Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Early Menopause Caused By Makeup?

November 8th, 2012 by Heather Dillaway

It turns out that phthalates – chemicals found in cosmetics, hairspray, packaged food, household cleaners, and other common plastic items – are causing early menopause. At least according to one new study that is getting a lot of hype in the past week or two. A team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, studied phthalate levels in blood and urine for over 5,000 women, and those women with the highest levels of pthalates apparently went into menopause an average of at least two years before others.

This study is definitely making news. British news sources are reporting on this study as much as U.S. news sources. Women’s reactions to online news stories about this study are mixed. Women hearing about this study are quick to comment online, saying either (1) how quickly they’ll be running out to buy more makeup (to launch themselves into menopause) or (2) discontinuing their use of makeup (to ward against the effects of pthalates). What I find interesting is how divided women are about whether early menopause is good. Reactions to reports on this study definitely show attitudinal differences among women in that women do not think uniformly about menopause or about the importance of using cosmetics. Women are not  thinking uniformly about how damaging phthalates are to our bodies either.

Of course, by all news reports of this study, phthalates also cause cancer, diabetes, and even feminization of boys (really?), so even if you think early menopause is a good thing you might want to hold off on consuming more phthalates.

What this study (and people’s belief in the study) also reiterates is the fact that our bodies are affected by what we eat, use, and do, as well as what we come into contact with, where we live, etc. Some of the articles reporting on this study focus in on the natural, healthy choices we can make when picking beauty products, household cleaners, prepared food, and other common household items. Who knew there was vegan makeup, for instance? This is all worth a second thought. Sure, we might all want to be done with menstruation sooner than later but phthalate-induced menopause should probably not be our goal.

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Posted in Communication, Internet, Media, Menopause, Menstruation | 1 Comment »

Applauding the “Second Talk”

October 11th, 2012 by Heather Dillaway

In an effort to continue positive conversations about menopause, this blog entry is about Poise’s new “2nd talk” campaign. I was watching TV the other night and an advertisement for Poise’s menstrual pad came on. For once, I was actually happy to see a TV ad on menopause. The ad featured a video of a woman talking about how confusing menopausal symptoms are and what menopausal symptoms can be like, and how women need to talk about them. Menopause talk, then, is the “2nd talk” to which Poise ads are referring. Poise has developed an entire collection of “unscripted” stories from women experiences perimenopause, and it is well worth watching them. Visit the website! The premise is that while we do talk about menstruation (apparently the “1st talk”), we do not talk about menopause and we should. We should share, and we should inform, and this will make women feel better at menopause. Poise is trying to fill the gap by creating a forum for “2nd talk” on their website and in TV ads.

What a wonderful idea. Research has already shown that talking and sharing makes menopause (and any other reproductive health experience for that matter) better, and I’ve blogged about this before. We could debate Poise’s stance that the “1st talk” (menstrual talk) actually happens, but I think we do need to praise the writers of this ad campaign for prioritizing “2nd talk.” It reminds me somewhat of the Dove campaign on what women like about their bodies and while we can find plenty of ways to critique the writers of these campaigns, we can’t deny that they are moving in the right direction.

I hope we see more of this Poise ad campaign! Perhaps we ourselves can also all try to encourage “1st talk” and “2nd talk.” Lately it seems like a lot of the entries on re:Cycling are about opening doors for talking and sharing, and Poise may not be that far behind us.

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Posted in Advertising, Communication, Internet, Media, Menopause, Menstruation | 2 Comments »

New Collection of Research on Menstruation and Representation

March 11th, 2011 by Elizabeth Kissling

A special issue of the scholarly journal Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal has just been published, featuring several pieces about menstruation, media representation, and the ways we talk about it. You can see the table of contents here, as well as purchase individual articles (or the whole collection, for $146.17). Several of these papers were presented at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, and the special issue also includes several new poems, visual work, and book reviews.

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Posted in New Research | 2 Comments »

My Cycle Made Me Do It

October 19th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

g2241hormonesThis morning, ladymag The Stir posted an article titled, “5 Weird Things Our Menstrual Cycles Make Us Do”. Over the weekend, science site Live Science featured an article about the recent surge in ovulation-related research (with the unfortunate title, “Booty Call: How to Spot a Fertile Woman”). As a quick perusal of re:Cycling archives will reveal, these are only the most recent mass media reports of research on how ovulation and female hormones purportedly determine women’s behavior. Recent research has linked hormones and/or ovulation to women’s preferences for masculine faces, why there are so few women sushi chefs, fluctuating cholesterol levels, chocolate cravings, and competitive bidding in online auctions.

I find myself increasingly weary of such stories, especially when they’re uncritically accepted and advanced.  I’m not so naïve as to argue that there aren’t any biological differences between women and men,* but in isolation, hormones explain very little about human behavior. Ovulation is part of a complex endocrine system, which is part of an even more complex body, which exists in a social world with complicated, byzantine, ever-evolving norms, rules, and consequences for our choices. Why are overly simple explanations so popular? Is the current embrace of biological determinism a marker of a new backlash?


*I will argue, however, that most of those differences aren’t as important as they’ve been made out to be.


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Posted in anatomy, Media, New Research | No Comments »

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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Posted in Birth Control, books, magazines, Media, Newspapers, Pharmaceutical | No Comments »

Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.