[I'm n]ot very sure what kind of pads were used centuries ago but what we heard and also know is that women earlier to our generations used to use cotton cloth. They would have a few pieces which are washed and used and then stored in a place for next period's safely. They would dry them in a place where insects wouldn't crawl on them. To our knowledge sanitary pads were not used by orthodox people in the south India because they never encouraged their blood being thrown away for hygienic reasons as well as religious reasons. This practise is still continued by many old women. [Read and see how two groups are changing what Indian women use: in Almora, Uttar Pradesh state and Rajasthan state. In Almora women sit out their periods in a cow shed or similar place, bleeding into their clothing.]
-An Indian Girl. [She also generously contributed three expressions used in India to the Words and expressions page: Casual leave, Out of doors, Those three days.]
Hi!
I love your Web site. Thanks to you, I discovered the Keeper (Web site: http://www.thekeeperinc.com) three years ago and am now the proud owner of one for over a year. In other news, I wanted to let you know (although I'm probably not the first) that there are two new cups on the market: MoonCup (http://www.mooncup.co.uk/) and DivaCup (http://www.divacup.com). Though I do feel kind of sad that the Keeper is being usurped a bit (these two cups are boil-able, cheaper and have a longer money-back guarantee), I'm glad the idea is spreading. [Read more about menstrual cups here.]
Also, you can get videos of old sex-ed films from the fifties at http://www.archive.org. Search "sex education" and choose "moving pictures" from the drop down menu next to the search area. "Molly Grows Up" is one of the titles.
I hope you can use these two bits of info to enhance your wonderful site!
Sincerely,
NU-NAP, The Modern Sanitary Pad, was last manufactured by Foam Products, Inc. in Elwood, Indiana. The Company was owned by me and my half-sister Irene Mildred Hollingsworth. Our plant was on South J Street in Elwood.
The pad was made of two pieces of 1/4 inch foam rubber with the outer piece coated with a waterproof latex. The pad came with a belt. In the 1930s a very early edition of the pad was sold by teams of door-to-door sales women working for a Betty and Kean out of New York City. My mother began selling their pad in 1933. They traveled all over the United States, and in some border Mexican towns. The pad then was made with two pieces of 1/2 inch foam rubber, which made it quite bulky. It sold for $2.98 with a 3-year warranty. The saleswoman got a $1.00 commission from each sale. Betty and Kean manufactured their pad at their home in New York.
Later my brother-in-law Ted Hollingsworth and my mother Ann Eisaman began manufacturing the pad with 1/4 inch pieces of foam rubber supplied by Goodyear Rubber. They used the name Sanitary Sales, out of Elwood, Indiana. The price and commission remained the same. The operation shut down during World War II because the foam rubber became unavailable.
After World War II Ted and my mother Ann began manufacturing and selling pads again. In 1951, after I returned to Elwood from a civilian job on Okinawa [part of Japan], my sister and I started Foam Products, Inc., in Elwood, and Irene managed to get a patent on the pad. Ted and my sister had divorced in 1950 and he was no longer in our business. My mother Ann continued taking crews of saleswomen all over the U.S., and one summer up to Alaska, using the unpaved Alcan Highway. The price had risen to $10.95, with a $1.00 commission still going to the saleswoman, and with all of her travel expenses paid by us.
We closed the Elwood plant and discontinued manufacture and sales of the pad after our crooked Tipton, Indiana, corporate lawyer, [deleted], and his buddy [deleted] (founder of [deleted] in Lapel, Indiana) tried to take the company out of our control.
My mother and her crews sold hundreds of thousands of NU-NAP, The Modern Sanitary Pad, over the years we were in operation. We also supplied the Wycliffe Bible Institute and other overseas missionary groups with pads to be used by their female missionaries. The pad could also be used by men to control colostomies and other rectal disorders. To this date I still run into women whose mothers turned them on to using NU-NAP, with excellent results. You washed it, dried it with a towel, and it was ready for use again immediately.
Thought you might find this information to be of interest.
Elmer E. Eisaman (Mean Gene)
[If you want to contact him, I have his e-mail and physical address.]
Hey there.
A friend of mine sent me a link to this site yesterday (http://urban-armor.org/urban-armor/) and I was wondering if you have heard of this organization or their products.
Incidentally, I found the mum Web site about four years ago and it taught me a whole lot. I'd wondered for a long time about the history of feminine hygiene and I was starting to think I was the only person who every thought to ask "What did women do before prepackaged synthetic disposable products?"
Through you I learned about The Keeper (which I've been using very happily for about 10 months) and for that I am extremely grateful, it has changed my life!
I think your work is very important... a link to mum.org inserted into an online conversation is a great way to break the repressed silence surrounding women's bodies.
Thank you and keep it up!
Hey, your link - http://www.mum.org/ were added to our Web site at -
http://www.womens-welfare.com/Top_Health_Womens_Health_Menstruation.html
Thanks.
