures that kids aged 8-12 years are spending $30 billion OF THEIR OWN MONEY and nagging their parents to spend another $150 billion annually!) Little girls quickly move from Disney to diets, from fingerpaint to fake eyelashes, from tutus to belly shirts…..I have seen it with my own girls and it feels, frankly, like an inexorable force.

Viral sketch writer Carissa Leone graciously replied to my questions regarding the piece. When I asked her what inspired her, she channeled her Women’s Studies training (go team!) and supplied her two main reasons:

(1) “I saw a little girl on the subway,holding a baby doll in one of those pretend baby slings…and I thought, “If only she really knew what motherhood was like. I wonder if anyone has explained the authentic experience. I wish she were carrying a briefcase and reading a teeny issue of Ms. magazine instead… “

AND

(2) “The idea that women can/should have it all, in terms of relationships and families and career still seems to be put forth as a tangible (and”correct”) goal in Western culture. It’s a pressure I and many other peers feel, and one that I don’t think is truly possible, or necessarily awesome.”

And Big Pharma takes a hit, too, per the spot’s director, Brian Goetz, who offered this when I asked him about what led to the sketch:

“I wanted to do the video because the script spoke so well to the branding of pharmaceutical commercials, where no matter what the product, as long as you say there’s a problem and that you have the solution, throw some happy people and fun b-roll in it, you’ve got a successful campaign. On top of that, it’s always fun to legitimize terrible ideas in sketch comedy. And if that means having multi-colored jelly bean birth control pills, all the better.”

But I think there’s more to it that that.

Why do I find myself laughing and crying at the same time? Well, I just finished my advance copy of Holly Grigg-Spall’s forthcoming Sweetening the Pill  or How We Became Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control (out this Spring with Zero Books). In it (and here as well, on this blog), Grigg-Spall makes the case the hormonal contraceptives have become so normative that we, as consumers, permit an imperfect (at best) product to flourish even while other options may be more appropriate. The one-pill-fits-all mindset is so pervasive and bores in so deep, so young, Grigg-Spall argues, that when someone says, ‘hey! I don’t want to be on the pill,’ these—what she calls “pill refugees” — are hastily branded as irresponsible, antifeminist, or just plain dumb. That is, the pill gets constructed as our savior, our liberator, our saving grace, even when its not.

And that’s where this spoof enters….since the pill IS all these things, let’s get those girlies on board NOW! Why wait? Good habits start young, after all. And product loyalty is not just for toothpaste and laundry detergent….

And so, “Sassy Girlz Candy Birth Control Pills” is super smart feminist critique. It calls out the enduring wrongheadnessness of romanticizing motherhood and co-opting what I would call a tragically hollowed-out pseudo feminism harnessed to push product:

  • Little girls playing Mommy is cute, and kinda bullshit!
  • Its never too early to teach little girls about options!
  • She’ll know that birth control means winning a college scholarship

Yup. There’s lots of problems with that. Thanks to the feminist satirists to help us see.

But I have to say one more thing.

Leone and I discussed (what I consider) the unfortunate below-the-belt invocation of gender dysphoria to as she put it, “most absurd, heightening beat” in the sketch (here’s another, more recent example of same, on SNL). I don’t think trans or gender queer or otherwise gender variant people should ever serve as punchlines, as I told Leone so in our email exchange. When I inquired about this moment in an otherwise spot-on sketch, she said that is was never intended it as a negative perception of transgendered kids. But still  it is, and I think it points with a big fat finger at how much work we still need to do to move trans issues from margin to center.

Let’s push forward without leaving anyone behind. Let’s laugh at feminist satire that avoids (even unintended) transphobia. Let’s keep our targets clear and our allies clearer. Let’s say YES to that dream, for real.

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Posted in Advertising, Birth Control, Communication, Film, Girls, Health Care, Humor, Independent Film, Internet, Language, Media, Pharmaceutical, Pregnancy, Reproduction | 4 Comments »

Do you love your LARC?

December 12th, 2012 by Laura Wershler

Throughout the contraceptive realm, LARCs are being heralded as the best thing since Cinderella’s glass slipper with little acknowledgement that for many women LARCs are more like Snow White’s poisoned apple.

Nov. 25 to Dec. 1, 2012, was LARC Awareness Week, billed by the California Family Health Council as “a chance to increase awareness about LARCs as a safe, effective, and long-acting birth control method.” Women were invited to contribute video messages on the theme Why I Love My LARC.

