New this month (in addition to the letters, etc., below):
"The Gräfenberg Spot (G-Spot)," by Dr. Nelson Soucasaux, Brazilian gynecologist
Advertise on this site
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Almost ten years ago this museum and I appeared in a Canadian television film about menstruation, Under Wraps (now called Menstruation: Breaking the Silence, and available), along with several other people. Those included Sophie Laws, who had turned her doctoral dissertation into the influential Issue of Blood: The Politics of Menstruation (read a description, below, and order it).
Dr. Laws recently e-mailed me that she had now her own Web site - http://www.sophielaws.co.uk - partly inspired by her seeing a message from an Australian woman on this MUM site who had liked her book and wanted to get it touch with her.
Read about this important book from the amazon.com Web site, where you can buy it:
Issues of Blood: The Politics of Menstruation (Macmillan, 1990)
This unique approach to the subject of menstruation claims that women's feelings about their periods are shaped by men's attitudes and by the imposition of their views on women. Sophie Law's research covered men as lovers, fathers, husbands, doctors and "experts." She suggests that men's attitudes to menstruation are inseparable from their ideas about women in general. These attitudes include the feeling that women are "naturally" inferior and that their problems may inconvenience men. Women are therefore prevented from creating their own meanings for bodily events, and are forced to observe the etiquette of silence. They are unable to have positive feelings about an undeniable aspect of being a woman. Sophie Laws is the author of "Seeing Red: The Politics of Premenstrual Tension" and "Living with Sickle Cell Disease" [and most recently, Research for Development: A Practical Guide (Sage, 2003)].Although Dr. Laws's current work is quite different from menstruation, her menstruation books remains very much worth reading.
Tell me what you think of it, the good and the bad.
Woman Heal Thyself, by Jeanne Elizabeth Blum 1995, Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc. [Available through amazon.com]
This book contains a description of a series of Chinese medicine-based acupuncture point manipulations for controlling menstrual symptoms and regulating period length.
Thanks for your site, ***
P.S. The discussion of eliminating periods was interesting [here]. Have you much information about the "Cutting off the red dragon" chi gung practice of period elimination? [None at all! "Red dragon" sounds like an expression for menstruation, which I'll add to the list.] This may be what some of the women were looking for: a non-artificial-drug method of reducing periods. I have heard the practice described in vague terms, such as that it involved massage of the nipples, and this seems as though it would be an effective process for some, as certain women can induce lactation by nipple stimulation. [And lactation - producing milk from the breasts - usually stops menstruation.]
What a Web site! I am so thrilled to have found it and thank you very much for having made it. A friend today told me she used to use sea sponges [see old and current ones here], and now I see that they were used a lot, before tampons and pads came out. I must try to find some!
Appreciatively,
***
"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."
- Albert Einstein
Last month you read about an American translator of Japanese who supplied many interesting expressions Japanese use for menstruation, among other things (here). I asked her if Japanese use menstrual cups (see some cups and read a short history here):
Hmm, a Japanese menstrual cup? Well, I did find one site that mentioned it. In the name of science, one woman decides to give it a shot: http://www.lovepiececlub.com/kubosato/kubosato_23.html [in Japanese]
As you can see, these are the same products available elsewhere. [And the site used my photo of the Instead cup, here on this MUM site.]
According to the text, however, these cups were entirely unusable. At first, the author is unable to insert the Keeper at all, and wonders if there's that much physiological difference between Japanese and Western women. (As an aside, a much-lamented characteristic of many Japanese is their firm belief that everything they have and do is so much "more so" than anywhere else. Their language is harder. They alone have four distinct seasons. Their cervices are smaller. Japanese napkins are specially made for the Japanese woman's body. And so on.) [Many Western women have similar problems initially with cups, but many overcome them. And years ago a Japanese student at the University of Illinois told me that she had to get her parents to send her small pads from Japan as the ones here didn't fit. The same student sent me her paper about Japanese menstrual leave, a fascinating topic. Just for fun, see a Japanese tampon that supplied finger-covers to protect the hand when inserting the tampon.]
Anyway, this writer had a hard time inserting the device (even after ordering a smaller size), felt uncomfortable with it in, and had even more problems trying to take it out. I have the feeling the menstrual cup is not going to catch on over there! [A board member of this museum told me she had to cut off the "tail" of her Keeper cup because it scraped against her leg when walking!]
According to a 2000 survey quoted here: http://www.jhpia.or.jp/napkin/history.htm [in Japanese] 94 percent of Japanese women choose to use sanitary napkins while six percent choose tampons. Doesn't leave much room for anything else, does it?
Well, take care of yourself as the weather gets colder--and (early) congratulations on your retirement!
