19th Biennial Meeting of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
Chatham University
June 2, 2011 – June 4, 2011
The 19th Biennial Meeting of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR) will be hosted in Pittsburgh’s East End at the Woodland Campus of Chatham University, June 2-4. 2011.
This year’s conference theme, Embodied Consciousness, Informed Choices: Critical Perspectives on the Menstrual Cycle, offers a stimulating opportunity to explore a variety of perspectives on the menstrual cycle. Submissions addressing the conference theme, broadly interpreted, are encouraged.
We welcome submissions that involve research, theory, public policy, health care, clinical applications, media representations, educational materials, and art related to the physiological, sociocultural, psychological, or cross-cultural aspects of the menstrual cycle. For more details, visit the conference web site.
Frequent re:Cycling contributor David Linton was profiled last week in The Online Rocket, the student newspaper of Slippery Rock University. Professor Linton gave a talk on campus about the role of men in advertising for menstrual products.
Supposedly, PMDD occurs in 3% to 8% of menstruating women. There is a host of problems with how this is determined, including varying means of defining and applying the DSM-IV criteria for PMDD across studies, but I’ll spare you that litany here. If PMDD is truly an illness related to the menstrual cycle, the criteria should be sex-specific; that is, only those capable of menstruating should meet the diagnosic criteria (the research implicitly assumes everyone is cissexual and that all non-pregnant women of reproductive age menstruate and no men do – let’s set that aside for now).
To test the sex-specificity of the criteria for PMDD, the researchers created two versions of the assessment tools they used to determine its presence: one version included sex-specific terms like menstruation, menstrual cycle, and premenstrual symptoms, while the other version substituted sex-neutral terms such as experiences and symptoms.
Lo and behold, women who completed the sex-specific diagnostic tools met the provisional criteria for PMDD at a significantly higher rate (20%) than women who completed the sex-neutral diagnostic assessment (8%). And 4.1% of men completing the sex-neutral assessment also met the criteria for PMDD. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of women and number of men meeting the criteria when sex-neutral language was used. The researchers tentatively conclude,
Therefore, these data suggest that PMDD may not be a premenstrual disorder per se. PMDD may instead reflect general cyclical changes in mood, and in women sometimes these changes occur during or near menstruation.
So this little study is far from being the last nail in the coffin PMDD deserves. But it’s a start.
Despite the shame of menstruation, feminist media makers have often turned to the cycle for inspiration. At the 2009 Spokane Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference, I curated a screening of short films on the menstrual cycle. Over the next few weeks I will blog about these films. From there, I’ll regularly review film works made on and about the cycle.
These works fascinate me as they diversely render menstruation. In the words of fellow SMCR blogger, Elizabeth Kissling from her book Capitalizing on the Curse, “There is no shortage of blood in US Mass Media: News broadcasts nightly reveal the blood of violent conflict; movies display gallons of simulated blood in simulated explosions and attacks… But menstrual blood is never seen and seldom mentioned; acknowledgment of the fact that women menstruate remains rare. Menstruation is our ‘dirty little secret.” These films put blood back on screen and re-imagine blood as non-violent. Despite visualizing blood, however, these films see menstruation diversely. There is no single essential menstrual experience when these films are viewed together.
The film program included works by celebrated experimental feminist filmmakers Zeinabu irene Davis (Cycles, 1989) and Barbara Hammer (Menses, 1974) as well as new pieces by upstart filmmakers Marina Shoupe (Bounce, 2007) and Angelique Smith (MENstruation, 2008). To see these films, you will need to contact the makers and I will include links to their sites when they have them. However, to begin this blog theme, I’ll tell you about one work that has a maker I have yet to identify, but which is readily available for viewing. And I will call the piece “Menstruation Animation” (though after the screening, everyone called it “Blob.”
If you type “menstruation” into You Tube, this video is first to appear. This is an animated play on the classic sex-ed films which relentlessly detail the release of the egg and its journey to the uterus. However, this egg squeals with fear as it travels. It clutches the uterine wall, begging not to go as a chorus of “blob”s begins. What strikes me are the male voices singing “Blob. Blob. Blob.” And their goatee-d visages! This short animates the body as a trans-gendered space, and the cycle as a trans-event. With humor. Not derision.
If you wish to have your film reviewed on the blog, please mail it to me on DVD or VHS to: Giovanna Chesler, Marymount Manhattan College, 221 E 71st Street, New York, NY 10021.
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.