Hi, Mr Finley,
I did not take the time to thank you for the fantastic work you do. It must be endless to manage all this information and all the mails people must send you. I appreciated your bibliography that I find very complete. I refer to your site in my master's thesis for the latest update about the Tampon Safety and Research Act [the unfortunately defunct legislation about testing menstrual products, HR 890. In today's caveman climate there's no possibility that it would be enacted. I hope the sun will chase those creatures back into their hideouts.] I liked the fact that you seem so honest and sincere when dealing with people's questions. I read some of the jokes and I do not see what is so shocking about making fun of lesbians when a lot of jokes make fun of blonds and nobody is shocked. However, some subjects seem to be more touchy then others but I think you are doing a great job in putting on line the things you have judged deserved to be there as they concern menstruation.
Also, I wanted to ask you something. My master's thesis [about women's experience of menstruation in Montreal] is in French and I was wondering if you'd be interested in having it for yourself or for the site. [Yes, for the site! Thanks!]
I stumbled across your Web site a few years back (when you actually had a physical museum). You were about ready to close up and move. I wished you well on finding your new "pad." I got very busy working on a museum studies degree, (my B.S. is in nursing, minor in history - so you can loosely put together my interest in your endeavors). I am sad to see you are buildingless, and that you have received so much negative feedback [but much more positive feedback, including yours]. But I am here to again share with you some positive feedback. I am sure glad to see you at least have your Website - and so chocked full of info now. I was actually planning a vacation to the East Coast and I remembered your museum, so I was checking to see if I could fit it into my vacationing plans. I live in the very middle of the good ol' USA - Kansas. And all I could remember is that you were somewhere out east. If I had money or owned land or a building, I'd surely donate it to your cause. I wish you the best of luck in your continued pursuit. I also thank you for sharing your info. I have often used some of what I have learned on your site when giving tours through the Kansas Museum of History. Mostly adult females will have the guts to actually come up and ask me direct questions. I usually teach to school groups, so I have to be careful what I say. But I always like to bring up personal "everyday" things that we take for granted and ask the kids (when discussing Oregon Trail pioneers) "Well, what DO you think they did when they had to go to the bathroom?" and that at least gets the adult chaperones thinking of other personal "stuff." Hm.
Anyway glad to see you are still out there. When I win the lottery, I will send some your way!! [Thanks for your thoughts!]
Dear Mr. Finley,
I am an Italian journalist and first of all I would like to express my utmost admiration for you and your museum. One day a while ago I started wondering who invented tampons with the applicator - was it a man or a woman? And similar things. I was amazed at myself for never having asked these questions. So I went to Rome's women's bookshop and looked for a history of pads and menstruations and found nothing. So I went to the national library and found nothing. I looked for a long time because I really could not believe there was such an historical void until I found your wonderful Web site and most of my questions were answered.
Now I would like to help others answer these questions by writing an article about your museum and trace a bit of history of sanitary pads and menstruation. The article would be published in the weekly cultural supplement of Italian daily newspaper Il Manifesto, a smallish paper with a circulation of some 50,000 copies. [Questions for me followed.]
Thank you very much in advance.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Raffaella Malaguti
See the following letter from someone who read this article.
I've read today an article about your museum in the Italian newspaper "Il Manifesto." Sorry, but I don't write correctly English, so I write Italian. I hope you can translate because it can be interesting for you. [Translation follows, then the Italian original]
My grandmother was from Trieste (north-east Italy, Friuli Venezia Giulia). She graduated in medicine in Padova (north-east Italy, Veneto) in 1923. She was the first woman doctor in Trieste.
From her my mother's family has inherited a group of oral rules about menstruation in order to foresee the future. I cannot say about Monday and Thursday, since we have lost the meaning they had. But if menstruation came on Tuesday, during the coming month women would be angry; on Wednesday they would travel; on Friday they would cry; on Saturday they would have success; on Sunday they would have love. Perhaps on Thursday women would have money.
It's difficult to explain what growing up and living with that prescriptive tradition psychologically meant to my mother, my sister and me and also to my father and my brother (the earthquake in Friuli in 1976 and my father's death have been ascribed by my mother to the concomitance of three periods in the family that began on Friday). In any case, I carefully avoid mentioning those rules to my two daughters.
Everything was based on oral tradition. But when my mother spoke about it with a friend (female), a sheet, written by her mother-in-law, a legacy of local culture, came in the hands of my mother. The text was not only about the day of the week, but also the day of the month and the month.
It is a set of rules that I have refused to adhere to in order to preserve my mental health (I still feel the effects of the provision on Friday), but which my mother has in photocopy.
I will make an example: if menstruation comes on Friday, 27 May, during the month you will cry a lot for love but you will find someone to console you. Etc.
It is a kind of menstrual cabal perhaps due to Hapsburg tradition. In the Hapsburg empire women were more free and could talk quietly about those things.
My grandmother-doctor didn't yield on menstruation: she taught my mother to make a note of her menstrual periods, of ours, and now, also of granddaughters'. My mother's diaries are full of menstrual periods. On this basis all the problems about saying "ti vengono domani" (They - menstruation - come tomorrow), "sono in piena ovulazione" (I'm in full ovulation), "hai le mestruazioni" (You have menstruation) are explained, but let's avoid the attention paid to the density of the flow.
If you need this material, I'm available to find it and send you. Anthropologically it's interesting, psychologically it's to avoid like every superstition.
