What would the world be like if young women were mentored by older women?
What would the world be like if we knew we had a place for our stories to be told?
So intones the voiceover at the start of the trailer of a forthcoming film.
And it is right on time.
The recent media attention paid to Tomi- Ann Roberts and Nikki Dunnavant’s research recent re: religious identification and menstrual traditions has got me thinking (more than usual) about women, bonding and menses. Roberts and Dunnavant’s religious women harbored more negative attitudes toward their periods than their secular counterparts, but they reported a sense of woman-to-woman connection during their menstruation that non-religious women did not.
So how do we create community and lose the shame?
Red tents anyone?
“Things We Don’t Talk About: Healing Narratives from the Red Tent” explores the increasing reach of the “Red Tent Temple Movement” seeded by women’s empowerment facilitator Alisa Starkweather and inspired by Anita Diamant’s 1997 bestselling novel The Red Tent – a rich fictionalized treatment of biblical character Dinah. In the novel, Dinah and her tribeswomen gather during their menses in a sacred women-only space.
The practice in a book became a movement.
Starkweather and others in more than 50 red tents across the nation and beyond (in 30 states and 6 countries) believe that the simple practice of gathering women and girls in a space dedicated ONLY to them (whatever their date on the menstrual calendar) is precisely what women and girls need to feel supported and nurtured. This is the stuff of healing, they say.
Red tents are an initiative within what I call the ‘feminist spiritualist’ wing of the menstrual activist movement — a loose collection of activists who emerged in the 1970s and share an earnest celebration of embodied womanhood. This style of activism, I’ve argued, has endured and innovated for more than 4 decades, but remains on the fringe of feminist movements as a mostly white middle class concern. Liedenfrost’s film, however, may nudge an expansion of the movement (or perhaps, show that it is already slowly capturing a diverse following?). A commitment to inclusion rings through the voices of the women captured in “Things We Don’t Talk About….” Red tents, as one woman explains during the trailer, are safe, welcoming and invite each woman to “come as you are and who you are is enough.”
Filmmaker Isadora Gabrielle Liedenfrost, a seasoned filmmaker specializing in “multicultural motifs and embedded cultures and spiritual traditions” presents a rich palette of reds, auburns, and fuchsias and a haunting soundtrack in this piece. Her camera brings us images of small and large groups of women crying, laughing, dancing and hugging together woven with the heartfelt stories of the empowering benefits of women-in-community.
Photo credit: Isadora Gabrielle Liedenfrost (used with permission)
I am left asking: could red tents offer women—whatever their spiritual inclination—a shame-free community? Could they restore a lost tradition now updated in a contemporary body-positive context? Surely, the feminine intimacy offered here is not for every woman, but for many, it might feel like home is a lovely little tent.
Guest Post by Lydia Aponte — Marymount Manhattan College
In Professor David Linton’s Social Construction and Images of Menstruation course, our class watched two documentaries involving menstruation and menstrual suppression. Both Period: The End of Menstruation? and Red Moon addressed what is becoming an increasingly concerning topic: now that menstrual suppression in the form of birth control is becoming more and more readily available – and is even being promoted to specifically stop or slow the menstrual cycle – is menstruation necessary?
Many women, including myself, have asked themselves this very question – some because of the monthly cramps that have reduced us to a fetal position, some because of the awkward situations that menstrual stigma has put us in. Yet, many women still do not question it because menstruation is believed to be a natural occurrence that must happen because, well, that’s just life. What happens, on the other hand, when a man questions the necessity of menstruation? Or even further, does something about it? Meet Dr. Elsimar Coutinho.
