Please excuse me while I fetch my eyeballs. I was rolling them all the way to my shoulders blades and they unexpectedly dropped off. It happened when I read this post about the new book Flow: A Cultural History of Menstruation.
In many ways, Flow—published by St. Martin’s Griffin—is a breakthrough. Nearly all titles on menstruation are geared toward preteen girls or are dry and academic, published by small presses. Flow, though, targets a mainstream, women’s-magazine reading audience. It is a tome on all things period, from vintage advertisements for feminine hygiene products to tips on the latest eco-friendly sanitary products, such as reusable (yes, reusable) pads.
The authors hope Flow will reverse any revulsion we feel when (get ready) “the tomato boat has come in” or “the Red Sox have a home game”; when a woman is “saddling up old rusty” or “riding the big red Cadillac down the Avenue of Womanhood.” Their goal is to help women understand menstruation in order to make more educated choices about how to handle it. “Women have different reactions to their periods, different symptoms,” Kim told The Daily Beast. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all bodily function. More meaningful discussions would allow women to feel like they’re owning their decisions.”
Today the most basic choice is whether or not to menstruate at all. Since Barr Pharmaceuticals (now owned by Teva) introduced Seasonale, the first period-suppressing birth control pill, in 2003, a steadily increasing number of suppressants has hit the market. The drugs allow women to menstruate just four or fewer times a year. And while some women take a suppressant pill to curb debilitating symptoms, for others, it’s a lifestyle drug. (Some doctors stress that the long-term side effects of continually taking hormones are still unknown, and could pose risks.)
Where to start? Oh, you’re right. I should start with the easy obvious one. The tomato boat has come in? The tomato boat?
Maybe I don’t go out enough. Call me unsophisticated and vulgar, but I call my this “time of the month” my period, use a whole range of modern products I find convenient (I am totally areligious about that; to each her own, I say – if reusable pads do the job for you, then that is that), apologize to hubby for the unnecessary but hormone-driven temper tantrums (he’s used to it), and move right along.
It’s just not that big a deal. I don’t need to “own my decisions” about how I deal with it. I just need to deal with it without making an undue fuss. Would I like to live without it? On the days when it bothers me, you bet. It can sure be inconvenient. But so what? Nobody said life was going to be easy and inconvenience-free. And honestly, you really think you can play with mother nature like that and suppress your period and not suffer any kind of effect on your overall health from it?
The book’s authors explain that:
The “ick” factor that turned most publishers off, they say, is part of the reason that women are shockingly uninformed when it comes to their periods. Research shows few women can explain the physiological processes of ovulation and menstruation—and between 5 and 10 percent of girls have no idea what’s happening when they experience their first “time of the month.”
Hey, if you’re going to call it the “tomato boat”, you’re not really ideally positioned to lecture us on revulsion and ignorance. There will always be girls who will be clueless when they experience their first period. I was one of them; sure, I knew about it (and the whole this-is-how-babies-are-made business), but I didn’t recognize it when it came (in my defence, it wasn’t like what they’d said). I was laughed at by people who ought to have known better, but it didn’t exactly traumatize me.
Maybe some people will find that book helpful. But I’ll pass. Besides, I still have to retrieve my eyeballs.
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Tanya adds: Who needs a whole book about it? Everything I needed to know, I learned from this episode of The Cosby Show (3:30 in):
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcdXSh_c-N4&feature=related]
by 
I wish I could console you Brigitte, but this is just too much.
The content of your post traumatized me as well, in spite of the fact that I have nearly forgotten what “that time of the month” is all about.
I think some books are better to stay away from, and this one is not the first, nor will it be the last.
Um, yeah, because calling it “the tomato boat” is totally going to reduce the “ick” factor. Way to sell the book, folks. Seriously?! As far as I can tell only people who REALLY have gross-out issues are guys anyway, and only the wussy ones, so who cares about them?
And yes, we all had to learn about how the reproductive system works when we were in the fifth grade. There’s nothing more awesome than spending an afternoon drawing pictures of ovaries and fallopian tubes when you’re 11 years old. Oh, and man parts too. Totally just what I needed right between math and reading. If people missed on that fun experience and are so desperate to be informed, they can go pick up an encyclopedia and the local library.