Let me know what should I do. [I accepted her offer; I'll put at least a portion of the material on this site if everything goes OK.]
Mia nonna, triestina, si è laureata in Medicina a Padova nel 1923. E' stata la prima donna medico di Trieste. Da lei la famiglia di mia madre ha ereditato una serie di regole orali che supervisionavano i cicli mestruali per prevedere il futuro. E' andata persa la nozione del lunedì e del giovedì. Ma se le mestruazioni venivano di martedì nel mese successivo le donne sarebbero state rabbiose, di mercoledì avrebbero viaggiato, di venerdì avrebbero pianto (lutti), di sabato averbbero avuto successo e di domenica amore. Probabilmente il giovedì portava soldi. E' difficile spiegare cosa ha significato a livello psicanalitico per mia madre, me e mia sorella (nonchè mio padre e mio fratello) crescere e convivere con questa tradizione prescrittiva (il terremoto del '76 in Friuli e la morte di mio padre furono imputate da mamma alla concomitanza di tre cicli di venerdì in famiglia, il suo, il mio e quello di mia sorella), sta di fatto che evito accuratamente di menzionarla alle mie due figlie.
Fino a questo punto tutto si basava sulla tradizione orale. Quando mia madre decise di parlarne con un'amica, venne fuori un foglio vergato a mano dalla suocera, retaggio di cultura locale, che non solo si occupava del giorno della settimana, ma anche del giorno vero e proprio (1, 2 ecc) e, mi pare, anche del mese. Una serie di prescrizioni che mi sono rifiutata di conservare per preservare la mia salute mentale (ancora oggi subisco i nefasti effetti delle nefande previsioni sul venerdì), ma che mia madre ha in fotocopia. Insomma, faccio un esempio, se venerdì 27 maggio, vado a casaccio, ti vengono le mestruazioni, nel mese piangerai molto per amore, ma troverai chi ti consolerà...E così via. E' una specie di cabala mestruale che affonda le sue radici nelle tradizioni probabilmente asburgiche, là dove le donne, più libere, potevano parlare tranquillamente di queste cose. La nonna medico sui cicli non transigeva, insegnando a mia madre a segnare su un'agenda prima i suoi cicli, poi i nostri e ormai, per deformazione mentale, anche quelli delle nipoti. Le agendine di mia mamma trasudano mestruazioni. Su questa base spiega tutti i problemi al motto di 'ti vengono domani', 'sono in piena ovulazione', 'hai le mestruazioni'...Non parliamo dell'attenzione sulla densità del flusso...
Se vi serve questo materiale, mi do disponibile a recuperarlo e inviarvelo. Antropologicamente è interessante, psicologicamente da evitare come ogni superstizione.
Fatemi sapere.
Congratulations for the site.
Francesca Longo, journalist
Yours is a very good site, with a legitimate issue that doesn't need to be veiled in secrecy any more than it has been, as our small world grows into a learning engine, for both self awareness and mutual understanding. I sympathize with your collection needing a place of its own in a metropolitan atmosphere.
Somebody somewhere should include your items in a permanent shared space of its own. But moving the collection away from the city, and giving it it's own unique charm as a quaint, odd little showcase on a roundabout tour of eccentric museum outposts is what I believe it needs. What a better place than Prince George's County [in Maryland, U.S.A., next to Washington, D.C., where I - your MUM - live and where the museum was once in my house]; they seem to be willing to try new things on occasion, and especially with their need to develop suburban areas using fresh new ideas. Find an investor, get a grant, and keep looking. How about surroundings near Bowie, Upper Marlboro, Clinton, Beltsville (what a concept - "belt," get it?), Largo (a place to go before the football game), or out near Rosecroft?
Good luck.
[As some of you know, I've thought about this for years, especially after closing the museum in my house because, after four years, it wore me out. Anyone want to have the museum named after herself - or himself - for a few million bucks?]
Hello Harry,
I mentioned the site to my twelve-year-olds yesterday because, prompted by a feature article and following a line of lateral thought, they began talking about black panty liners for g-strings! As there is only one girl, and me, in the room, I told them about your site. It will be good for them to visit the site because - as you say - it is often a hidden world, and I believe the lop-sided and often peculiar view presented by advertising is because women do it, and men advertise the products! A bit like D. H. Lawrence's writing from a female's point of view - not entirely a success!!!! [You can imagine the criticism I've heard because I'm a male, in spite of my nom de menstruation MUM.]
Good luck with finding a museum site. It's good the medical curator is interested. [Megan Hicks, from Australia's Powerhouse Museum, who will get all 5000 or so items from the MUM archives if I die before the museum is established in the U.S.A. Read my plans for a museum.] It should be as interesting as the gyny instruments from the past which are displayed in King Edwards Women's Hospital in Subiaco!
Quite mind boggling!
Rose in Western Australia
 |
Well, I'm into menopause, no thanks to having cervical cancer which caused surgical menopause. So now what do you do with all those maxi pads you have left over that you can not use? Well, someone on the Internet had an idea: make them into warm comfortable slippers.Barb Gibson, 50 years old and holding. Cervical cancer, 11 months NED and counting, Vancouver, B.C., CanadaShe added later:NED (which is also a human's name but not in this case) stands for "No Evidence of Disease," which means you have no sign of what every was haunting your body. I put that there for a e-mail woman's gyn. support group I belong to called Gyn Gals that helps support woman with all types of gynecological problems. You can use my name if you want. |
Just a few words of praise for your site.
