New this week: Ad for the Japanese tampon Elldy in Junie magazine (October 1996) - humor

What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

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I am right now switching Web site hosts, so there will probably be an incomplete Web site, disruptions in service and maybe even no e-mail service for the period [!] 11-14 February.


Encyclopedia Britannica Praises This Site!

I happily read this e-mail last week:

Dear Webmaster:

Britannica.com is contacting you because our editors have selected your site as one of the best on the Internet when reviewed for quality, accuracy of content, presentation and usability. . . .

We know quality is always difficult to accomplish and maintain. Congratulations on being a selected member of the Britannica Internet Guide. We look forward to our growing association in the future. . . .

Regards,

The Staff at Britannica.com

As a kid I used to randomly read articles in my family's set of Britannica; I was fascinated by the amazing people and things in our world!

For some reason the line drawing of a dinosaur skeleton in that encyclopedia - I don't remember its name - sticks in my memory. In fact, I later collected fossils - I still have the fossilized pelecypods (OK, clams) with crystallized body parts I dug out from the ancient coral reefs that form the hills of Okinawa, Japan, where I lived as an Army brat. Years later I took a seminar in invertebrate paleontology at Johns Hopkins taught by David Raup, later known for his work on the theory that a meteor explosion wiped out the dinosaurs.

My formal interest in geology ended with a mistaken sortie into graduate-school geology, where I quickly realized the importance of the personalities of fellow enthusiasts. They were nice folks, but I sought a people-oriented subject, which, after another mistaken choice - philosophy - I found in German.

But afterwards I spent twenty-five years making art and graphics for a living - and, after years in universities, I was self taught!

So Encyclopedia Britannica led me astray. No, just kidding.

I am very flattered by their award. As site visitors might guess, I spend many hours each weekend, and have for almost four years, on this most interesting project in my life. I think it is worthwhile and Britannica's award only confirms this.

Now, if I can only figure out how to get their search tool to work (bottom of the page)!

Nevertheless, This Site Needs YOUR Help!

MUM gets more visitors than I can pay for!

As some of you know, I pay all costs for this site myself; there's no advertising, there's nothing for sale, and there's no pocket to pick but my own.

This may change soon. The people who host my site shut down MUM briefly last week after the visitor traffic far exceeded what I had expected and contracted for. I was happy and horrified at the same time. And more visitors will come..

Before I accept advertising - companies have wanted to put ads here for years - I want suggestions from you for other ways to keep this site on line. And I don't want to close the site if advertising doesn't work.

Does anyone know of a Web host offering low rates for sites such as this? The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health is a de facto nonprofit, although not legally so. That situation may change in the next year.

There WAS a MUM T-shirt, which I could revive to sell here, as well as other things. But I don't have the staff to do take orders and ship them out. I have a job taking me away from my house 11 hours a day; weekends I update this site and try to recover for another round of work on Monday.

Please, I need your ideas - fast!


Letters to Your MUM

Austrian women need films about menstruation:

We are looking for films about menstruation, rituals for female body film days in Austria.

Do you have or know of any?

Maria Arlamovsky


Suggestions for improving the site, praise, and a joke.

Hello,

I stumbled across the site - don't know how, it's been too many screens ago - and spent the better part of a working day cruising the pages. That's no small tribute to the stickiness of your site, because I'm working in a construction office with lots of standard-issue testosteroids [!] and my computer screen is visible clear across the room.

A couple of suggestions: The links don't seem to change color once visited. [They do when I visit the Internet, but maybe that varies by browser.] Since you cross-reference all over the place, I found myself going back to places I'd already seen because they had a slightly different link name from page to page. The whole site is a little unwieldy, but then again, so is menstruation and the attitudes surrounding it. [I started the site almost four years ago, when I barely knew what HTML was, and it does need to be restructured, but that would be a horrendous project for one person. But it IS unwieldy.]

You are a very fine portrait artist! [Many thanks! I love faces.] I hope you're making lots of dough [HAH!], or at least enough to carry on. [I'm a middle-income graphic designer.] I'm a musician and a songwriter and, well, you know how that is. [If I could earn my living doing it - and if I had any talent - I would be a composer of classical music, so you have my sympathy.]

I have one cat, Stingo, who is of course The Finest Cat in the Universe. Also known as Stinky Boy, Little Chickenbones and other pet names too numerous and inane to list. [No, no, I have the Finest Cats in the Universe, and here are some names for one.]

[She ended with a joke about Stay Free pads, which I put on the joke page, and with another one, which was Too Hot to Handle - for me.]

This may be the only non-Norwegian site with TWO Norwegian jokes!

I saw you had a Norwegian joke about menstruation on your pages; here's another one. [I put it also on the joke page.]

In Norwegian:

Alle barna hoppet i fallskjerm, unntatt Inger, hun brukte Libresse med vinger.

Translated:

All the children jumped with a parachute, except for Inger - she used Libresse with wings. [Libresse is a Scandinavian pad from the SCA Mølnlycke company. See more about the company on this site; here's the SCA Web site.]

I hope you enjoy it! [Thanks! I did!]

Love from a Norwegian girl

[Holy Mackerel! My exclamation is especially appropriate since I believe Norwegian waters are jumping with that species.]


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


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.

The Britannica searcher, below, does not yet work - I'm working on it.

 


New this week: Ad for the Japanese tampon Elldy in Junie magazine (October 1996) - humor

What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?

PREVIOUS 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

© 2000 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