New this week: Cheryl Tiegs in Famous People in Menstrual Hygiene Advertising - Carefree tampon (1970s, Personal Products Company, makers of Modess) - Pristeen feminine hygiene deodorant (1969) - Growing Up and Liking It (booklet, Personal Products Company, 1944) - Sally and Mary and Kate Wondered (booklet, Personal Products Company, 1956) - Menstrual humor

PREVIOUS NEWS | news | first page | contact the museum | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | washable pads | LIST OF ALL TOPICS


A Good Film About Your Friend

Think you don't know what other people, male and female, think about periods?

Look at a friend comes to visit, a 30-minute video interview of many folks about their attitudes about menstruation produced by Laura James and directed by Lorena David.

I found the best part late in the film, when most of the women confess that they really don't like it, something I didn't know before I started the museum.

Get all the facts at Kingsize Entertainment, (U.S.A.) 323-467-7199 or fax: 323-467-7201. Visit the Web site!


The Curse Curses Most Everything

But then, it's mostly deserved.

Karen Houppert, who wrote a cover article about tampons and menstruation for New York City's Village Voice, has expanded and deepened her research and criticism in a book just published, The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, $24). Buy it! You will learn a lot.

(Don't mistake this Curse with The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, by Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton and Emily Toth - University of Illinois Press, 1988 -, a general history of the culture of menstruation that introduced me and many others to a fascinating, taboo culture. Buy it! And Houppert's Curse covers some of the same territory as the great Canadian television video Under Wraps)

The theme running through the book is the strange inability of people to talk about menstruation and the problems that causes, like weakened women's self-esteem and empowerment of the menstrual products companies. It reflects the sexism in our culture. You've seen the same theme on this Web site (start here with shame).

Along the way Houppert discusses dioxin in tampons, Rely tampons, the cost of menstrual products, toxic shock, the nature of premenstrual syndrome, advertising, Anne Frank, Judy Blume, Jean Tracy, The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, MUM board member Dr. Philip Tierno, The Goddess, grrrls, Tampax, Procter & Gamble, inSync miniforms (an interesting, first-person treatment of its advertising campaign and product development), and much else. I learned a lot, especially about Anne Frank, Judy Blume and inSync.

She also discusses your MUM: this museum and me, expanded but uncorrected from her Voice article, which she wrote based partly on a day's research at this museum in late 1994. I supplied some illustrations for her article and one for her book.

I must admit I was upset when her article appeared. I learned that she had inspected my house on two visits to the bathroom (the museum was in the basement), even to the point of going through my medicine cabinet, which she writes about (I think what she found shows I have a sense of humor, but there's no indication she thought that). No telling where else she roamed.

She was the first person from a "big" publication to visit the museum, and, boy, was I excited! I even cleaned my house up, taking leave from my job. The cleanliness seems to have disturbed her as much as it shocked me; she writes darkly that my house looked "unlived in" and there was no hair in the sink! I assure her now that things immediately went back to normal, as subsequent visitors discovered; getting whacked for trying to please hurts.

A few days after her visit, the Voice sent a photographer down to document her find - not my living room and bathroom, but the museum. And I wanted to have something really neat for him to shoot, so I commissioned a replica of a 1914 sanitary apron from Dr. Ann Wass, who has made costumes for the Folger Shakespeare Theater, here in Washington. I picked it up the day before he arrived; she did a great job!

So I flip open the Voice weeks later and see me with my arm around a museum mannequin and looking pretty gruesome. Sure I posed for the picture, but I wanted the apron. No sanitary apron. Style beats substance, á la Geraldo.

Houppert says she doesn't understand me. Maybe this will help: I have maybe 15 years to live, I want to do something worthwhile, I like women, I like putting exhibits together, I like talking with people, I like subjects reaching across many cultures, I like languages, I hate to see people and animals suffer, I am smart, and I am willing to take a risk a for a good cause. Read here for more.

She also says I do not take a stand, and doesn't know what my politics are. That's because, I believe, a museum should collect and show all aspects of a subject, and be as apolitical as possible. I know that sounds impossible, but it should be the standard.

I have to mention a few mistakes I found: the museum started in August 1994, not 1995. I'm not tall and pale, and wasn't when she visited (I walked miles in the sun to and from work, and still do; and I'm 5'8"). I had the feeling that she had confused me with someone in another story she was writing. And I didn't say the long quote she attributes to me about menstrual odor; the writer of the journal article she found on this site did.

If the book sees another edition, I suggest the following changes: put "Cycle" in the The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (p. 111 ) and capitalize the "t" on the first "the"; change "o" to "e" in one instance of Procter; and I believe the only slogan of the Rely tampon was "It even absorbs the worry" (p.35). But this is quibbling.

She does find this museum and Web site one of three "harbingers of change" challenging "the culture of concealment" around menstruation. And she is "delighted" by the museum and finds me "sincere," but also naive. I am, and could not have started and continued MUM without being both. I appreciate the estimate.

At the end she wonders where women can find a place to talk and learn about menstruation. I suggest the Museum of Menstruation when it finds a public place.

Many times I saw visitors, strangers to each other, talk with one another about the museum exhibits and their own feelings and ideas. And many said that this was the first time they had ever discussed menstruation this way - or at all.

Imagine sitting in a cafe - or even among the exhibits, which is what I want! - in a museum devoted to women's health, and carrying on and on about what you really think! What fun!! Let's do it!

I know MUM can succeed.


Letters to Your MUM

The writer used the Tassaway menstrual cup and hated it!