Ignore misogynists and less educated people who may protest it. Finally, a site that shows menstruation as the wonderful, slightly mysterious, sometimes problematic, but always natural and good event that it really is. The belief that menstruation is dirty and shouldn't be examined is just another way to keep women down. How can something that helps create life be anything but a blessing? I would never forgo having my period. I may not always enjoy it, but most people don't enjoy childbirth either. Just because something isn't always "fun" doesn't mean it isn't valuable and worthwhile. Perhaps if society viewed menses as something other than shameful, women would see their periods as a blessing as well.
I enjoy the site and reference it frequently in relation to my M.A. thesis. I am currently examining modern women's autobiography and the use of menstruation as a way to connect with the mother figure and at the same time assert autonomy. Thank you for your valuable resource!
Good work,
Prizes for unpublished manuscripts
The American Historical Association's Gutenberg-E competition this year will award six prizes for unpublished manuscripts on the history of gender or women's history. Deadline: September 1, 2003
Details at http://www.theaha.org/prizes/gutenberg
Book about periods needs your input, MEN!
Kaylee Powers-Monteros is writing a book about women's periods called "Bloody Rites."
"I consider a woman's period her rite of passage. . . . My book is focusing on the language we use about periods and how that impacts our perceptions of it," she writes.
She has a chapter about men's first learning about menstruation and would like to hear from men in response to the question, "When was the first time you ever heard anything about a period and what was it?" I already sent her mine: when I was in sixth grade the kid next door said his sister had started bleeding from you-know-where. I didn't know anything about you-know-where, actually, having grown up in a prudish military household with two bothers, no sisters and a mother who must have felt very alone.
E-mail her at bloodyrites2003@aol.com
Migrane study at Emory University needs online participants
Researchers at the Emory University School of Nursing are conducting an Internet-based study looking at the experience of migraines in women between the ages of 40 and 55. The study includes completion of online questionnaires and participation in an online discussion group with other women who also have headaches. For more information, please visit the study Web site at http://www.sph.emory.edu/migraine, or call the research phone line at 404-712-8558.
Thanks so much.
Peggy Moloney
Call for Papers
Diagnosing Women's Health in Popular Culture
Seeking paper proposals that explore women's health in popular culture for possible presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture/American Culture Association Conference in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A., November 7 to 9, 2003.
Popular culture offers a multitude of representations of women's health, women's relationship to healthcare products and to the healthcare industry, as well as of women's care of others, both formally and informally. What meanings are attached to print advertising, Internet ads, television commercials, television dramas, situation comedies, film, poetry, short stories, novels, or photography on the linkage between women's health and popular culture? Papers that explore the U.S. healthcare industry, women as medical professionals, and the medicalization of women's bodies in terms of race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality are particularly encouraged.
Send an email submission (NO ATTACHMENTS) with paper title, 250 word abstract, short CV, full address and audiovisual needs by June 15 to Dr. Katie Hogan, Area Chair, Women's Studies Panel, MAPACA, EMAIL: wsmapaca@aol.com
Contribute to fund in honor of Jill Wolhandler and help The Women's Community Health Center in Massachusetts (U.S.A.)
Dear Women [oh, let's add "men," too],
Here is an opportunity to honor two significant contributions to the women's health movement - The Women's Community Health Center in Massachusetts, and Jill Wolhandler, a member of the health center and a strong women's health advocate, who died in December 2002.
For the many of you who worked with Jill, I am including the remembrance from her memorial service.
Jill has many friends throughout the country.
In honor of Jill's vision and commitment to women's health, a fund in Jill's name has been established and we are asking for donations in order to catalogue and process the Women's Community Health Center files. There is a high level of interest in material from this period of the women's health movement, and your contribution would assure that information from that time is preserved. Donations are tax deductible.
Checks can be made to the Schlesinger Library - on the memo section of the check, please write "Processing WCHC."
Send checks to:
Paula Garbarino
Jill Wolhandler Fund
16 Ivaloo St.
Somerville, MA 02143
Thank you,
Catherine DeLorey
Women's Community Health Center Files Reside at the Schlesinger Library
At the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Women's Community Health Center [WCHC] in 1999, a group of former collective members announced that materials from the health center years had been donated to the archives at Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library. This material consisted of a variety of documents such as meeting minutes, articles written about or by WCHC members, clinic schedules, surveys and feedback forms, as well as other "herstorical" items.
Several boxes of documents were reviewed to ensure that no confidential material containing names or identifying information about women using the services would be shared with the Schlesinger.
Despite the fact that the material has not yet been organized or catalogued, there have been numerous requests from women's health scholars to review the material. It has become a rich trove of information and offers a unique perspective into the women's health movement of the 1970's and early 1980's.