This catchy acronym stands for long-acting reversible contraceptive, and the push is on for many more women to choose this form of birth control. Make no mistake, it’s all about control: What the doctor puts in, only the doctor can take out. Ergo, it’s 99% effective. You can quit taking your pills, rip off your patch, or NOT show up for your next Depo-Provera shot. But if you hate the side effects caused by your IUD or implant, you’ve gotta go see a health-care provider to have it removed.

I’ve challenged the Contraceptive Choice Project study that praised the effectiveness of LARCs over the pill, patch and ring. I took issue with the ACOG recommendation that LARCs are the best methods for teenagers. Now there’s more hype with LARC Awareness Week.

According to the awareness campaign, LARCs include the ParaGard (copper) IUD, Mirena (progestin) IUD and Implanon, a non-biodegradable flexible rod, also containing progestin, that is inserted under the skin and left for up to three years. (Here’s a story about the rods going missing in women’s bodies.) Read the patient information about Implanon. Would you agree to have it inserted into your body?

Women who hate Implanon are speaking out. So are women who don’t love their ParaGard or Mirena IUDs. On YouTube, a video by a women with Mirena issues has over 6000 views;  Why I Love My LARC, posted 8 days earlier, has about 100.

The old-school LARC – Depo-Provera – is not on the campaign’s list of LARCs, though it is heavily used in the United States. Holly Grigg-Spall recently reported that “one in five African American teens are on the Depo shot, far more than white teens.” Hmm. Will they all be switched to other LARCs when, or if, they come back for their next shot? Perhaps Depo is not on the list because women can discontinue this contraceptive without clinician intervention. But it’s probably because Depo causes bone density loss – and because this LARC is not a lark. Women are sharing their Depo stories on another re:Cycling post:  Coming off Depo-Provera can be a women’s worst nightmare. You can find more bad news about this LARC than any other.

What about getting your LARC removed if you hate it instead of love it? One re:Cycling blogger shared what happened when she wanted her ParaGard IUD removed:

I HATED the thing but the nurse who was supposed to take it out tried to talk me out of it for a good 20 minutes. Finally I was like ‘”Why do you want me to keep this item in my uterus so badly?” And she said, “I just don’t want to see you get rid of your very effective birth control.”

This is not the only reason why women who end up hating their LARCs will be discouraged from rejecting them. The Affordable Care Act requires all health plans issued on or after August 1, 2012 to provide no-charge access to FDA-approved LARCs. What’s it going to take to convince health-care providers to remove an expensive contraceptive – provided for free – that was supposed to last for three to 10 years?

Maybe a YouTube video about Why I Hate My LARC will help make it as easy to get rid of one as it now is to get one.

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Posted in Activism, Birth Control, coming off the pill, Girls, Health Care, Hormones, politics | 6 Comments »

Useful Gifts to Buy this Holiday Season

December 6th, 2012 by Heather Dillaway

The other day a Huffington Post article crossed my desk, titled, “Gift Guide 2012: What To Get The Menopausal Women In Your Life.” According to this article, here are some of the things menopausal women (read: perimenopausal women) might want this December:

  1. Coldfront cooling palm packs (to relieve sweaty palms)
  2. A personal desk fan (for those hot flashes at work)
  3. A “menopause gift basket” filled with healthy treats and goodies, maybe also including vitamins, and alternative remedies for relief, “to stabilize mood and help the body adjust to hormonal changes.”
  4. A Feel Cooler Cooling Mattress Pad or Cooling Pillow that interacts with your nightly body temperatures to cool you down (for night sweats)
  5. Cool Sensations Moisture Wicking Bed Sheets (reportedly for those floods of night sweats you might get)
  6. Hot Girls Pearls – cooling beads to wear around your neck (for hot flashes) – apparently these have even made it onto Oprah’s Show
  7. Tickets to Menopause the Musical
  8. Sweat-wicking pajamas (there are lots of different brands, again to deal with night sweats)

Clearly the theme here is that menopausal women get hot and need relief. Fair enough, for many menopausal women this would be true. But this list got me thinking: what might I add to this list? Here are some I thought of:

  1. Humorous gifts, such as books of jokes about menopause and aging?
  2. Books about menopause
  3. Cookbooks that specialize in natural eating?
  4. A yoga gift certificate? Or other exercise certificate?

