New this month (in addition to the letters, etc., below):
The Art of Menopause: Coni Minneci - "The Possibility of Becoming Pregnant, Its Implications for Women, and Abortion," by Dr. Nelson Soucasaux, Brazilian gynecologist - Humor
In addition to this counterintuitive statement, an article (here) on the New Scientist Web site about a Procter & Gamble-funded study reports that testosterone patches can considerably boost women's sex lives: "Also, we are not just talking about sex, this study is really about quality of life. This is about women wanting to feel better," says study leader Susan Davis.
The writer, Shaoni Bhattacharya, explains that "aromatase enzymes in the brain convert testosterone into oestrogen."
Davis: "We don't really understand the mechanism of action," she says. "What is believed is that you need that conversion to oestrogen."
The woman who took remarkable photos of a Jewish giant and his family and made spine-tingling depictions of retarded people, among others, was early on an assistant to her photographer husband and helped with the Modess menstrual pad campaign (1940s - 1970s), famous in itself for its longevity, verbal brevity and glamour. (See some of the ads here.)
The New Yorker magazine, which recounts this in its 13 October 2003 issue in "Exposure Time," by Judith Thurman, mentions that the Arbus studio also contributed a picture to Edward Steichen's famous Family of Man exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. [Well, what do you know! Steichen took the picture that made Lee Miller the first real person to appear in a menstrual products ad (see that Kotex ad here)].
Diane Arbus, frustrated with the mainstream work she was doing, later broke with her husband - divorced him, in fact - and their sometimes "idyllic" style of photography to produce the work that made her famous, often of society's outcasts.
In the months before her death she wrote
"'[O]ne fascinating thing I am beginning to get through my thick head . . . is that it doesn't matter what you do . . . except to yourself.' She seems to have meant that no one cares what you do except yourself, though in the context - her death was a few months away - the very lightness of the remark becomes ominous [writes Thurman]."
On 26 July 1971, the day Apollo 15 rocketed towards the moon, Arbus committed suicide.
you have problems with your period but nevertheless would NOT stop it. She is writing an article for a major (and serious) Web site and wants to interview you for opinions. Contact me if you're interested.
And the New York Times quoted from your letters on this Web site:
In an article on suppressing menstruation with Seasonale, a hormone pill, the Times quoted from your e-mail answering the question Would you stop menstruating if you could? in the Science Times section on 14 October (here in the online edition).
The recent book No More Periods? by Susan Rako, MD, who opposes menstrual suppression, also quoted from your letters.
It pays to weigh in with your opinion in this important debate!
I mentioned this possibility last month (here) and now I have copies of the article. If I could only read its five pages! I'll see if I can get it translated.
Hi, Harry,
I am always available to you to translate things from Italian.
Re: The letter the woman wrote in response to the article about you in 'Alias Manifesto Italia'; here's the translation (boy, does she use run-on sentences and weird phrasing!)
My compliments. I read the article in 'Alias Manifesto Italia', I liked the idea you [presented] very much, and do you know why? I have always refused for some unknown reason to confront myself with this idea, the menstruation taboo has been with us for centuries, for the first time I found myself reflecting on a subject which always seemed to be irrelevant, instead, no, if it was a thing that men had they'd have built an altar to this gift of procreation, we women are ashamed of it without even realizing it.
But the excretions we all (men and women) free ourselves of, are they [any] less disgusting? I don't think defecation is taboo, and neither is talking about it.
yours cordially,
How bizarre!
Well have a great day. And I love the items MUM is selling, especially the thongs!
Ciao,
****
Seattle
The Associated Press wrote, in part
The contraceptive pills, approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday, aren't a new chemical. They contain the same combination of low-dose estrogen and progestin found in many oral contraceptives.
Nor is the idea of menstrual suppression new. For decades, many doctors have told women how to skip a period by continually taking the active birth-control pills in each month's supply and ignoring the week of dummy pills in each packet.
Seasonale promises to make the option a little more convenient, with packaging that gives women 12 straight weeks of active pills and then a week of dummy pills for their period. And the FDA's approval means menstrual suppression could become more common as Seasonale's advertising alerts women to the option.
