Lately, I have been missing (just ever so slightly) the research I did as an undergrad. I studied none other than (drum roll please) the menstrual cycle. God was it ever fun to talk to people about my research back then. Everyone squirmed. And I loved it. I personally had the opportunity to learn about people’s experiences with the menstrual cycle in India and the US. Oh, the stories I heard!
Re-inspired, I have decided to talk a bit about this topic in my upcoming lecture on sexual health. In preparing, I decided to see whether YM magazine still existed and whether it still had the section on embarrassing period moments—Say Anything (one of the MANY sources of negative portrayals about the menstrual cycle). I was happy (?) to find that indeed the magazine is still operating and now has an on-line version so that girls can post their embarrassing period stories at all hours of the day. Read up right here: Say Anything. I was saddened to find that very little has changed about the way the menstrual cycle is portrayed to young women. The words “embarrassment”, “shame”, and “disgusting” were at the forefront ten years ago and still are… Who benefits from this? Certainly not the young girls. And certainly not the environment, given that the message being conveyed is that you must change your products every couple of hours to avoid the horrors of a bad period story. With that, I will leave you with a current Kotex ad that BLOWS my mind. Judge for yourself who the beneficiary of this portrayal might be…
3 comments:
Case in point: I'm squirming just reading this!!
And I can't believe I forgot about YM magazine! I wonder if girls actually read it anymore... I have a girly 17 year old sister and I have not seen that ONCE in her possession through the teen years. Maybe she's into Cosmo girl or the real deal women's rags ('scuse the pun), which I would not be surprised at given how OLD teenagers seem these days.
Let us go then, kdh and I, where the blogdom is spread out against the sky, where we walk down certain half-deserted streets, and silence the proprieties and unearth the taboos. Let us stop the endless muttering of indiscretion and unearth what it is to be endlessly human! For kdh and I sing of ourselves and celebrate ourselves! For every atom belonging to kdh belongs to me and to you! We breathe and invite our souls to bathe in the waters of eternity where everything is sacred and nothing is profane! We believe in the flesh and celebrate its appetites!
Thanks for your comments, you two (though I still don't know who this mystery reverend bluejeans is). Glad we've got some solidarity, rb! That's cool that you can observe your little sis, Eryn. It really does seem like by age 17, they would be beyond these silly YM tales (but that the YM messages already would have made their mark in adolescence). I originally got into this stuff due to my own negative experience. No one talking about it led to some serious problems. Like, I was clueless when it happened... I just spent the last few days at a health policy oriented conference, so I know there are bigger fish to fry than changing young women's attitudes about the menstrual cycle. But it certainly still seems to have some pretty negative fallout. Can't wait to see you next week!
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