I’d love to hear from readers about other ideas for menopause-related holiday gifts.
Then I got to thinking again: If my daughter had reached menarche already, what kinds of holiday gifts could I get her that relate to her life stage? Here are some of the ideas I thought of, and I definitely need help from readers to expand this list:

  1. Pretty reusable (washable) maxi pads (e.g., Lunapads)
  2. A cool bag to carry maxi-pads around in
  3. A cool tampon case (like the ones that Uncommon Goods sells)
  4. Cool new (extra) underwear
  5. A special calendar for her to use to track her periods
  6. New Moon Girls’ magazine (or just an online membership to New Moon Girls)
  7. The book, Our Bodies Ourselves, or other books on puberty and menstruation

So, readers, what else belongs on this list? Those of you already buying for Hannukah and Christmas might have some great ideas…..please chime in!

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Posted in Girls, Menarche, Menopause, Menstruation | 4 Comments »

#periodtalk: Let’s keep talking about menstruation

November 14th, 2012 by Laura Wershler

Bloggers at re:Cycling often challenge and invite readers to open up and talk about our menstrual experiences.

In a September post, Heather Dillaway asked : “Why don’t we talk about the important variations in our menstrual cycles?” In another, she wrote about the “second talk” Poise ads that encourage women to share their perimenopause experiences.

Chris Bobel wrote in defense of hating her period, sparking a lively discussion and much support for both her honesty and her call for “a more (not less) pluralistic menstrual discourse.”

Alexandra Jacoby has been writing a series of posts exploring things about our bodies we tend not to talk about.  From Tell me again why we can’t talk about body stuff to her last post asking readers for suggestions on How to menstruate while camping , she is opening the door ever wider to menstrual cycle conversations.

We do our bit at re: Cycling to get people thinking and talking about menstruation from a broad range of perspectives, including the personal.  And, happily, we are not alone in bringing “period talk” out in the open.

Last Friday, I participated in a #periodtalk Tweet Chat, a monthly event hosted by Be Prepared Period, a website dedicated to providing accurate, helpful information about menstruation to girls, women and parents. One of Friday’s guests was Suzan Hutchinson (@periodwise), the Director of Connectivity for You Are Loved, a non-profit organization “focused on raising awareness about tampon related Toxic Shock Syndrome and providing factual information about menstruation.” You Are Loved has been an ongoing #periodtalk participant. Suzan, a self-described “menstrual cycle activist since youth,” herself experienced TSS.

Suzan’s topic was menstrual understanding; her introductory Tweets shared some of her story:

I began my menstrual journey at age 15 with a belted pad & knowledge that a week each month my body would betray me.

No one talked about periods. I thought my experience was unique – that I was odd. Embarrassment kept me silent.

Suzan eventually came to view her period as just one part of her menstrual cycle, and she brought this cycle perspective to the Tweet Chat. In a post-chat phone conversation, Suzan told me that she has seen how #periodtalk has helped others lose their embarrassment in talking about periods. “I’ve watched women who started out not being able to contribute become menstrual activists, bringing other women to the chats.”

She also told me about the day #periodtalk trended worldwide on Twitter. It was September 14, 2012 and the topic was Back to School: Periods101. A blog post at Lunapads.com describes what happened:

 Today #PeriodTalk had it’s big moment when it reached trending topic status worldwide. A pretty big accomplishment for a bunch of folks chatting about a topic which is usually so “hush-hush”. Of course the taboo-nature of the topic brought the trolls out of the woodwork and some pretty nasty things were said by a few crass individuals. Participants in #PeriodTalk were admonished for talking openly about something, which was in their opinion, not appropriate for the internet….seriously? Not appropriate for the internet? Have these people *seen* the internet?

Too bad for the trolls. Talking openly about our menstrual cycles is here to stay. We’ll keep doing it at re:Cycling and #periodtalk is thriving at Be Prepared Period. They have also launched an online Period Talk  forum where girls and parents can ask questions and get answers about anything related to menstruation and puberty.

The next #periodtalk Tweet Chat – on the topic of Non-Profits and Menstruation – is on Friday, December 14, 2012. Check it out.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Activism, Communication, FemCare, Girls, Internet, Menarche, Menopause, Menstruation, Perimenopause, Reusable menstrual products, Toxic Shock Syndrome | 2 Comments »

It’s Time to Throw a Menstrual Party!