Read more at these sites:
http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/333/33000/369043?d=dmtICNNews
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/print_report.cfm?DR_ID=19730&dr_cat=2
The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research recommends more research into its safety; read its report here.
Tell me what you think of it, the good and the bad.
Hello,
I just found your Web site, due to today's New York Times article (14 October) in the Science Times section.
I saw the answers people posted on the question "Would you stop your period?"
I have suffered with severe "primary dysmenorrhea" my whole life, and saw many answers in that part of your web site that I could have written myself. I am 50 years old, this week, and I do not have endometriosis. Over the years I have thought about starting a support network for people like me; there is almost no hope out there if someone does not have endo. It has been very frustrating, having all the miserable symptoms of endo, without the diagnosis and the support of an "Association" with a newsletter, etc. etc. There is obviously another undiscovered disease out there, with little research being done on it.
Is there a way to contact some of these people that sounded like me? It might be a start.
Thank you,
[Contact me if you would like to talk with the writer.]
I got to your site because a friend and I disagreed as to when tampons were invented. Way to go! Let me know if you need any Hebrew material translated.
P.S. I've never been able to use applicator-less tampons, and not because I've averse to touching myself. To me it's analogous to a suitcase without a handle -- the applicator (as you noted) is an innovation designed to make the product user-friendly, so why would anyone prefer it without? I've noticed the world is divided into two types of women: applicator users and non-applicator users. Maybe it would be fun to add a poll to your site and material surrounding this "debate"?
And pads with "wings" -- for the birds. If they're what's available, I clip 'em off with a scissors. They're more trouble than they're worth.
HI,
There's a little blurb about you [yours truly, Harry Finley] in the book below.
Jan
http://www.eccentricamerica.com
ECCENTRIC AMERICA by Jan Friedman
Bradt Travel Guides, London /Globe-Pequot, USA
Judged "Best Travel Book of 2001" by the North American Travel Journalists Association
and "Best Guidebook, 2002" by the Society of American Travel Writers.
Greetings.
I found the reference to your site in a recent article in the International Herald Tribune.
I find your reasoning sound for creating such a site, but thought that by beginning by saying that up until then there wasn't such a site amounted to the pleonasm that mountains are climbed simply because they are there. You might list this reason perhaps later on and not right at the beginning? [He read my FAQ.]
Just a historical note. In fact when I was a student in Washington, D.C., in the early 70's I remember visiting a women's art gallery with an exhibit on menstruation. There were paintings and sculptures, but also a table with a small file cabinet. Women were invited to and in fact did leave, many personal memories and reflections on menstruation. So in fact, even though it was not on the 'Net, I think there were surely examples of this kind of approach to menstruation before the advent of mum.org.
I'll send this Web site address to friends and family.
Interesting,
[a male American in France]
The following is a free Web site - MyMonthlyCycles.com - where women can track their menstrual cycles, and send e-mail reminders to themselves about their periods (such as when it's coming, if it's late, etc.) The site can also predict future menstrual cycles, and generate menstrual history charts.
The URL to the MyMonthlyCycles site is:
http://www.mymonthlycycles.com
Thank you,
Andrea Abels
Harry:
Someone has just alerted me to your fine museum of menstruation.
I have a modest collection of sanitary bags [he's got more than I do! See MUM's bags.], as an adjunct to my collection of airsickness bags. I thought mine was the web's only collection of sanitary bags. Glad to know that I'm not alone. [It does help, doesn't it?]
Check out my collection at www.bagophily.com (on the menu on the left, click on Other bags, then on Sanitary).
I'll add a link to MUM next time I update my site.
Best wishes
Paul
Paul Mundy
Bergisch Gladbach
Germany
Hi,
I'm a third-year literature/drama student doing honours next year. My interest is the seventeenth century and I am also working on a fiction book set in this period. I need help with very intimate matters: how often were teeth cleaned, places others than hands or faces washed/bathed, etc. How did urban/rural women deal differently with matters of hygiene? Were the upper classes less, um, aromatic than the lower, etc., etc.? I would also like to know how prevalent was the use of tampons (have viewed some primary documents relating to such items in this time period). Were special cloths used or were old clothes, etc., re-cycled for sanitary use? How did women (not upper class) manage to change pads when traveling. Oh, I have a whole host of stuff that is going to interest my protagonist time traveler. I was wondering if you have any knowledge of anyone who would be able to help me with answers to such matters and would also like to know if you have garnered any specific information dealing with the period mentioned, specifically perhaps the time of the Restoration in 1666.