Very interesting Web site! And even more so being written by a male author! From where does your interest in this most dreadful function of the female spring? [Everything is explained here.]

I am 48 years old and back in my the early '70's I tried a ghastly, if revolutionary, little product called Tassaway. It was a hideous experience.

I was not surprised that the product disappeared from sight in what seemed to be a matter of weeks [actually years]. The thing was made of fairly hard and thick rubber [actually plastic] and I went through two or three trying to get it seated so that it did not give me a mightily painful hickey. I never was able to get it in place and the directions said not to try to remove it until it had been inserted (a silly euphemism for what really occurred with the product which was basically attach itself nearly permanently to whatever it happened to grab first) for at least ten minutes so that the cup material would have time to soften from body heat. That ten minutes was excruciating! I could not sit down because the dang thing was attached to my clitoris. [!]

I will never try any sort of device like this again. Perhaps I have odd anatomy because some of your respondents obviously love these products. Maybe the newer cups are much improved from the type that were sold in the '70's. I stick with pads!

I have told people about this product and no one believes me. They are either too young to remember or old enough, but not familiar with the product because it was so short-lived and masochistic. I thank you for verifying that indeed this product DID exist and helping me remember the name of it. [Now you can put a name to your nightmares, a consolation of sorts?]


Your MUM steps in, quietly, to save a marriage in England:

Dear MUM,

Having studied the Sambians of New Guinea while at university I was interested to see your site.

The Sambians are an untroubled tribe and have developed their culture without our prejudices over two thousand years. So there must be some truth in it.

The Sambian women do not go anywhere near the Sambian men during their "time of the month" and scatter petunia petals around the "village" to warn the male population that there could be trouble ahead.

I have suggested to my wife that she may wish to adopt a similar policy but she has as yet declined. Have you any suggestions that she may listen to regarding this subject? [Your MUM is mum to you, Honored Reader, about my advice to the inquirer, who is asking the wrong person anyway, being an old bachelor. As if!]

I think it would be a good idea if I spend the "period" time with my girlfriend, but how could I disguise this suggestion so as to maritally maintain the status quo? [My mummification still applies.]

She has gotten a bit fat of late and this is why I feel the need to have a girlfriend. She has her decorating books so I feel it is only fair especially as I earn all the money and all she does is sit home and eat doughnuts with the five children and make curtains.

Thank you for your time.


Tell Your Congressperson You Support the Tampon Safety and Research Act of 1999! Here's How and Why


The BBC wants to hear from you if your cycle is a blessing, makes you creative, if you have experience with menstrual seclusion, or know about current research !

Here's your chance to say how you feel about menstruation!

Please, may I post a letter on your letter page?

I'm researching a documentary for the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] about menstruation - myths and facts and blessing or curse.

I have much information about the curse and predjudice but I am finding scant information about the blessing! I was thrilled to find medical information linking surgery for breast cancer and the menstrual cycle and the New Scientist report about differing medication levels required during the 28-day cycle, and the research about eating requirements differing during the cycle etc., but I want to hear from women who have evidence of the cycle as a blessing, for example, artists, writers, etc., who are at their most creative whilst menstruating.

I also want to meet women who practice menstrual seclusion, as with menstrual huts of the past [and of the present; women still use menstrual huts].

And anything and everything to do with research into menstruation.

Next week I am interviewing Mr Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle who wrote the first book on menstruation that offered positive information, The Wise Wound, 1978. I am very excited about asking many questions resulting from the book. If you have any questions for them pertaining to the book or their second book, Alchemy for Women, about the dream cycle corresponding to the menstrual cycle, I would be delighted to forward them to them on your behalf. They are not on the net so any questions would have to have addresses!

Thank you so much for this glorious Web site [many thanks to you for saying that!] and I look forward to hearing from visitors to your site.

Ali Kedge.

ali@shortkedge.freeserve.co.uk or fflic.zip@business.ntl.com


Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a Public Official For Its Board of Directors

Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.

What public official out there will support a museum for the worldwide culture of women's health and menstruation?

Read about my ideas for the museum. What are yours?

Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law, finances and fund raising to the board.

Any suggestions?


Do You Have Irregular Menses?

If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome [and here's a support association for it].

Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked me to tell you that

Irregular menses identify women at high risk for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which exists in 6-10% of women of reproductive age. PCOS is a major cause of infertility and is linked to diabetes.

Learn more about current research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University - or contact Jane Newman.

If you have fewer than six periods a year, you may be eligible to participate in the study!

See more medical and scientific information about menstruation.


New this week: Cheryl Tiegs in Famous People in Menstrual Hygiene Advertising - Carefree tampon (1970s, Personal Products Company, makers of Modess) - Pristeen feminine hygiene deodorant (1969) - Growing Up and Liking It (booklet, Personal Products Company, 1944) - Sally and Mary and Kate Wondered (booklet, Personal Products Company, no date) - Menstrual humor


PREVIOUS NEWS | news | first page | contact the museum | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | belts | bidets | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | washable pads | LIST OF ALL TOPICS

Take a short tour of MUM! (and on Web video!) - FAQ - Future of this museum - Tampon Safety Act - Contact the actual museum - Board of Directors - Norwegian menstruation exhibit - The media and the MUM - Menstrual odor - Prof. Mack C. Padd: Fat Cat - The science and medicine of menstruation - Early tampons - Books about menstruation - Menstrual cups: history, comments - Religion and menstruation: A discussion - Safety of menstrual products (asbestos, dioxin, toxic shock syndrome, viscose rayon) - A Note from Germany/Neues aus Deutschland und Europa - Letters - Links

© 1999 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org