July 9th, 2012 by Chris Bobel

Does the notion of a Menstrual Party smack of an oxymoron?

For most, that’s a yes. And that’s why we need one.

There’s so much more to Period=Yuck, and a good party can show us how much.

Like any winner social event, this party  is a time and place to gather and connect—with the added benefit of  increasing our menstrual IQs.

Our friends at Be Prepared Period and You ARE Loved are hosting their First Annual Online Menstrual Party on Friday, July 13 from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. ET. They are the perfect hosts for such an event, because they intimately understand the pressing imperative of menstrual know-how.

Readers of re:Cycling may remember You ARE Loved, the courageous educational foundation established by Lisa Elifritz, in honor of her daughter Amy Rae Elifritz. Amy Rae died from TSS in 2010. Because of a tampon.The Elifritz family is suing Playtex for negligence and liability, and they allege medical malpractice at the hand of the hospital where Amy Rae was treated. This grieving family rightly seeks accountability and justice and a world where not one more girl or woman succumbs to TSS. As Elizabeth Kissling reminds: we have to teach girls and women that “the femcare industry isn’t looking out for them—they’ve got to look out for themselves.”

Prepared Period and YAL have been deploying social media to get this message for a year now. Their online educational chats have grown from a few to fifty or more participants discussing a new topic each month. Past topics include “Periodic Stories: Ours and Yours”, “Exploring the Many Feminine Hygiene Options”, and “Puberty and Periods: Guiding Tween and Teen Girls”. So the July 13th menstrual party is their 1st anniversary.

The party can be accessed via Twitter using the hashtag #PeriodTalk, and will include conversation, questions, polls and lots of interaction on a variety of menstrual products and plenty of essential Q and A. There will also be numerous giveaways. FREE STUFF! Additional information, including links to register for multiple product giveaways, is available on the Tweet Chat pages of the Be Prepared Period and You ARE Loved websites.

Show up for Amy Rae. And stay for yourself and girls and women everywhere.

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Posted in Activism, FemCare, Girls, Menstruation, Toxic Shock Syndrome | No Comments »

Sorry, You’ll Never Get the Good Blood…

June 21st, 2012 by Heather Dillaway

Photo by Mark Sylvester, Courtesy of and ©Free Range Stock

How do you tell a preschool-aged boy that he’ll never menstruate?

I thought I was doing a great thing. Ever since my daughter was born I’ve spun a positive story about menstruation for her. Even when she was 2 and 3 years old I’d tell her it was the “good blood,” the blood that meant you were healthy and could maybe have babies some day if you wanted them. Now she is 7 years old and I continue to tell her that the good blood is a healthy thing and that someday soon she will have it too. I came up with the idea to call it “good blood” because I didn’t want her to think of it as something I was hiding or sad about. I wanted her to be informed and think positively about her future as a woman.

BUT, my son is now 4 and he has been listening to the same story. About a year ago he asked me when he would get the good blood. I tried to tell him that he would not get it and he cried and said he wanted to be able to be healthy like us. He said he wanted to be able to have babies some day. Still today he talks to me sometimes about the fact that he won’t get the good blood and he is sad.

I’ve thought a lot about how to be a good parent to a girl and a boy. I’m a firm believer that gender is mostly created by us and, despite biological or physiological differences between women and men, we can change how people act, think, and orient themselves if we want to. At least in part. Yet I think that talking about the “good blood” backfired on me to some extent. In redefining menstruation as positive for my daughter, I left my son by the wayside a bit. I still struggle with what to do about this. How do I redefine menstruation in a positive way without making my son feel bad?

I’d love to hear readers’ own stories about this, because I think this is something we should talk about more fully. How do moms talk to their little boys about menstruation? And when they talk about it, what do they say? Boys will grow up to have so many privileges that women don’t have but you can’t explain that to a 4-year-old very easily. And sure, you can say, “Everyone’s different and special in their own way,” but that’s a pretty empty statement for a 4-year-old who’s keeping track of all the things that others get that they don’t.

So, starting with the assumption that boys should learn something about menstruation and eventually will find out that they will not menstruate, how do you say, “Sorry, you’ll never get the good blood” in a positive and productive way?
I’m looking forward to the responses on this post!

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Posted in Communication, Girls, Language, Men, Menarche, Menstruation, Philosophy | 2 Comments »

Menstrual Marketing Around the Globe — Israel

May 22nd, 2012 by David Linton

Scary Little Menstruating Girl

[note: Although re:Cycling has an international audience, the following post is written from the perspective of an North American consumer.]