Cheers
[E-mail me if you can help.]
Heinz Mensing, a physician at the University of Tübingen, in Germany, has written me over the years about research indicating that lower iron stores in the blood, for example, through menstruation, lower the incidence of heart and other disease. He's also an excellent and passionate photographer of his city and famous university, founded in 1477; the "uni" still uses a building built in 1478. Harvard, America's oldest university, started in 1636. He wrote me recently:
With regard to "Preserve Your Memory with Estrogen?
"Reports today indicate that in tests of visual memory, post-menopausal women taking estrogen supplements performed better than those who didn't, possibly meaning that the hormone could retard or prevent memory loss occurring naturally or pathologically with age.
"You'll recall that estrogen has also been shown to reduce rates of heart attack in post-menopausal women, but to probably increase chances of breast cancer. In general, women are much more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer, contrary to what many women believe."
(From the MUM MedSci-Page.)
Hi, Harry,
[I'm translating Heinz's German] I've surfed your MUM pages for a while and came upon the above statement. Because you presumably have little spare time with your many activities it might have escaped your notice that two more recent big American studies show that the opposite is true: HERS, if I recall correctly, probably published 2-3 years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association, although I'm not sure, and the Women's health Initiative, which was stopped early because it was shown that the usual American hormone replacement therapy medication rather clearly worsened the risk of several different diseases, including myocardial infarct [MI]! The WHI also showed that HRT did not protect against dementia, including Alzheimer's. [It did not escape my notice but I usually don't post research results anymore, as I have little time to post things other sites, like at newscientist.com, do as their main task.]
[He continues in English.]
Well, "nobody" seems to be interested in the important question: What it is that protects menstruating women (relatively) from type 2 diabetes, hypertension, CHD/MI and so on. The explanation was given - for MI - by your countryman Jerome L. Sullivan (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, as far as I recall): It's the low iron stores most women have as long as they keep menstruating (or being pregnant, since each pregnancy requires an amount of iron equivalent to about three blood donations).
I wrote about the finding of J.T. Salonen, et al., a while ago: male Finnish blood donors approximately in their fifties have a very low MI risk, about an order of magnitude lower than non-donors. Harvard epidemiologists could not reproduce that in an analysis of a cohort of U.S. men they are observing, but U.S. blood donors seem to get so much iron that very few of them reach the protective low iron stores of children as many European donors reach, e.g., me: I just had my serum ferritin determined at 21 ng/ml, which is similar to that of healthy children with negligible risk of heart disease.
Now, Dr. Francesco Facchini did several iron depletion studies down to from 14 to about ca. 25 ng/ml ferritin - with "revolutionary" results:
- liver disease, common in overweight people, seems to be much improved by Fe depletion,
- gout attacks (most common in men, who have higher iron stores) become infrequent and less painful,
- classical risk factors, from elevated blood pressure, early diabetes (insulin resistance etc.), lipid derangements, etc., are "dramatically" improved - and deteriorate again during half a year without "maintenance phlebotomies," during which time ferritin increases to ca. 44 ng/ml, a value women will pass on their way to age-related diseases some time after menopause, on average. (If they loose less blood, e.g. with low-dose oral contraceptives, PCO, early hysterectomy, etc., they have increased risk, corresponding to higher iron stores starting to rise more early, approaching iron metabolism in men, that is in male non-donors!)
"Of course" "nobody" seems to be interested in these revolutionary findings, published in highly respectable journals, e.g.
(If you enter Facchini iron into PubMed you will get a list of several relevant articles; if you want to read the Ann NY Acad Sci article I could send you the PDF file)
I have been trying to spread the good news for years (which now are confirmed by the work of Facchini - studies I could not do because I have no "access to patients"), but without appreciable success. The US NHANES surveys have clearly shown that Americans store more and more iron, parallel to the U.S. obesity, diabetes, dialysis... epidemic. The connections are "obvious," as now "confirmed" by Facchini, but I have the impression that people are not really interested in growing old in good health!
