Download or read book Culture Society and Menstruation written by Virginia L. Olesen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1986 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Flow written by Elissa Stein and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2009-11-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A normally taboo topic claims attention with the surprising—and sometimes horrifying—history of cultural reactions to menstruation.” —Publishers Weekly In this hip, hilarious and truly eye-opening cultural history, menstruation is talked about as never before. Flow spans its fascinating, occasionally wacky and sometimes downright scary story: from mikvahs (ritual cleansing baths) to menopause, hysteria to hysterectomies—not to mention the Pill, cramps, the history of underwear, and the movie about puberty they showed you in 5th grade. Flow answers such questions as: What’s the point of getting a period? What did women do before pads and tampons? What about new drugs that promise to end periods—a hot idea or not? Sex during your period: gross or a turn-on? And what’s normal, anyway? With color reproductions of (campy) historical ads and early (excruciating) femcare devices, it also provides a fascinating (and mind-boggling) gallery of this complex, personal and uniquely female process. As irreverent as it is informative, Flow gives an everyday occurrence its true props—and eradicates the stigma placed on it for centuries. “Its contents, I found, are plainspoken—perhaps it will start chipping away at the taboo . . . the style is important and groundbreaking.” —The New Yorker “In many ways, Flow is a breakthrough.” —Daily Beast “Flow isn’t just a book; it’s a movement.” —January Magazine “A witty look at the history of ‘the nuisance’ . . . for women of all ages. Who hasn’t wondered why we get a period, what women did before the invention of the tampon—let alone the pad. Flow explains all.” —Body and Soul Magazine

Download or read book Everyday Discourses of Menstruation written by Victoria Louise Newton and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menstruation is a topic which is both everyday and sensitive. From Leviticus to Pliny, to twentieth-century debates around 'menotoxin', to advertising and 'having the painters in', Victoria Newton's book offers a lively and innovative exploration of the social and cultural dimensions of menstruation. Through in-depth interviews with men and women, the book explores the many different ways in which this sensitive topic is spoken about in British culture. Looking specifically at euphemism, jokes, popular knowledge, everyday experience and folklore, the book provides original insights into the different discourses acting on the menstruating body and encourages debate about how these help to shape our everyday attitudes towards menstruation.

Download or read book The Curse written by Janice Delaney and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In its hard headed, richly documented concreteness, it is worth a thousand polemics." -- New York Times, from a review of the first edition "The Curse deserves a place in every women's studies library collection." -- Sharon Golub, editor of Lifting the curse of Menstruation "A stimulating and useful book, both for the scholarly and the general reader." -- Paula A. Treichler, co-author of A Feminist Dictionary

Download or read book Blood Magic written by Thomas Buckley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining cultures as diverse as long-house dwellers in North Borneo, African farmers, Welsh housewives, and postindustrial American workers, this volume dramatically redefines the anthropological study of menstrual customs. It challenges the widespread image of a universal "menstrual taboo" as well as the common assumption of universal female subordination which underlies it. Contributing important new material and perspectives to our understanding of comparative gender politics and symbolism, it is of particular importance to those interested in anthropology, women's studies, religion, and comparative health systems.

Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies written by Chris Bobel and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-24 with total page 1041 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access handbook, the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary and genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. It is animated by the central question: ‘“what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attention on menstrual health and politics across the life course?” The chapters—diverse in content, form and perspective—establish Critical Menstruation Studies as a potent lens that reveals, complicates and unpacks inequalities across biological, social, cultural and historical dimensions. This handbook is an unmatched resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and activists new to and already familiar with the field as it rapidly develops and expands.