As is well known, cultural practices and attitudes regarding menstruation vary widely from place to place and time to time. re:Cycling has commented on the variety frequently in the past.  Differences also make themselves felt even in advertising and packaging of menstrual products, as the notorious Kotex Beaver ads from Australia demonstrate, despite the fact that the products are manufactured by global, trans-national corporations. Though the fact that the menstrual cycle itself is a world-wide biological phenomenon might suggest that views of its meaning and management would be universal as well, nothing could be further from the truth.

Kita and package of Kotex YoungConsider an ongoing marketing campaign that originated in Israel that features a cartoon character named Kita. To the best of my knowledge this campaign has not been adapted for use in the United States, nor, in my opinion, is it likely to find a place in American advertising nor on American market shelves. The spookiness of the cartoon girl who resembles a Japanese anime character seems strangely unlike the way that American consumers commonly depict young teens in a menstrual context. Even the lettering of “Young” and the way the term is used are unfamiliar to American eyes. Of course, the term “Normal Plus” is meaningless but that’s not unusual in advertising everywhere. And all the shades of red and the display of hearts across the bottom of the package are unfamiliar to American consumers as well. In fact, the menstrual taboos in America have resulted (with few exceptions) in a near absence of red, other than in carefully planted touches such as the ribbon on Mother Nature’s menstrual gift box in Tampax Pearl ads, the hair and lipstick of the magician in the Always pad ads, and the big red dot in many Kotex ads.

The Kita campaign began with careful planning and design. As this promotional video from McCann-Erickson, the Tel Aviv ad agency behind the campaign, explains, it began with the creation of a character and an internet world based on notions of what the target consumers – 10 to 13 year old girls – are thought to love most: shopping, the Internet, shopping, clothing, and, of course, in addition to shopping, more shopping. The character of Kita (“the coolest friend any girl could want”), who narrates her own creation and success story, speaks in a voice that is derived from the American “Valley girl” model, complete with plenty of “like” phrases, a few “awesomes,” an “as if” and a “duh” or two. How Kita immigrated from the San Fernando Valley to Tel Aviv is a mystery, although her native voice does come through a few times via some non-Valley pronunciations. (She pronounces “Kotex” as though it were spelled “Kodex.”) According to the boastful promotional video clip, Kita has achieved remarkably high market saturation. It claims that, “95% of Israeli girls know me and love me” and that “1 of every 2 Israeli girls (12-15) has a profile in Kita City.” Furthermore, since the launch in 2007, the “Kotex market share grew by 56%.” If this is what it takes — a menstrual role model who babbles in clichés, is consumed with consuming, wallows in the trivial, yet does so with seeming self-confidence and menstrual cycle savoir faire — to break down even an iota of menstrual shame and insecurity, who are we to object? And the fact that Kita has become a transnational, widely identified cultural meme, as the agency seems to claim, then maybe her next assignment should be to promote world peace. Ya never know!

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Posted in Advertising, Disposable menstrual products, FemCare, Girls, Internet | No Comments »

KOTEX IS IN THE HOUSE! (or, Is the House?)

April 27th, 2012 by David Linton

Despite occasional efforts by manufacturers of menstrual pads and tampons (the giants of the menstrual-industrial complex – thanks, President Eisenhower) to present period-positive images, they still seem unable to resist representing menstruation as an undesirable, embarrassing phenomenon. Women, particularly teens, are expected to grin and bear it as best they can while enduring their monthly misery.  Consider a recent example.

A few weeks ago, the small college where I work received 12 large cartons from a firm called Brand Connections, which apparently specializes in managing promotional campaigns that involve providing free samples of products.  Each carton contained 72 box-like items made up to look like thick text books but with a cover that closely resembled a copy of Teen or Seventeen magazine.  In large letters on the spine and front are the words, “GET REAL.”  The instruction sheet in each carton included warnings that the contents “may not be suitable for children” and that selling the items rather than giving them away “may result in civil and/or criminal prosecution.”  And, in bold type, the page states, “This box contains FREE House of Kotex samples!”  The college authorities were directed to, “Please hand out the House of Kotex samples to your Universities [sic] female students for their enjoyment.”

 

However, the contents of the package itself were a bit more ambivalent about any connection between menstrual products and enjoyment.