In order to make the material widely available, the boxes of documents need to be "processed" or catalogued. To do this, personnel at the library will fully review the contents of the collection. Generally this involves preserving the original order of the material as it was donated according to either chronological or topical categories. If no original order exists, they will determine how to best logically sort and present it so that scholars can use the contents. The material will be subdivided into folders with guides to contents and clippings will be photocopied. An overall guide to the organization and listing of summaries will be generated. This guide will be available on the internet with worldwide circulation. Folders will be photocopied and sent out upon request for personal research purposes only. Publication permission usually rests with the library and the original authors of the material.
Other legal arrangements were made at the time the gift of the material was made to the Schlesinger; Cookie Avrin generously offered legal assistance in this process.
About 5 linear feet of material (the library's standard of measurement) was donated. Processing is expected to cost $600 per foot. The total estimated cost is approximately $3000.
On a related note, the library has about 40 feet of material from Our Bodies Ourselves and recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to process that collection.
A Remembrance of Jill
Written by Diane Willow for Jill's memorial service
Jill Wolhandler was born on January 22, 1949 in Scarsdale, New York. She died on December 6, 2002 in the home that she shared with her beloved partner, Janet Connors.
Jill moved to Dorchester to be with Janet and her children David, Shana and Joel, shortly after meeting Janet fifteen years ago. Jill felt great joy and pride in her chosen family.
Together they made a nurturing home that always welcomed their extended family of friends. Seth and Terrance remained dear members of Jill's extended family.
And, over the years Charlotte and Christopher came into her life at 26 Bearse Avenue.
Jill was the first child of her beloved mother Jean and her father Joe, and the older sister of Peter, Laurie and Steven. She later found enduring pleasure as Aunt Jill to Sara, Gina and Jacob. After excelling in the Scarsdale schools, she went to the International School in Geneva to complete high school. She continued her education at the University of Chicago before beginning graduate studies at Johns Perkins University. She utilized her deep knowledge of human physiology in teaching, writing and political work. Later in life she completed graduate studies in occupational therapy at Tufts University. She attributed her most significant learning to her ongoing work as a social activist.
After moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the mid nineteen-seventies, she became involved in the work of the local and national women's health movement. She contributed to an early publication of Our Bodies Ourselves (1976) as a freelance editor and co-authored a chapter in the New Our Bodies Ourselves (1984). She joined the Women's Community Health Center (1975), working first as a member of the collective and later as one of the four women on the guiding committee.
During her time as the most enduring member of the health center, Jill dedicated herself to the self-help philosophy with particular focus on the Pelvic Teaching program (the first of its kind in the nation) in collaboration with Harvard Medical School as well as the Fertility Consciousness project. Toxic shock syndrome and the related Tampon legislation was also a focal point for Jill's research and advocacy. She was also an early supporter on research related to daughters born to mothers who had used DES during their pregnancies.
Jill's political activism for women's health issues brought her to the Vermont Women's Health Center where she was able to learn abortion procedures legally. She spent a year in Vermont, developing these skills, believing that she would then be able to pass them on if abortions were to become illegal again.
Meanwhile, she did ongoing work as a bookkeeper. Her former clients included Red Sun Press and other activist organizations. Her most recent work was as the Business Manager of the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy. Although deadlines were often a cause for worry with Jill, she was meticulous in her accounting and her co-workers valued her conscientious approach.
A cello player in her youth, Jill revived her passion for music through her annual participation in the Early Music Week at Pinewoods, as a player of the bass viol in the Brandeis Early Music Ensemble, and as a member and the Treasurer of the New England Regional Chapter of the Viola de Gamba Society. She found peace in music and pleasure in sharing it with others.
Many of Jill's friends and acquaintances have often heard Jill express her love of words with her unique sense of humor. She was known to make up her own vocabulary, whether as terms of endearment for loved ones, alternative names for common places and landmarks or just her quirky way of describing things. Her love of nature and the natural world was a sustaining force in her life. She was especially fond of the ocean and felt at home walking the beaches of the Cape or staying in Provincetown.
She loved animals, was an avid bird watcher and lived for many years with cats and turtles. She raised small red-eared sliders. When these turtles came to her they were the size of a quarter. After decades of thriving, they now require two hands to hold and continue their lives in a plexi-pond at The Children's Museum in Boston.
A playful spirit at heart, Jill took delight in the mini-firework displays bursting from sparklers and the swirling rainbow colors in drifting soap bubbles.
Her pleasure in play and her curious mind made her an engaged companion of the children in her life and others who remain young at heart. A rather old soul who had her share of challenges, Jill found her joy in friendships and in the ways that she was able to contribute to a better quality of life through social activism.
Women's Universal Health Initiative
Women's Universal Health Initiative
Women's Universal Health Initiative is by women for women - if you have ideas, events, information, or comments to share, send them to Info@wuhi.org
In these difficult times, all advocacy groups are struggling financially. WUHI is no exception. Please consider becoming a member to support the continuation of the web site and our work on universal health care.
You become a member of WUHI with a tax-deductible donation of any amount. Go to the WUHI website to join online, or send your donation to WUHI, Box 623, Boston, MA 02120.
Health Care Reform: a Women's Issue
Anne Kasper
Anne Kasper, a long time women's health activist, discusses why health care reform is a women's issue. Anne is an editor, with Susan J. Ferguson of Breast Cancer: Society Shapes an Epidemic, a powerful and informative book on the politics of breast cancer.