Download or read book Menstruation Matters written by Bridget J. Crawford and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2024-10 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the burgeoning menstrual advocacy movement and analyzes how law should evolve to take menstruation into account. Approximately half the population menstruates for a large portion of their lives, but the law is mostly silent about the topic. Until recently, most people would have said that periods are private matters not to be discussed in public. But the last few years have seen a new willingness among advocates and allies of all ages to speak openly about periods. Slowly around the globe, people are recognizing the basic fundamental human right to address menstruation in a safe and affordable way, free of stigma, shame, or barriers to access. Menstruation Matters explores the role of law in this movement. It asks what the law currently says about menstruation (spoiler alert: not much) and provides a roadmap for legal reform that can move society closer to a world where no one is held back or disadvantaged by menstruation. Bridget J. Crawford and Emily Gold Waldman examine these issues in a wide range of contexts, from schools to workplaces to prisons to tax policies and more. Ultimately, they seek to transform both law and society so that menstruation is no longer an obstacle to full participation in all aspects of public and private life.

Download or read book Menstruation written by Andrew Shail and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-12-10 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranging from Aristotle to twentieth-century gynecology, contributions to this volume trace the semiotics of menstruation from magical act to evolutionary deficiency. The result is the first comprehensive historical study of how menstruation has been understood within various cultural traditions, with reference to political and social institutions, and medical and religious practices. Includes a guide for scholars on bibliographical and archival sources for the study of menstruation.

Download or read book Blood Relations written by Chris Knight and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of symbolic culture is generally linked with the development of the hunger-gatherer adaptation based on a sexual division of labor. This original and ingenious book presents a new theory of how this symbolic domain originated. Integrating perspectives of evolutionary biography and social anthropology within a Marxist framework, Chris Knight rejects the common assumption that human culture was a modified extension of primate behavior and argues instead that it was the product of an immense social, sexual, and political revolution initiated by women. Culture became established, says Knight, when evolving human females began to assert collective control over their own sexuality, refusing sex to all males except those who came to them with provisions. Women usually timed their ban on sexual relations with their periods of infertility while they were menstruating, and to the extent that their solidarity drew women together, these periods tended to occur in synchrony. The result was that every month with the onset of menstruation, sexual relations were ruptured in a collective, ritualistic way as the prelude to each successful hunting expedition. This ritual act was the means through which women motivated men not only to hunt but also to concentrate energies on bringing back the meat. Knight shows how this hypothesis sheds light on the roots of such cultural traditions as totemic rituals, incest and menstrual taboos, blood-sacrifice, and hunters’ atonement rites. Providing detailed ethnographic documentation, he also explains how Native American, Australian Aboriginal, and other magico-religious myths can be read as derivatives of the same symbolic logic.

Download or read book Menstruation Across Cultures written by Nithin Sridhar and published by Global Collective Publishers. This book was released on 2021-08-26 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menstruation across Cultures attempts to provide a detailed review of menstruation notions prevalent in India and in cultures from across the world. The world cultures covered in the book include Indic traditions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism; ancient civilisations like Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia and Egypt; and Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Two themes of special focus in the book are: Impurity and Sacrality. While they are often understood as being opposed to each other, the book examines how they are treated as two sides of the same coin, when it comes to menstruation. This is especially true in Indic traditions and pre-Christian polytheistic traditions like Greco-Roman, Mesopotamian and Egyptian. Impurity and Sacrality complement each other to form a comprehensive worldview in these cultures. The book also examines how the understanding of impurity in Abrahamic religions differs from those of polytheistic cultures. As part of the examination of the sacrality attached to menstruation, a special focus has also been given to the deities of menstruation in polytheistic cultures and to what Ayurveda and Yoga say about this essential function in a woman’s physiology. Finally, a comparative study of menstrual notions prevalent in modernity is presented, along with a Do and Don’t dossier.