The box opens to disclose, on the right side, two plastic pouches, one white containing a pad and a panty liner, and one black containing a pad, a wipe and a tampon.  On the left, emulating a feature popular in teen girl magazines, is a six item quiz in which girls are asked to choose favorite shoes, lip gloss colors, eye shade, date wear and weekend entertainment.  The sixth item, “Being on your period is. . .” provides the following choices:

  1. the worst
  2. not so bad
  3. part of life
  4. super annoying

If one picks 1. or 4., one is directed to the black pouch; if one chooses 2. or 3., the white pouch is for you.

The cartons were placed around the campus at strategic locations for young women (or curious young men) to pick up the packets.  One enterprising student rifled a few dozen of the tampon packs to store up a stash of her preferred product for the next few months.

Though the cover photo of two smiling young women and the slangy headline references to bonding, fun, and sharing, as well as the playful references to popular items inside created a sense of happy girlhood, the non-so-subtle way the period was described unfortunately reinforced the nuisance trope that is so deeply engraved in young women already.

Readers are invited to propose alternative options to the last question in the menstrual quiz.

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Posted in Communication, Disposable menstrual products, FemCare, Girls, Menstruation | 2 Comments »

When Menstrual Talk Comes Home

April 16th, 2012 by Chris Bobel

For the last decade or so, like so many others who read and write for this blog, I have been researching, reading and writing about how we think, talk and act (out) about menstruation. My particular interest is the various interventions that some brave activists make to disrupt the dominant narrative of menstruation.

But this post isn’t about my work or even the work of others. Not exactly.

This post is about my daughters and what sometimes happens when my work comes home.

In 2006, when my oldest daughter  was 13, we had one of many Mom-initiated short talks about her approaching menarche in the (of course) car. Posing as a super nonchalant mom, I casually asked:

ME: So what do you think your period will be like?

HER: I will hate it.

[GULP...I was grateful she could not see her feminist mother’s face completely cave in]

ME: Why do you think so?

HER:  All my friends hate theirs.

Later that year, her first period. My daughter did not share this with me, rather, I “discovered” this new development on my own. That evening, after we talked, she agreed—none-too-cheerfully—to a dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, but we were not permitted to discuss “the event.” The next day, I set the kitchen table with candles, tea and her favorite dessert—just for the two of us—and I presented her with a lovely bag to store her menstrual supplies (that I am pretty sure she never used).

Getting her ears pierced

Photo by Aaron Conaway // CC 2.0

We had decided, years before, that when she began menstruating, she would get her ears pierced. So we went to Claire’s and did the deed, but again, no fanfare—just a mom taking her teen daughter to get her ears pierced.

From that point forward, we rarely talked about her menstrual experiences, though I tried and failed several times.  For example, I suggested she try cloth pads (and why), but she was not the least bit interested

When my book on menstrual politics came out, my daughter  was 16. She and 4 of her friends, all dressed in red dresses, circulated trays of  menstrually-themed (read: red) appetizers at my book party. The party favors, the decorations, and the conversation were all highly MENSTRUAL, and I heard no titters, detected no blushing between my girl and her pals.

So did my daughter HATE her period, after all? Maybe not, but she, the child of a feminist committed to challenging the dominant cultural narrative of menstruation, became a girl, who, at best, managed her period. And I wanted better for her.

Today, my second daughter is 8.  She is 9 years younger than her older sister.

Since she could talk, she has called attention to my period. When she glimpses me changing my pad on the toilet  (yes, we have an open door policy), she typically remarks:

“You are having your period, Mama.”

“Yes, Honey, I am.“

She speaks as if her first period might be any day. It could be, but I doubt it. Her trajectory toward puberty seems to be moving at a pretty average clip.

She is very excited about getting her ears pierced when she begins menstruating. She loves wearing stick on earrings and clip ons; this is a girl enamored with ear bling. But she has never once asked if she could get her ears pierced BEFORE her menarche, even though several of her friends have theirs pierced now. I think she likes the link between menarche and ear piercing, seeing it as an established rite of passage.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Activism, Girls, Menarche, Menstruation | 11 Comments »

It’s My Period and I’ll Have a Party If I Want To

April 6th, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Today’s post was created using the web tool Storify, and may take an extra moment to load in some browsers. If the page fails to load, please use your refresh/reload button

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Posted in Girls, Internet, Language, Menarche, Menstruation | 3 Comments »

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