To read the complete article: http://www.wuhi.org/pages/articles.html <http://www.wuhi.org/pages/articles.html%A0>
Health care reform has long been a women's issue. Since the beginnings of the Women's Health Movement in the late 1960s, women have known that the health care system does not work in the best interests of women's health. When we think of the health care system and its component parts doctors, hospitals, clinics, and prescription drugs, for instance we are increasingly aware that the current system is not designed to promote and maintain our personal health or the health of others. Instead, we are aware of a medical system that delivers sporadic, interventionist, hi-tech, and curative care when what we need most often is continuous, primary, low-tech, and preventive care. Women are the majority of the uninsured and the under insured as well as the majority of health care providers. We are experts on our health, the health of our families, and the health of our communities. We know that we need a health care system that must be a part of changes in other social spheres -- such as wage work, housing, poverty, inequality, and education -- since good health care results from more than access to medical services.
Featured Site
UHCAN - Universal Health Care Action Network
http://www.uhcan.org/
UHCAN is a nationwide network of individuals and organizations, committed to achieving health care for all. It provides a national resource center, facilitates information sharing and the development of strategies for health care justice. UHCAN was formed to bring together diverse groups and activists working for comprehensive health care in state and national campaigns across the country.
Their annual conference, planned for October 24-26, 2003 in Baltimore, MD, is one of the best grass-roots action conferences available. They consider universal health care justice from many perspectives.
Visit UHCAN's website for resources, analyses of health reform issues, and more information on their campaigns for health care justice.
Proposals, Policies, Pending Legislation
Health Care Access Campaign - the Health Care Access Resolution
http://www.uhcan.org/HCAR/
Health care in America is unjust and inefficient. It costs too much, covers too little, and excludes too many. As the economy deteriorates, it is rapidly getting worse.
One in seven Americans, 80% of whom are from working families, lack health insurance and consequently suffer unnecessary illness and premature death. Tens of millions more are under insured, unable to afford needed services, particularly medications. Health care costs are a leading cause of personal bankruptcy. Communities of color endure major disparities in access and treatment. Double-digit medical inflation undermines employment-based insurance, as employers drop coverage or ask their employees to pay more for less. State budgets are in their worst shape in half a century. Medicare and Medicaid are caught between increases in need and a financial restraints.
In the 108th Congress, the Congressional Universal Health Care Task Force will introduce the Health Care Access Resolution, directing Congress to enact legislation by 2005 that provides access to comprehensive health care for all Americans. Legislators, reacting to the urgency for health care reform, will likely introduce several proposals in this Congress.
Check out the link to learn more about the resolution and how you can contribute to it.
Proposed Health Insurance Tax Credits Could Shortchange Women
http://www.cmwf.org/programs/insurance/collins_creditswomen_589.pdf
Commonwealth Fund report, reviews federal policies designed to help low-income adults buy health insurance, which have focused on tax credits for purchasing coverage in the individual insurance market. This analysis of premium and benefit quotes for individual health plans offered in 25 cities finds that tax credits at the level of those in recent proposals would not be enough to make health insurance affordable to women with low incomes.
Time for Change: the Hidden Cost of a Fragmented Health Insurance System
http://www.cmwf.org/programs/insurance/davis_
An excellent overview by Karen Davis, President of The Commonwealth Fund, of factors in the US health care system that lead to it being the most expensive health system in the world.
A Place at the Table: Women's Needs and Medicare Reform
By Marilyn Moon and Pamela Herd
http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Order.asp?ItemID=199
This book, published by the Century Foundation, shows that women have different retirement needs as a group than men. Women are more likely to require long-term care services because they live longer and are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases. Suggests guidelines that would make Medicare reforms work for women, including how to deal with comprehensiveness, affordability, access to quality care, and the availability of information.
Women in the Health Care System: Health Status, Insurance, and Access to Care
http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/PrintProducts/PrintProd_Detail.asp?ID=78
Report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) focuses on women in the United States in 1996. Health insurance status is examined in terms of whether women are publicly insured, privately insured, or uninsured, and whether insured women are policyholders or dependents.
Health Insurance Coverage in America: 2001 Data Update
http://www.kff.org/content/2003/4070/
Although not specific to women, this resource contains valuable information about women and health insurance coverage and provides valuable information and facts for general presentations on universal health care. The chart book provides year 2001 data on health insurance coverage, with special attention to the uninsured. It includes trends and major shifts in coverage and a profile of the uninsured population.
Resources
Health Care Links
http://www.pnhp.org/links/
Links to state, national and international organizations working for single payer health care and universal health care. A resource of Physicians for a National Health Program - check out the site for many other resources and excellent factual information on a single payer health care system [ http://www.pnhp.org/links/ <http://www.pnhp.org/links/> ].
Universal Health Care Organizations in Your State
http://www.everybodyinnobodyout.org/index.htm#regnl
A list of state organizations working for universal health care. Resource of Everybody In, Nobody Out [EINO: http://www.everybodyinnobodyout.org ]. Not all states represented.