From São Paulo, Brazil, Dr. Coutinho appeared briefly in Red Moon avidly disputing the necessity of menstruation. He believes that it is not necessary, because “what is the use of an ovulation if it does not result in a pregnancy?” I was initially stunned by his intensity when it came to the subject, not only because of his stance against menstruation, but because of the role he seemed to be playing. It seemed as if Dr. Coutinho were playing the “mad scientist,” distributing birth control to women and spreading the word that menstruation was “unnecessary” and “unnatural.” So I decided to look up this “character,” and came upon Dr. Coutinho’s biography page. Of course, the first paragraph of his bio was nothing but praise: “Dr. Elsimar Coutinho is, unquestionably, a man born to make history. For more than 50 years, his research and discoveries in the fields of human health and reproduction have broken paradigms and brought down millenary concepts.” (For a man who made history, I had never heard his name before Red Moon.)
Yet, I was more taken aback by how he had been quoted regarding menstruation. “My greatest contribution to humanity was to realize that menstruation was unnecessary, a disposable phenomena.” (Coutinho, E.M.) Not only is a doctor refuting the biological necessity of menstruation, which alone is jarring, but a man is refuting the necessity of a cycle highly regarded by many women, including myself, as a symbol of womanhood and deeming it “disposable.” Not only is Dr. Coutinho refuting it, he is actively taking measures to suppress menstruation through his research and practices.
If menstruation equals womanhood to so many, and Dr. Coutinho believes that menstruation is unnecessary, what is he saying about the beliefs and values that many people hold in regards to femininity? According to his philosophy, those,too, would be disposable. Dr. Coutinho’s suggestions — although questionable — have caused me to ask these questions: has something I regarded a natural part of my female biology been unnecessary this entire time? Is the human body wrong, and is Coutinho seeking to correct it with medicine? Or is misogyny still a key player in the menstrual realm?
So says 15-year-old Judy to her boyfriend Johnny on the occasion of her first period, in this vintage film about menstruation, Linda’s Film About Menstruation. This 18-minute treasure was produced in 1974 by the Creative Artists Public Service Program of the New York State Council of the Arts (CAPS), a program that ran from 1970 to 1981.
Would that cities and states still had arts budgets for these kinds of projects!
Guest Post by Michael Yazujian, Marymount Manhattan College
I found this sketch the other day when I was on www.ucbcomedy.com. It is by a sketch duo called Klepper and Grey, who are originally from Chicago, but now live in NYC. It is very similar to the “Her First Period” sketch by the Frantics (posted at re:Cycling August 5, 2011), in that things that are considered socially unacceptable to be shared are being shared in such a friendly tone; the main difference is that in this sketch the information is being shared knowingly. Both sketches make you wonder how do subjects get to a point when they are considered rude or unacceptable to discuss, even though they are so common among so many people. Things like menstruation, sex, and bowel movements are all normal bodily experiences, but they certainly don’t make appropriate dinner party conversation, or topics to share casually with an acquaintance on the street.
I’d be interested to hear comments from others about what they think the increased public display of formerly private matters means, especially when it comes to the conventional menstrual taboos.
The taboos against menstrual sex are ancient and deep-seated. Despite the well established fact that sexual intercourse during the period is not medically counter-indicated nor somehow debilitating to women and, furthermore, that some women find the experience more pleasurable than the non-menstrual variety, the prejudice lingers on. What’s more intriguing is the ways and places that menstrual sexual phobias are made manifest.
According to several literary and cinematic biographies, two of the most revered figures in the English language critical and literary cannon may have been so traumatized by menstrual encounters on their honeymoons that they swore off sex for evermore.
In 1994 a British biopic named “Tom & Viv” offered up the sad story – we might call it an anti-romance – of the poet T.S. Eliot and his wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood (played by Willem Dafoe and Miranda Richardson) who eloped in 1915. According to the IMDB summary, the film depicts how “her longstanding gynecological and emotional problems disrupt their planned honeymoon.” In fact, what the scene shows is that Eliot is so appalled by his wife’s menstrual condition – the sheets are awash in the results of her heavy flow – that he nearly goes into shock. His repulsion is so great that he has to leave her for a walk on the beach where he wades fully clothed in the waves to cleanse himself.