By the way, Facchini also has written a paperback in which he argues about the beneficial effects of iron loss by menstruating in women (I am not fully in line with all of his arguments, though):
In one of his studies he tested a diet combined from good components of Japanese and Mediterranean diets, e.g. tea (binds iron avidly), red wine for major meals (same effect), dietary products ad libitum (rich in calcium, which can reduce iron transport from the gut cells to blood by competing with iron). With this diet you can reduce ferritin to ca. 50 ng/ml within two years, which is not quite good, but MUCH BETTER than the average 150 and more ng/ml most older US people have:
(Red meat - among others the most important risk factor for colon carcinoma, which is extremely prevalent in the U.S.A., but rare in India with its holy cows, for example - is "banned" in the Facchini diet, but poultry, fish, eggs, dairy products, soy, etc., are allowed ad libitum, making it very easy to comply.)
Once again my advice: have your ferritin determined, then you could contact me for discussion of a "strategy" to lower "unhealthy" iron stores, if found. (Otto **** of ****, another "Internet acquaintance" of about our age, recently lost sight on one of his eyes by a "retinal stroke" while sleeping: He has had high blood pressure for a long time, ferritin ca. 300 ng/ml, but his doctor says this is ok and strongly argues against phlebotomies for iron reduction/depletion! Well, doctors need ill patients to survive - Otto has to get his Rx for four different antihypertensives, etc.! -, not healthy people, and of course an aging society - even if quite healthy - may be economically hazardous, an argument **** had when I told him that we could prolong health and life by many years easily.)
It's getting late, I should eat something. Keep up the good work, but be careful about your plans to address women's health in general, without being able to follow rapid advances in etiology research, that is, research to uncover primary causes of diseases, especially "exogenous"/"environmental" factors which can be modified (like diet, including drinking - see above, or blood donations/phlebotomies), not genes/mutations which we cannot "improve"/cure for years to come, at least not at low cost (e.g., comparable to cheap phlebotomies or the "Facchini-diet").
(I'm really hungry now, will not read this mail for corrections, so please forgive mistakes.)
Heinz Mensing
Hello, Mr. Finley,
I would be delighted if you posted my reply to the posted comment entitled: Cups Are Totally Impractical." It is located at http://mum.org/CupComm.htm
Open Your Mind - Cups Are TOTALLY PRACTICAL [see what menstrual cups are]
As I only own and use the Keeper, I can comment only about it.
"you'd have to take the thing out, stuff toilet paper in your underwear, get dressed, rinse the cup, get undressed again
No, you would not. There are several practical solutions to not having a sink at one's convenience.
Carry along feminine cleansing cloths to clean your cup after emptying. If the cloths are flushable, then flush them. If not, place them in the feminine waste product container as you would any disposable sanitary product.
Carry along Castille soap prep pads (the little cleansing pads that hospitals use and give to patients to cleanse the genitalia prior to their giving urine samples). Just be aware that they are significantly thinner, smaller, and not as flexible as some commercial cleansing cloths.
Carry either a bottle of feminine cleansing foam or a small spritzing bottle of well-diluted vinegar and water. Before you enter a stall, take with you one or two paper towels. After emptying your cup, spritz your cup clean using the vinegar and water. The paper towel is for any extra water (just as if you had used the sink).
One may use either of these methods for fast, easy, and convenient clean up where no sink is readily available. In emergent situations, such as when I am not carrying a purse or forget to bring it, or I have no pockets in which to carry cleaning helpers, I have even used my urine to clean my cup. Any urine or blood that gets on my hand I remove with toilet paper before I go to the sink. As this method can be (but is not necessarily always) messy, I do not recommend it, but one does what one must.
"Besides, if you have longer fingernails, the blood would pool under them, and it's a bitch to try to wash all of it off so that it doesn't show.
No, it is not. There are also several ways to clean, and even deodorize, your fingertips and fingernails, and it is not the great hassle you assert it to be.
Feminine cleansing cloths, Castille soap prep pads, and a small spritzing bottle of well-diluted vinegar and water all work fairly well for cleaning underneath longer fingernails prior to washing hands. This can be done while still in the stall. If nails are extremely long, consider using a fingernail brush.