Nora [Stevens Heath]
Japanese-English translations: http://www.fumizuki.com/
Mr. Finley:
First off, I love the MUM Web site. I have read so many interesting and unusual things there. I never thought that menstruation could be such a fascinating subject (generally, I try to ignore it, as most women do). The Web site is great - I hope you find a new space for a public museum soon. Heck, I have training in exhibit production and curation, I might even volunteer to help you set it up! [Read my plans for the future museum.]
Regarding Instead: I love this product. Sometimes it leaks, sometimes my hands get a little bloody, but so what. I can't stand pads (I haven't used them since I was 15), and while tampons are sometimes a necessary evil (unexpected and unenlightened guests, emergencies, and so on), I really don't like them, either, although I have used o.b. tampons [which have no applicator] ever since I discovered that they existed. But Instead was a whole new revelation for me, and I embraced it enthusiastically.
I am an archaeologist, and I spend a lot of time each summer out in the field - which means lots of hiking, no bathroom, no sink, and sometimes, no privacy. It took me a while to learn to pee in the field, let alone change a tampon. The fact that Instead can be worn up to 12 hours is a great advantage in this situation, because you can put it in before you leave camp and not have to worry about it until you get back at sunset. Which also means that you don't have to carry bloody tampons or pads in your pack with your field gear, either. And though it is not recommended to re-use Instead, I do on a regular basis, particularly since they are hard to find in my neck of the woods (I usually buy a bunch when I go home to a major metropolitan area for holidays - I currently live in a curiously backward city). If I know I am going to be in a situation when I will have to change them without a sink, I take an extra, and put the used one in a plastic bag. I could care less if my fingers are bloody when leaving a public restroom stall and heading for the sink - after all, we are all women in the bathroom, and they may not like to think about why my fingers are bloody, but they know why they are. So, so what. If it's a big problem, why not carry a nail brush in your purse? It takes up about the same space as a few tampons would, and it's more effective. In any event, I almost always have a bottle of water in my bag, so I have something available to wash up with, if needed. Anyway. Although I realize many women have had problems with leaking and so forth, I would urge all women to try Instead at least once. It's made a big difference in my life, and I have told most of my female friends about it. I plan to try a reusable cup, like the Keeper or DivaCup, at some point, whenever I have both the cash and remember to order one.
Regarding the museum: I don't have any suggestions to help you with funding and so forth, but I wish you the best of luck. As I said, I do have some museum-related training (I am currently working on my M.A. in archaeology, but I have been working for the university museum for the last three years as a curatorial assistant), so if you actually do find a home for the museum (in the U.S.) and need some help organizing the collections, writing up deeds of gift, creating exhibits, whatever, I would very seriously consider volunteering my time, if I can work it into my schedule. I really do appreciate your Web site, and I feel that it is a topic that needs to be discussed and made public, as well as a valuable educational resource.
And best of luck with your health, from one vegetarian to another.
***
at a university in New Mexico
Well, I got my period yesterday and as I often have before wondered what women in early centuries used. Now I know. Thank you so much for putting this site together; I wish my daughter was old enough to share it with. I hope your health improves and that you do find a permanent public place for the museum.
***
Christine L. Hitchcock, Ph.D., Research Associate, Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research (CeMCOR), Endocrinology, Dept. of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada (URL: http://www.cemcor.ubc.ca/), sent this to members of the The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (which includes me).
Here is the first article from the Phase III trial of the higher dose extended schedule pill (Seasonale).
In Contraception. 2003 Aug;68(2):89-96.
A multicenter, randomized study of an extended cycle oral contraceptive.
Anderson FD, Hait H.
The Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical
School, Norfolk, VA 23501, USA. fanderson4@cox.net
OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy and safety of Seasonale, 91-day extended cycle oral contraceptive (OC). METHODS: A parallel, randomized, multicenter open-label, 1-year study of the OC Seasonale [30 microg ethinyl estradiol (EE)/150 microg levonorgestrel (LNG), and Nordette-28 (30 microg EE/150 microg LNG)] in sexually active, adult women (18-40 years) of childbearing potential. Patients received either four 91-day cycles of extended cycle regimen OC, or 13 cycles of the conventional 28-day OC with daily monitoring of compliance and bleeding via electronic diaries. RESULTS: When taken daily for 84 days followed by 7 days of placebo, the extended cycle regimen was effective in preventing pregnancy and had a safety profile that was comparable to that observed with the 28-day OC regimen that served as the control. While unscheduled (breakthrough) bleeding was reported among patients treated with the extended cycle regimen, it decreased with each successive cycle of therapy and was comparable to that reported by patients who received the conventional OF regimen by the fourth extended cycle. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated that Seasonale, 91-day extended cycle OC containing 84 days of 30 microg EE/150 microg LNG followed by 7 days of placebo, was effective, safe and well tolerated.