The entire film consists of little more that a series of scenes in which Viv causes one embarrassing emotional fracas after another in desperate attempts to gain the affection of her increasingly alienated, cold and aloof husband. There is little doubt that hormonal imbalances are the cause of her instability as early in the film a close mother-daughter conversation conveys the fact that she is perpetually on the brink of yet another menstrual misstep.
Eventually, Eliot has his wife committed to a mental institution where she spends the rest of her life, even after she enters menopause and, we are told and shown, she has become calm and serene.
The YouTube clip that is posted from the film does not include the crucial honeymoon bloody sheets scene but, at over eleven minutes in length, it does display quite a few of the scenes demonstrating Viv’s hormonal flare ups. Though the film might deserve a subtitle like “Beware the Menstrual Monster,” it does give Miranda Richardson an opportunity to chew up every piece of available scenery.
Preparing for class discussions this week about sex education policy in the U.S. found me flipping through the Prelinger Archives, where I found this gem: Molly Grows Up. It’s a menstrual education film apparently intended for girls in about the sixth grade, made in 1953. Along with a basic explanation of the physiology of menstruation and puberty, the school nurse assures the girls that no one can tell when they are menstruating. But then she offers them this advice visible in this screen shot — and recommends the girls wear their best dresses and take extra care with “hygiene”.
Reel Grrls produced this animated vision of what watching television might be like in a world where Gloria Steinem’s classic essay “If Men Could Menstruate” wasn’t fiction.
Vanessa Tolkin Meyer recently published her thesis film on Vimeo: it’s a short film about the menstrual cup. It’s also about attitudes toward menstruation and how we talk about it.
Okay, I haven’t seen the film in full yet. And, yes, I’ll admit right up front that I’m not menopausal yet. And for many readers this may be enough to discount what I might say here, but….
I have interviewed quite a number of menopausal women in the last ten years and very few have been as negative about menopause as the new documentary, Hot Flash Havoc. It was just released this summer and was screened at the Aspen FilmFest 2010 this week, and from the writeups in the Aspen Times and Snowmass Sunthis past weekend, this documentary is definitely a winner.
If you like to think about your normal processes as problematic and in need of fixing, that is. Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t awful signs and symptoms that individual women have to find a better way of dealing with and that we shouldn’t busy ourselves with finding ways to make bothersome signs and symptoms dissipate (this is indeed an important activity), but the sense I get from reading all of the writeups of the film and watching the various trailers for the film on YouTube is that Hot Flash Havoc (and its filmmaker, Heidi Houston) define menopause as a crisis that is wrecking middle-aged women’s lives everywhere.
In addition, the entire film seems to be advocating a gentler critique of WHI results and for women to increase their usage of hormone therapies. Overall, I feel like this film moves us backwards rather than forwards in our search to help women answer questions about their own midlife experiences. Houston is quoted in interviews as saying things like “let’s fix our women” by helping them “manage menopause.” Seriously? I feel like I’m reading Robert Wilson’s 1966 work about keeping women “feminine forever.”
Speaking of which, men’s desires and needs seem to figure prominently in this film, in that menopausal women are portrayed as doing damage to men. Can’t we move on from ideas like this?
And I’m not the only one critiquing this film, by the way. Other bloggers hate it too. This is NOT a film worth supporting at all, unless we believe that menopause is a terrible thing, and a condition that needs to be fixed.
I have my critiques of Menopause! The Musical, but compared to Hot Flash Havoc, Menopause! The Musical is great!!!!
Red Moon: Menstruation, Culture and the Politics of Gender may have crossed your path as The Moon Inside You (its original title prior to 2010 its current distribution through Media Education Foundation). It is a film that has enjoyed wide release, with exhibition on French television and inclusion in an EU showcase of films that circulated last year. The broad exhibition strategy of Red Moon is fitting; it has a casual, heartfelt and humorous style that should appeal to many.