Buy a fingernail brush (one generally costs less than $0.99). Keep it in a sealed plastic baggie. Upon leaving the restroom stall, get your fingernail brush out, use it during hand washing, rinse it well, dry it and replace it to its baggie. Be certain to wash it at the end of each day so that germs do not build up on it. Dry it or allow it to dry completely before replacing it to the baggie for the next day.
This is not so much a problem as it is a minor inconvenience. It is a simple matter of taking an extra 20 seconds or so during hand washing. Besides, if one has developed good technique in cup removal, there should not be enough blood to "pool underneath her fingernails." If she has not developed good technique, she should exercise patience and make accommodations until she does.
The bottom line is that with positive attitudes, we can and will overcome the myths of "impracticality" of menstrual cups.
I just wanted to mention that as a peri-menopausal woman I am not very regular and therefore am prone to menstrual "surprises." I also am on a very low budget, the economic situation being dreadful as it is here in California.
I have been using Instead for about 3-4 years now. I also RE-USE them; I don't see why not. I just wash them with some soap and water and dry them and use them again. When they start looking very stained and disheveled, I discard them. I always wear a minipad with them, as one's cup occasionally runs over. They are good for sex, but when they do get dislodged during sex, they can sure make a splooshy mess. If your husband or lover is queasy about messy menstrual sex, forget him. Just kidding. Well, forget Instead, as it's a bit unpredictable. It also works better while upright, walking, sitting is ok, but lying down can be dicey, so wear a bigger pad with it if you want to wear it to bed and keep your sheets clean.
I have never had any infection form re-use. I think Instead just wants to make money on them so they say they're single use. But I've used each Instead at least 20 times. Sometimes if you're in a public toilet the can be awkward, you can't really change them then, so a spare clean one on hand helps. I just tip out the blood, wrap it in t.p. and keep in my purse 'til i can get home and wash it out properly. You can't be queasy about blood to use these, but they have proved to save me a bundle (as it were!)
Thanks, I just discovered your museum, I have ALWAYS wondered what people did before those annoying Kotex with that belt from when I was 13. They even already had Kotex in the 30s when my mother started to menstruate. When I got my period, my mother slapped me, as she said this was a Jewish tradition (boy, I sure looked forward to more Jewish traditions!) [read about the menstrual slap here]
OK, must work. Killing time having a blast at your museum. I always said I'd love to read - or write! - a book on what women used to use for their period. BTW, am I nuts or is my theory correct, that the reason women could start to wear pants in the late 20s and 30s is because she finally had discrete, unbulky protection to wear? I always assumed the hoop skirts and so on were to disguise the rags, and whether a woman was menstruating or not. Am I correct?
THANKS!!
[When] I consider the time is right (could be the weekend, or a day when I can conveniently work from home) I simply take to my bed for several hours and completely relax and tell my body it's time to start. And that is what happens. Obviously, if I leave it too long nature takes over and starts things off herself, but I normally have up to seven days of grace before that happens.
I am so experienced at it now it's like flicking a switch. For instance, last night I had been showing since the previous Sunday. I'd had a frantic week of visitors, house viewings, social gatherings and mission-critical meetings at work. It was a very good job; nothing happened in the week, but by Friday night it was well nigh time to start. I didn't really relax very well, though - I took to bed but was watching TV and the rest of the family decided to join me. When I woke up this morning (Saturday) and realised the flow hadn't started as I'd wanted (needed!) it to, I lay there and thought, quite irritatedly "Oh, come ON" - and did! That very instant.
This is so very convenient; the first half a day of my period is very incapacitating, and I like to rest for the whole day if I can. It makes the period much shorter and lighter if I do this.
I was looking for a discussion board where I could begin to find out whether other women have also developed a level of control over the timing of their flow. I've chatted to a friends but their periods aren't as heavy as mine; being out and about when they start is not so inconvenient, therefore they do not have the same need for control. The general experience is, however, that it starts at night, which is considered a good thing.
Have you heard of other women who have had similar experiences, or could you direct me to a discussion board where I could perhaps connect with people who might be interested in my experiences? [Can anyone? E-mail me.]