This book sounds intensely dull. Not just ordinary boring, but the insomia-cure grade of uninterestingness.
Hoo boy, that’s a bit pathetic.
Reusable pads have been around for an age though and are not “the latest” in eco friendly products – what do they think people used before disposables? Where do they think the expression “on the rag” comes from? (They missed that one!) It’s a bit sad really that we’ve become so un-self-reliant that we don’t think of these things until someone offers us a “product.” I have pads I made out of bamboo diaper liners (TMI?) and they work great for me – and I’m about as uncrafty as they come. Menstrual cups have been around forever too (didn’t like those myself but other people love them).
Yeah, I’ll pass on that book too. Boring.
It’s a part of life – why is it being glorified in a book form? Just talk to your Mum’s/GF .. don’t need a book to tell me how to deal/feel about the ‘tomato boat’. LOL
Your post is misleading and inaccurate.
Your comments refer to a post about FLOW, not about the actual book. If you had read the book or checked your facts you’d realize that you’ve made erroneous conclusions. I interviewed author Elissa Stein, and those terms, such as “tomato boat,” are quotations that OTHERS have used to describe menstrual periods, and are not words written by the authors. This is the “Cultural Story” which, obviously, includes history.
You may be surprised to learn that some of the points you make about your period are actually the same as the author’s point of view. When I asked Ms. Stein what she is teaching her own children about menstruation, she answered that she was providing them with honest and accurate information and then spoke to one of her motivations for doing so: “When enough people treat menstruation as nothing more, nothing less than what it is, we’ll have made great strides.” Seems to me that the two of you are, in fact, saying the same thing! Please don’t be so quick to judge or make incorrect assumptions and conclusions about a book that you haven’t actually read.
If anyone is interested, my interview with Elissa Stein can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/4kjF3j
Hooray Dr. Elia… I was beginning to despair that there weren’t any comments that dealt with what the author actually says, and what a sociological/cultural investigation of a biological fact could do.
I agree wholeheartedly, that one shouldn’t criticize such a book until one has actually read it. Further, I can’t wait to see your interview. Considering all of the rubbish that’s getting press, I’m pleased, as a sociologist, to see this addition to the ranks of cultural anthropology, women’s studies, gender roles, and other topics that are more germane than ever.
Three cheers for Elissa Stein!
I have read Elissa Stein’s book and find it to be interesting, enlightening and empowering. The author’s deal with a subject that has always been a part of women’s lives but also treated by society as a taboo. It is time we reclaim our bodies, and all of their functions. I am not an MD or a sociologist, but I am a mother with two daughters that will benefit greatly from this book, as am I.
This blog post and many of the comments that follow are really self-contradictory (is that even a word?) If menstruation isn’t a big deal to you and you aren’t squeamish about it then why does a book about it make your eyes drop out of your head? Why does the existence of a book about the topic “traumatize” you? You unwillingness to contemplate the fact that your attitudes may be shaped by thousands of years of collective shame regarding periods is exactly what this book is trying to address. You are the very poster children of exactly who should be reading this book!!
It’s interesting that you chose to review an interview about the book rather than the actual book itself. Is this a new form of review? How could this possibly be helpful to anyone in deciding whether to read the book? I know it’s much easier to confine your intake of information to aggregators and articles, but I do recommend spending a bit more time researching before presuming to advise others.
I have to agree with several of the above commenters–you’re speaking with authority about a book that you haven’t read and, therefore, have no authority to speak about. This is akin to a Christian lecturing others on the Word of the Lord based on a single episode of the 700 Club, not on the Bible itself. I encourage you to read “Flow”; I’d be willing to bet you’ll spend more time being amused and informed than disgusted–but you won’t know until you actually lay hands and eyeballs on the book itself.
Oh for heaven sake. Let’s put our eyeballs back in our head and read the freaking book. Or if we don’t want to, why mention it at all? Makes no sense… Silly.