The purpose of Red Moon, as articulated by the filmmaker Diana Fabianova in voice over, is to answer this question: “At any given time, 25% of the female population is menstruating. Invisible. Discreet. Why is this normal, biological function taboo? There must be some deeper meaning.” There are problems with this statistical framing device – 25% is an over inflated number that eliminates girls and post-menopausal women as “females”. It also glosses over females that do not menstruate because of gender transformations and amenorrhea. Outside of this statistical malfunction, there are a few other facts provided through voice over which are not supported by specific research or attributed directly to any menstrual researchers. However, beyond these slights, Red Moon has great potential to make a taboo subject approachable.
As it begins with man-on-the-street interviews, the film seems to have interest in addressing men as equally as women. Through interviews with researchers who have written about menstruation in the 80’s and 90’s, the film attends to menstrual taboo historically and highlights menstrual suppression as an issue to address within patriarchy. There is a fantastically creepy interview with Elsimar Couthino, famous for inventing Depo Provera, Norplant and for writing Is Menstruation Obsolete (the book that launched millions of suppressed periods.) In his interview Couthino believes that women should have no more than one period in her lifetime and he likens menstruation to pending death: “First of all, menstruation is incompatible with life and nature, because an animal cannot survive bleeding longer than a few minutes in the forest. Blood, the smell of blood (he sniffs) attracts the predators. This one is bleeding. She is going to die.” Fabianova comically cuts to a hooting owl, waiting for your blood.
Fabianova is critical of pill-popping mentality and finds it better to challenge the negative view of menstruation, and silence around it, rather than do away with the period altogether. While she provides some examples of solutions to painful PMS (a belly dancing class delights, for example) the film does not directly address dysmenorrhea and severe menstrual challenges which have become justification for suppression in the first place. It does however, remind menstruators on hormonal birth control that the blood you see is a fake-period.
In fellow Re:Cycling blogger Chris Bobel’s recently released book New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation, she focuses on the type of menstrual activist stylings akin to Red Moon. In short, feminist spiritualism, according to Bobel, is a narrowly focused mode of menstrual positivism that essentializes the idea of womanhood through menstruation. The movement typically appeals to middle class white women and identifies menstrual change through the self. In feminist spiritualism, political action is limited to the individual menstruator or to the girls the menstruator is encouraged to educate. Red Moon treads in this territory throughout as interviewees speak to menstrual energy, the preciousness of menstruation, and the spiritualism in bleeding. The film ends with this logic as a nude woman walks through city streets, dropping red blobs that spring new trees to life through CGI effects. In voice over we hear about the filmmaker’s changed subject position: “I no longer fight with my hormonal clock, because it is she that reminds me once a month that I have a personal, intimate connection to nature and the universe.” It’s too bad the film narrows its final message to the individual, rather than reflecting on some of the broader work done throughout, like connecting negative menstrual associations to patriarchy, and demonstrating how certain menstrual practices harm the environment and our wallets. Overall, Red Moon is a conversation starter that requires additional reading to supplement its message. Continue reading...
In Therese Shechter’s guest-post about the German teen magazine feature article, “Every Vulva Is Different”, she noted that we’re unlikely to see such an explicit, body-positive article in a U.S. teen magazine. Therese, as usual, knows what she’s talking about. In this just-released video clip from her forthcoming documentary How to Lose Your Virginity, Susan Schulz, the Editor-in-Chief of CosmoGirl! magazine, tells viewers about the time CosmoGirl! ran an article titled “Vulva Love”, which included a cartoon drawing of vulvar anatomy and some basic, age-appropriate physiological and health information about vulvas. It was the most complained about article ever published by the magazine. The complaints were not from the magazine readers, however: the grievances were filed by the mothers of subscribers. Parents thought it was inappropriate material for their teen daughters.
After you watch the clip, consider throwing a few bucks Trixie’s way so she can complete the film – the project needs another $3585 pledged by July 1 to receive the $10,000 they’re trying to raise.
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.