Thanks for a very funky site - making The Big Blob more Bearable this month, at least!
Regards,
****, Malvern, United Kingdom
Dear Harry,
My name is Elizabeth F. Stewart (AKA the Bitch of Dupont Circle) and I write a sex column (first-person, social-commentary/humorous essay-style) called "BitchSlap" for a new web site called dailygusto.com. Fresh today is my new column on sex education and I tell about my own introduction to reproduction which was in the early '60s. I Googled "Kotex ads" figuring they were out there *somewhere* and there you were! I had no idea there would be such a treasure trove of memorabilia of my personal experience. It really brought back a flood of memories. I only wish there was some visual record of the Disney film, "The History of Menstruation." I couldn't find any anywhere on the web except one tiny cell.
I linked to the MUM site in a number of places (ads, menarche brochures, Kotex machines) to illustrate my column and I hope it will introduce my readers to your wonderful work.
The site is a terrific resource. It is both fascinating and hilarious while clearly important to social history--women's studies in particular. Keep up the great work!
If you are interested in reading my column and seeing how I used the links (and possibly linking to it, which you would be welcome to do if you like), it is www.dailygusto.com.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth F. Stewart
My name is Lorraine Sauerzopf and I have recently written and self published "A Man's Survival Guide to PMS. This is an informational guide for men and women providing comic relief in getting through "that time of the month". The book that people have been waiting for-answering all those questions that men are afraid to ask and women rarely discuss out loud.
I would like to send you a copy for your perusal and possible endorsement.
Let me know what you think.
Laurie Sauerzopf
Hi,
My name is Von Taylor, artist, and have a site dedicated to menstruation arts and I would love to have my artwork in your site.
Please visit my site at http://dv9.tripod.com and feel free to email for further info about any suggestions you may have.
Thank you.
Taylor
Great Web site! Just wondered on a serious note if you could in a health section could add a link to my peer support group http://groups.msn.com/WomenwhoBleed. It is for women with bleeding disorders; approximately 80 percent of women with bleeding disorders have very heavy periods (menorrhagia). I myself have a severe bleeding disorder and have probably some of the heaviest periods in the world, eight months recently! This is obviously negative to a woman health. Any questions just get in touch.
Thanks
Helen Campbell - England
List Owner: http://groups.msn.com/WomenwhoBleed
To mark the one-year anniversary of the Women's Health Initiative Study, which highlighted possible health risks associated with long-term hormone therapy use for menopausal women, the Canadian Women's Health Network has now made the following documents available online and free of charge:
Frequently Asked Questions, answered in plain language:
What is Menopause?
What is Hormone Therapy (HT)?
What are the Alternatives to Hormone Therapy?
Menopause and Heart Disease; What are my Risks?
How do I Stop Taking Hormone Therapy?
In-depth articles:
*The Pros and Cons of Hormone Therapy: Making An Informed Decision
*Health Protection Measures from the Women's Health Initiative
*The Medicalization of Menopause
*HRT in the News: The Women's Health Initiative
*Challenges of Change: Midlife, Menopause and Disability
*Natural Hormones - Are They a Safe Alternative?
*Perimenopause Naturally: An Integrative Medicine Approach
*Thinking Straight: Oestrogen and Cognitive Function at Midlife
*The Truth About Hormone Replacement Therapy
*Menopause Home Test: Save Your $$$
*Recent Studies on Menopause and Pain
*What The Experts are Saying Now: A Round-Up of International Opinion
*Women and Healthy Aging
... and many more!
Check us out at www.cwhn.ca
The Canadian Women's Health Network
Women's Health Information You Can TrustMany thanks to the Women's Health Clinic, Winnipeg,
http://www.womenshealthclinic.org/ and A Friend Indeed newsletter, www.afriendindeed.ca for making many of these documents available to the general public.============================================
Kathleen O'Grady, Director of Communications
Canadian Women's Health Network/Le Réseau canadien pour la santé des femmes
Suite 203, 419 Graham Ave.
Winnipeg MB R3C 0M3
Tel (204) 942-5500, ext. 20E-mail news@cwhn.ca
www.cwhn.ca
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
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.