Download or read book Periods in Pop Culture written by Lauren Rosewarne and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Menstruation seldom gets a starring role on screen despite being experienced regularly by nearly all women for a good many decades of their lives. Periods in Pop Culture: Menstruation in Film and Television, by Lauren Rosewarne, turns the spotlight on period portrayals in media, examining the presence of menstruation in a broad range of contemporary pop culture. Drawing on a vast collection of menstruation scenes from film and television, this study examines and categorizes representations to unearth what they reveal about society and about our culture's continuingly fraught relationship with female biology. Written from a feminist perspective, menstrual representations are analyzed for what they reveal about sexual politics and society. Rosewarne's thorough investigation covers a range of topics including menstrual taboos, stigmas and fears, as well as the inextricable link between periods and femininity, sexuality, ageing, and identity. Periods in Pop Culture highlights that the treatment of menstruation in the media remains an area of persistent gender inequality.

Download or read book The Curse written by Karen Houppert and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2000-05-24 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative look at the way our culture deals with menstruation. The Curse examines the culture of concealment that surrounds menstruation and the devastating impact such secrecy has on women's physical and psychological health. Karen Houppert combines reporting on the potential safety problems of sanitary products--such as dioxin-laced tampons--with an analysis of the way ads, movies, young-adult novels, and women's magazines foster a "menstrual etiquette" that leaves women more likely to tell their male colleagues about an affair than brazenly carry an unopened tampon down the hall to the bathroom. From the very beginning, industry-generated instructional films sketch out the parameters of acceptable behavior and teach young girls that bleeding is naughty, irrepressible evidence of sexuality. In the process, confident girls learn to be self-conscious teens. And the secrecy has even broader implications. Houppert argues that industry ad campaigns have effectively stymied consumer debate, research, and safety monitoring of the sanitary-protection industry. By telling girls and women how to think and talk about menstruation, the mostly male-dominated media have set a tone that shapes women's experiences for them, defining what they are allowed to feel about their periods, their bodies, and their sexuality.

Download or read book CURSED written by and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book About Bloody Time written by Karen Pickering and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book First Blood written by Sally Dammery and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What woman forgets the moment of discovering her first period? The shock? Fear? Panic? Loathing? Embarrassment? Pride? Happiness? First Blood examines the ways in which women from countries as diverse as India and Sri Lanka, England, the Philippines, Greece, Italy, Uganda, Indonesia, Fiji, Chile, Ukraine, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong, recall this moment of menarche and what it meant to them, their families, and their societies. What is the mystique of women's first blood? Who created the meanings associated with menarche, and why? Have meanings changed significantly over time and if they have, how? And for what reasons? First Blood answers these questions and investigates beliefs and traditions surrounding menarche, including the concepts of uncleanness, of ceremony, of secrecy and lore still existing in many parts of the world. The influence of science and technology in the development of the sanitary hygiene industry is traced, together with the role of the pharmaceutical industry in making menstruation an optional event.

Download or read book Issues of Blood written by Sophie Laws and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An approach to the subject of menstruation which claims that women's feelings about their periods are shaped by men's attitudes and the imposition of their views on women. Sophie Law's research covered men as lovers, fathers, husbands, doctors and "experts."

Download or read book Periods Gone Public written by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to explore menstruation in the current cultural and political landscape and to investigate the new wave of period activism taking the world by storm. After centuries of being shrouded in taboo and superstition, periods have gone mainstream. Seemingly overnight, a new, high-profile movement has emerged—one dedicated to bold activism, creative product innovation, and smart policy advocacy—to address the centrality of menstruation in relation to core issues of gender equality and equity. In Periods Gone Public, Jennifer Weiss-Wolf—the woman Bustle dubbed one of the nation's “badass menstrual activists”— explores why periods have become a prominent political cause. From eliminating the tampon tax, to enacting new laws ensuring access to affordable, safe products, menstruation is no longer something to whisper about. Weiss-Wolf shares her firsthand account in the fight for “period equity” and introduces readers to the leaders, pioneers, and everyday people who are making change happen. From societal attitudes of periods throughout history—in the United States and around the world—to grassroots activism and product innovation, Weiss-Wolf challenges readers to face stigma head-on and elevate an agenda that recognizes both the power—and the absolute normalcy—of menstruation.