Families USA New Online Service
http://fusa.convio.net/site/R?i=6d26XZDs_24DRYvcWDDmjg .
Families USA online service to provide registered users with the following benefits:
Free bimonthly newsletters with articles on health policy issue.
Announcements about organization events.
Discounts on publications
Kaiser Network for Health Policy - Publications and Reports
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=links&hc=806&linkcat=61 <http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/hcast_index.cfm?display=links&hc=806&linkcat=61>
Reports and publications on health policy, access, uninsured and insurance. Supported by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Good source of information.
Calendar
May 8 - 9 2003
Health Policy and the Underserved
http://www.jcpr.org/conferences/event_description.cfm?conid=124
Sponsored by the Joint Center for Poverty Research, looks a social, economic, and outcomes of policies for the underserved.
May 14-16, 2003
2003 Managed Care Law Conference
Colorado Springs, CO
http://www.healthlawyers.org/programs/prog_03mc.cfm
Co-sponsored by American Health Lawyers Association and American Association of Health Plans. Presents legal issues facing health plans and providers.
October 24-26, 2003
National Universal Health Care Action Network [UHCAN] Conference
Baltimore, MD
http://www.uhcan.org/
One of the best grass-roots action conferences available. Considers universal health care from all its perspectives. Check out their website for an overview of their orientation.
November 15, 2003
Physicians for a National Health Program Fall Meeting
http://www.pnhp.org/action/?go=events
San Francisco, CA
November 15 - 19, 2003
American Public Health Association Annual Meeting
San Francisco, CA
http://www.apha.org/meetings/
Meeting of professionals in public health. Has many sessions on health care reform and women's health, including universal health care.
January 22-23, 2004
National Health Policy Conference
Washington, DC
http://www.academyhealth.org/nhpc/
Wide-ranging discussions of health policy, including health care reform and universal health care.
Women's Universal Health Initiative
PO Box 623
Boston, MA 02120-2822
617-739-2923 Ext 3
www.wuhi.org <http://www.wuhi.org>
info@wuhi.org
Artist Tamara Wyndham has show in New York City
[Ms. Wyndam shows work on this MUM site here.]
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY presents
THAT TIME OF MONTH
Four Female Artists Bridge the Personal and the Universal
MARCH 8 - MAY 4
Opening Reception, Saturday March 8, 2003, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue at 10th Street; call (212) 475-0108 for information
Gallery Hours M-Sat 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sun 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Diane Apostolacus
Born and raised on the Jersey Shore, Diane Apostolacus graduated from Alfred University with a B.F.A. in 1987, afterwards making her artistic life in Brooklyn, N.Y. Throughout many creative interests such as book carvings, box constructions, collages, printmaking and photography, Diane has remained most devoted to painting in encaustics. She was awarded a residency at Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, N.Y., in November of 1999 where she focused exclusively on her encaustics works. Since then, Diane has exhibited in various galleries and functions in Brooklyn and was accepted into "Encaustic Works 99," a juried International Biennial in Kingston, N.Y.
On exhibit will be four paintings by Diane, reflecting her unique perspective on everyday things.
Zenzele Browne
A native of Philadelphia, Zenzele Browne distinguished herself at the renowned Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. For the past 19 years, she has made New York City her home, particularly the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where she lives, loves, laughs and paints paints paints paints paints! Zenzele's work was recently featured in the traveling exhibit "The Politics of Racism" at ABC No Rio, Lowe Gallery at Hudson Guild and Fire Patrol #5 Gallery. Other recent exhibits include " Erotic Art of Black Women" at Satta Gallery in Brooklyn and "Mumia 911" at Rush Fine Arts Gallery. To view more of Zenzele Browne's artwork visit www.inthelightfinearts.com.
Five large-sized exuberant interior landscapes by Zenzele will be on exhibit.
Barbara Ann Slitkin
Barbara Ann Slitkin has won numerous awards and grants including memebership in the National Mural Society and art residency from the Friends of the Library in 1992. She has also been invited to exhibit numerous one-person shows at the Tompkins Square Gallery.
From 1992-2001, her work has been shown widely at many group exhibitions including "Wheel!" juried by A. Aiches, chief curator for the Bass Museum in Florida, and "Tool" juried by Ms. Bonnie Clearwater, chief curator for the Museum for Contemporary Art, also in Florida. The artist's work is in many private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Last year, she was archived by the Museum of American Folk Art as a 20th Century Folk Artist.
On exhibit are four paintings from Barbara's Paint My Flowers Black series.
Tamara Wyndham
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Tamara studied traditional drawing and painting at California State University, Long Beach; and more experimental drawing, book works, and performance at the University of California at Irvine. She moved to New York City in 1979, where she continued to explore different methods of art making. She became involved in the feminist movement, organizing consciousness-raising and study groups, and attending numerous demonstrations and actions. She also became involved in feminist spirituality, and has led meditations. She traveled through Mexico and Central America for one year in 1984-1985, painting and learning about the different cultures and languages. More recently Tamara has been influenced by her travel and work in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey.
She has been awarded artist residencies at the Henry Street Settlement, the Kate Millett Art Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, the Mariz Ceramic Workshop in the Czech Republic, and the Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain.