PMID: 12954519
Press release from the maker of Seasonale, Barr Laboratories
(Kathleen O'Grady, of the Canadian Women's Health Network, kindly sent this to The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research members)
WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Barr Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:BRL) today announced that it has begun promoting SEASONALE(R) (levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol) 0.15 mg/0.03 mg tablets directly to physicians and other healthcare providers. SEASONALE is the first and only FDA-approved extended-cycle oral contraceptive indicated for the prevention of pregnancy and designed to reduce periods from 13 to 4 per year. The Company has initiated physician detailing and promotional activities using the 250-person Duramed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Women's Healthcare Sales Force. Duramed is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barr Laboratories, Inc.
The Company began shipping SEASONALE in mid-October. Promotional Programs directed to physicians include a variety of patient education initiatives, various medical education programs and a publication plan that includes journal advertising. Women and healthcare professionals who would like to learn more about SEASONALE, including full prescribing information, should visit http://www.seasonale.com/ or call the toll-free number 800-719-FOUR (3687).
"We are excited to begin marketing this new choice in oral contraception to healthcare providers and patients through extensive promotional activities and an education campaign," Bruce L. Downey, Barr's Chairman and CEO said. "Our market research indicates that the extended-cycle regimen represents a substantial opportunity with patients and we believe that the already high awareness of SEASONALE will be even higher among target physicians and patients following the launch of our promotional activities and detailing by our Women's Healthcare Sales Force."
"SEASONALE is a 91-day regimen taken daily as 84 active tablets of 0.15 mg of levonorgestrel/0.03 mg of ethinyl estradiol, followed by 7 inactive tablets and is designed to reduce the number of periods from 13 to 4 per year," explained Dr. Carole S. Ben-Maimon, President and Chief Operating Officer of Barr Research. "With SEASONALE, women now have an FDA-approved, safe and effective alternative to the traditional 28-day oral contraceptive regimen."
Clinical Data
The clinical data supporting FDA approval of the SEASONALE (levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol) 0.15 mg/0.03 mg tablets product resulted from a randomized, open-label, multi-center trial that ended in March 2002 and an extension to that trial. In the trials, SEASONALE was found to prevent pregnancy and had a comparable safety profile to a more traditional oral contraceptive.
In the trial, the most reported adverse events were nasopharyngitis, headache and intermenstrual bleeding or spotting.
SEASONALE(R) has been formulated using well-established components, long recognized as safe and effective when used in a 28-day regimen. SEASONALE offers 4 periods per year as compared to 13 per year with traditional oral contraceptives. When prescribing SEASONALE, the convenience of fewer planned menses (4 per year instead of 13 per year) should be weighed against the inconvenience of increased intermenstrual bleeding and/or spotting.
Important Information About Oral Contraceptives
It is estimated that more than 16 million women currently take oral contraceptives in the United States. Oral contraceptives are not for every woman. Serious as well as minor side effects have been reported with the use of hormonal contraceptives. Serious risks include blood clots, stroke, and heart attack. Cigarette smoking increases the risk of serious cardiovascular side effects, especially in women over 35 years. Oral contraceptives do not protect against HIV infection (AIDS) and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Use of SEASONALE provides women with more hormonal exposure on a yearly basis than conventional monthly oral contraceptives containing similar strength synthetic estrogens and progestins (an additional 9 weeks per year). While this added exposure may pose an additional risk of thrombotic and thromboembolic disease, studies to date with SEASONALE have not suggested an increased risk of these disorders. The convenience of fewer menses (4 vs. 13 per year) should be weighed against the inconvenience of increased intermenstrual bleeding/spotting.
Barr Laboratories, Inc. is engaged in the development, manufacture and marketing of generic and proprietary pharmaceuticals.
Forward-Looking Statements
The following sections contain a number of forward-looking statements. To the extent that any statements made in this press release contain information that is not historical, these statements are essentially forward-looking. Forward-looking statements can be identified by their use of words such as "expects," "plans," "will," "may," "anticipates," "believes," "should," "intends," "estimates" and other words of similar meaning. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that cannot be predicted or quantified and, consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include: the difficulty in predicting the timing and outcome of legal proceedings, including patent-related matters such as patent challenge settlements and patent infringement cases; the difficulty of predicting the timing of U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, approvals; court and FDA decisions on exclusivity periods; the ability of competitors to extend exclusivity periods for their products; the success of our product development activities; market and customer acceptance and demand for our pharmaceutical products; our dependence on revenues from significant customers; reimbursement policies of third party payors; our dependence on revenues from significant products; the use of estimates in the preparation of our financial statements; the impact of competitive products and pricing; the ability to develop and launch new products on a timely basis; the availability of raw materials; the availability of any product we purchase and sell as a distributor; our mix of product sales between manufactured products, which typically have higher margins, and distributed products; the regulatory environment; our exposure to product liability and other lawsuits and contingencies; the increasing cost of insurance and the availability of product liability insurance coverage; our timely and successful completion of strategic initiatives, including integrating companies and products we acquire and implementing new enterprise resource planning systems; fluctuations in operating results, including the effects on such results from spending for research and development, sales and marketing activities and patent challenge activities; and other risks detailed from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Source: Barr Laboratories, Inc.
