Menstrual Activists: The New Breed Of Artists, Writers, And Protestors Destigmatizing Your Period

Posted by: Olivia Allin Filed in: news
8:30AM, Wednesday October 7th 2009

I got my first period in the sixth grade. When my mom took me to the grocery store to buy pads, I remember glaring at every man that crossed our path, thinking, “You don’t know what it’s like to be controlled by your body! You’re walking around all nonchalant in your Dockers, not a care in the world.” I was immediately and irrevocably pissed off that I had to bleed out of my vagina once a month for most of the rest of my life. But I also felt solidarity, holding my mom’s hand and browsing the maxi pads. I guess that’s why I’m not surprised that the Guardian ran a story this week about women who’ve started a new breed of feminism called “menstrual activism.” Menstrual activist activities range from crafty to political to comedic to environmental. Since a woman uses about 11,400 tampons in her life, lots of menstrual activism involves championing products that aren’t treated with bleach or pesticides, and that can be reused. But you aren’t so interested in that—you want to hear about women dressing up as tampons and wearing period blood lipstick, right? Oh, OK.

Take for example, Chella Quint, who writes a zine called Adventures in Menstruating. She’s a full-fledged “menarchist” who travels to feminist festivals (there are feminist festivals?!?) and takes photographs of the giant gray sanitary disposal units in bathrooms. She says, “I’m just trying to chronicle the number of clues a woman might see each day that say ‘You are a bio-hazard.’”

Other acts that have aided the menstrual activism movement: 18-year-old Rachel Kauder Nalebuff’s My Little Red Book is full of women’s first period stories and became a bestseller in the U.S. It was inspired by her own story and her great aunt’s experience of getting her period when she was about to be strip-searched in Nazi-occupied Poland. Then there’s artist Ingrid Berthon-Moine who made a video of her “twanging her tampon string” along to the song “Slave to the Rhythm”; she is now doing a photography project showing women wearing their own period blood as lipstick. And who could forget Moe from Jezebel’s nightmarish tale, Ten Days In The Life Of A Tampon. She forgot about a tampon inside her for ten days until it smelled like “rotting fish meets sewage meets Black Death.”

For some reason, when I think about periods my Catholic school days spur me to remember how all the women knew Mary was preggers because she wasn’t at the bath house taking care of the uncleanliness that would have been her period. And then I think of “The Jenny McCarthy Show,” when Jenny gets her first period and her mom throws her a huge party and she’s mortified. Why should we have to spend so much of our lives being self-conscious? Plenty of grown women still are embarrassed when buying tampons and many young girls think they’re dying because when they first get it, because no one warned them they were going to start hemorrhaging from the inside out! I was heartbroken by the comments in the Guardian article; people compared talking about periods to discussing bowel movements. How is it the same thing? Oh, and people do talk about pooping, by the way! Periods aren’t going away and since they’re something we experience 25 percent of the month, why shouldn’t the topic be open for discussion?

[Guardian]

comments

betty123
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 07:46 am: [report]

Ew wearing your own period blood as lipstick. That is seriously the most disgusting thing I have ever heard.

And I think that saying that the recepticles in bathrooms remind us that we are biohazards is pushing it a bit far. I mean, used pads and tampons are medical waste and should be handled as such.

I for one do not feel like talking about my period is taboo at all but I choose not to talk about it in a gross manner. Who wants to? And why would I talk about it to a man anyway? I don’t want to hear him talk to me about his excretions.

dizzy
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 08:02 am: [report]

I like the activism. However:

a) Reuse? Uh, no. I prefer something that comes in contact with my blood to be sterile.
b) The gray bins because companies are cheap and they have lids. These are the same places that don’t provide lids for the toilets you use in public.

The only thing I can think of blood-as-lipstick is that it will rub off pretty fast.

BlueVibe
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 08:43 am: [report]

Sorry, but this kind of thing annoys the heck out of me. I went to a private liberal arts college and, after four years, I was so sick of people like this insisting I should be all political about being female. I swear that kind of harping on it makes it feel as much like an affliction as does male chauvinism.

Tampon containers don’t say that women are a biohazard any more than the red boxes in the doctor’s office say that diabetics, people with open wounds, or anyone else who uses syringes or bandages, are biohazards. Bodily secretions can transmit disease. Plain and simple fact. Since I think we can all imagine the uproar there would be if people with transmissible diseases had to identify themselves (yellow star on your coat, anyone?), the rules have to be applied democratically.

I’m neither thrilled about periods nor ashamed of them. They’re annoying: Cramps, mess, general feeling of icky-ness. However, I don’t see how focusing on the female reproductive system is any different from focusing on T&A in terms of reducing women to basic anatomy. I am more than the sum of my biologic functions.

tomato
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 08:47 am: [report]

Why should periods be a stigmatized secret when half the population will live their life experiencing them? If i have to deal with having my period, men can at least deal with hearing about it once in awhile. Women shouldn’t feel they have to hide evidence that their body is normal. In college I read an article that considered the possibility that the emotional rollercoaster experienced during a woman’s period may give her a monthly chance to break free of the social pressure on women to remain composed in public and never show emotion, which is a sign of weakness in the working world. I don’t think it should be so hush-hush.

jackieb31
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 08:55 am: [report]

Thank god, I dont get mine anymore!!! blood as lipstick is just disgusting, I dont care what point they are trying to proove.

SamL
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 09:43 am: [report]

What BlueVibe said ∆...

Jenbug
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 11:47 am: [report]

OK, how about we fight for equal wage and promotions ect, things that are relevant now, not bodily function equality? How is this meaningful or important? It is gross to spread any blood on your mouth and I would find it just as gross if a man video taped himself playing with a string hanging from his junk. Seriously wtf?

JenniferRly
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 11:51 am: [report]

I do think this is a bit much, but I wonder a lot why women are so often taught to be ashamed and disgusted by their parts, while men are taught to embrace them.

I refuse to be ashamed of my period, but at the same time, I wouldn’t use anything else that came out of my body as lipstick, either…

kayti
wrote on October 7 2009 @ 01:32 pm: [report]

If someone doesn’t talk about their periods, that doesn’t mean they’re ashamed. Plain and simple, I don’t want to hear about your bodily functions, and I give you the same courtesy, unless it’s somehow relevant.
I have endometriosis (0-3 periods a year, yay), but I don’t feel the need to go into detail unless someone specifically asks, not because it’s menstrual-related, but some people (including myself) don’t like hearing details about medical issues.

And if men being uncomfortable about periods is an issue for you, is smearing the blood on your mouth really going to help that?
The extremes are just unnecessary shock value, and do more to hurt the cause than help. You know people see this and think feminism=playing with menstrual blood.

jambadreamer07
wrote on October 21 2009 @ 12:42 pm: [report]

Luckily when I started taking birth control my periods shriveled up into almost nothing. I can’t even wear tampons anymore because there’s not enough blood to keep them from feeling really dry. Reading this made me realize how lucky I am to not have to deal with that once a month.

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