Tamara will give viewers a whole new way to look at bodily fluids with six mixed media pieces from her series Blood on My Hands. [See her performance and paper art here.]
Read more about it - it includes this museum (when it was in my house) and many interesting people associated publically with menstruation. Individual Americans can buy the video by contacting
Films for the Humanities
P.O. Box 2053
Princeton, NJ 08543-2053Tel: 609-275-1400
Fax: 609-275-3767
Toll free order line: 1-800-257-5126Canadians purchase it through the National Film Board of Canada.
If so, Lana Thompson wants to hear from you.
if I die before establishing the Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health as a permanent public display in the United States (read more of my plans here). I have had coronary angioplasty; I have heart disease related to that which killed all six of my parents and grandparents (some when young), according to the foremost Johns Hopkins lipids specialist. The professor told me I would be a "very sick person" if I were not a vegetarian since I cannot tolerate any of the medications available. Almost two years ago I debated the concept of the museum on American national television ("Moral Court," Fox Network) and MUM board member Miki Walsh (see the board), who was in the audience at Warner Brothers studios in Hollywood, said I looked like a zombie - it was the insomnia-inducing effect of the cholesterol medication.
And almost two years ago Megan Hicks, curator of medicine at Australia's Powerhouse Museum, the country's largest, in Sydney, visited MUM (see her and read about the visit). She described her creation of an exhibit about the history of contraception that traveled Australia; because of the subject many people had objected to it before it started and predicted its failure. But it was a great success!
The museum would have a good home.
I'm trying to establish myself as a painter (see some of my paintings) in order to retire from my present job to give myself the time to get this museum into a public place and on display permanently (at least much of it); it's impossible to do now because of the time my present job requires.
An Australian e-mailed me about this:
Wow, the response to the museum, if it were set up in Australia, would be so varied. You'd have some people rejoicing about it and others totally opposing it (we have some yobbos here who think menstruation is "dirty" and all that other rubbish). I reckon it would be great to have it here. Imagine all the school projects! It might make a lot of younger women happier about menstruating, too. I'd go check it out (and take my boyfriend too) :)
Hey, are you related to Karen Finley, the performance artist?? [Not that I know of, and she hasn't claimed me!]
Don't eliminate the ten Regional Offices of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor
The Bush Administration is planning to propose, in next year's budget, to eliminate the ten Regional Offices of the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor. This decision signals the Administration's intent to dismantle the only federal agency specifically mandated to represent the needs of women in the paid work force.
Established in 1920, the Women's Bureau plays a critical function in helping women become aware of their legal rights in the workplace and guiding them to appropriate enforcement agencies for help. The Regional Offices take the lead on the issues that working women care about the most - training for higher paying jobs and non-traditional employment, enforcing laws against pay discrimination, and helping businesses create successful child-care and other family-friendly policies, to name only a few initiatives.
The Regional Offices have achieved real results for wage-earning women for eighty-one years, especially for those who have low incomes or language barriers. The one-on-one assistance provided at the Regional Offices cannot be replaced by a Web site or an electronic voice mail system maintained in Washington.
You can take action on this issue today! Go to http://capwiz.com/nwlc/home/ to write to Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and tell her you care about keeping the Regional Offices of the Women's Bureau in operation. You can also let E. Mitchell Daniels, Jr., Director of the Office of Management and Budget, know how you feel about this. You can write a letter of your own or use one we've prepared for you.
If you find this information useful, be sure to forward this alert to your friends and colleagues and encourage them to sign up to receive Email Action Alerts from the National Women's Law Center at www.nwlc.org/email.
Thank you!
Book about menstruation published in Spain
The Spanish journalist who contributed some words for menstruation to this site last year and wrote about this museum (MUM) in the Madrid newspaper "El País" just co-authored with her daughter a book about menstruation (cover at left).
She writes, in part,
Dear Harry Finley,
As I told you, my daughter (Clara de Cominges) and I have written a book (called "El tabú") about menstruation, which is the first one to be published in Spain about that subject. The book - it talks about the MUM - is coming out at the end of March and I just said to the publisher, Editorial Planeta, to contact you and send you some pages from it and the cover as well. I'm sure that it will be interesting to you to have some information about the book that I hope has enough sense of humour to be understood anywhere. Thank you for your interest and help.
If you need anything else, please let me know.
Best wishes,
Margarita Rivière
Belen Lopez, the editor of nonfiction at Planeta, adds that "Margarita, more than 50 years old, and Clara, 20, expose their own experiences about menstruation with a sensational sense of humour." (publisher's site)
My guess is that Spaniards will regard the cover as risqué, as many Americans would. And the book, too. But, let's celebrate!
I earlier mentioned that Procter & Gamble was trying to change attitudes in the Spanish-speaking Americas to get more women to use tampons, specifically Tampax - a hard sell.
Compare this cover with the box cover for the Canadian television video about menstruation, Under Wraps, and the second The Curse.
An American network is now developing a program about menstruation for a popular cable channel; some folks from the network visited me recently to borrow material.
And this museum lent historical tampons and ads for a television program in Spain last year.
Now, if I could only read Spanish! (I'm a former German teacher.)
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.