CONTACT: Carol A. Cox, Barr Laboratories, Inc., +1-201-930-3720, ccox@barrlabs.com
Dear Sir,
I ran into your site while looking for experiential appraisal of menstruation by women themselves. I enjoyed finding in short texts an overview of the three "major" religions' views on the subject.
May I suggest that you add a page for Eastern religious views, taoist, buddhist, yogic? Views there span the same positive-negative range? As in other religions, too, knowledge about women's experience and practices (physical in this case) has so been suppressed over the centuries that little is now known of what archaics and ancients might have remembered from the matriarchal cultures' knowledge. Modern women have to rediscover it. Below is a line to follow.
There is, in all religions, a "deeper" or "inner" aspect of relgious teaching, knowledge of human nature, and mystic practices. The quest for "enlightenment" and its problem of behavioural and mind agitation and pains has roots in the body and the quest for longevity and youthfulness, freedom from disease and from being dependent on extrenal things or people. For women, some practices involve menstruation. It seems, though, that these are mostly lost, due to negative biases and to the progressive psychologisation of spiritual practices.
Mysticism, spiritual practices, and archaic "myths" of reversing menstruation for health:
I know of one Buddhist practice called "slaying the Red Dragon," aiming to stop menses (for women monks, the body is "just a vehicle" and menstrual uproars of emotions a hindrance to meditation). I cannot trace anyone who actually knows what this practice involves.
In Chinese and yogic traditions, there's a lot of sexual practices to "raise spirit" or life energy, but China has retained a notion that women could stop their menses and gain at the same time a healthier body, also more prone to "spiritual development."
I also think I remember (can't quote) something in the beginning of the Bible (descendents of Noah) about a woman who was menopausal, received the Grace of God, became fertile again, and pregnant. [Note that scholars increasingly stop considering ancient texts as mere stories and find historical validation for their contents, so may be there is something real to that story].
These remnants of traditions, apparently often rooted in pre-archaic female shamanism. go in the same general direction as some of the books you quote. Namely, that
(1) menstruation is an illness-cleansing process, which, however should not lead to negatively valuing of women, persons with 'uncleanliness'. 'Illness' is a problem that must have a solution.
(2) menstruation blood and meopause may not be necessary or inevitable at all. There is controversy about whether it's a uniquely human phenomenon, and indications that rich agriculture-based food might cause it in caged animals - so why not in women- , and its occurrence seems variable in animal species and individuals - so why not in women, since most males do not experience sexual organ failure at midlife.
(3) Therfore, there might be a way of not having menstruation, without resorting to medical drug interference, which I know from personal experience (contraceptive pill) can wreck havoc in the hormonal system both short term and long term - see literature on the effect of Hormone Replacement Therapy on cancers, for example, or see literature about the painlessness of menopause or childbirth in certain cultures. I could find no theoretical reason to make such things necessarily impossible.
(4) This would mean there could be both a way of stopping them without loosing fertility once they have started, and a way of maintaining health so they do not start at all. Most ancient traditions state that there is knowledge about human nature that has been lost.
Your list of euphemisms and words for menstruation (here) supports the idea that menstruation is not pleasant (and at its worst feels like illness; shall we trust instincts?) but also the idea that they constitute an "activation of power," including creative, but also the "red power" of hormonal uprising as in an adrenaline or testosterone rush. Such "activations" have a lot to do with how cells behave in a cancer. This line of thought has not been explored in medical or anthoropological contexts as far as I know.
Displaying info on mystic practices and these unusual health goals might help validate women's experience as both unpleasant but not blameble, and a possible opportunity to approach health in a different way, from a woman's viewpoint. Hence scholarly and medical studies of possibilities in women's conditions rather than a mere remedial "disease'" approach, post- (e.g. PMS) or pre- (as in one of the books you quote, about ridding the world of menstruation).
My way of dealing with all this is to not accept as full truth anything I read, including scientific knowledge and household knowledge, and to seek answers for myself, observing my own experience as it is, rather than through the filters of what I've learned or of my bodily conditionings, and draw inspiration and support from archaic texts, less limiting. Since a couple of scholars have responded to your site, I'd like to make an appeal to women researchers to not stay with only objective science or scholarship, but to include their own experience in a "first person" research method.
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
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.
