Did your mother slap you when you had your first period?
If so, Lana Thompson wants to hear from you.
Ms. Thompson, who co-authored The Wandering Womb: A Cultural History of Outrageous Beliefs About Women (Prometheus Books, 1999) - a source of fascinating information (ever wonder about a witch's tit?) and unforgettable illustrations from the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Buy it! I get no cut from this.) - wants to know who did it, why, etc. But here's Lana:
Introduction to the study
Menarche is the term that is used by anthropologists and medical professionals to refer to the first menstrual period. At the present time, the average onset of menstruation is between 11-12 years. This age has decreased since the middle of the 18th century when it is estimated that it was between 15 and 16. [There are other estimates.]
In many cultures, there are ceremonies marking this event. They are referred to as "coming of age ceremonies" or "passages." Some cultures celebrate the event. Other cultures may segregate the girl for a few days. Anthropologically, the passage is referred to as liminal (Victor Turner) because the girl is going from one life status to another. According to Van Gennep, a ritual to mark an event consists of three stages: initiation, transition and until she stops bleeding.
Among certain people in the U.S. (and maybe other places) there is a custom of slapping the young menstruant's (girl who has her first period) face.
This initial research will poll 500 people and explore the phenomenon of face slapping. The data will be used to find commonalities.
Your cooperation is appreciated. It is completely anonymous and your name will not be used. For the validity of social science research, each questionnaire is given a number to identify that data set. (The questionnaire is right below.)
Thank you,
Lana Thompson, M.A.
P.O. Box 1245
Boca Raton, FL 33429
Vesalius@worldnet.att.net
Number________ Your name or initials:_____________________________
1. How old were you when you first got your period (reached menarche)?
2. How old are you now?
3. Did your mother slap your face? No Yes
If you answered yes to question #3, go on to the next question
4. What did your mother say when she slapped your face?
5. What kind of message did her action and words communicate?
(Example: congratulatory, punitive, positive, negative, accusatory - not
limited to these examples)
6. Where did you live when you first started your menstrual periods?
Geographic location
7. Do you (or did you) have any daughters? No Yes
If you answered yes to question #7, go on to the next question.
8. When they reported that they had their first period, did you slap their face(s)? No Yes
If you answered yes to question #8, list each daughter and age at menarche in the table below.
Daughter (name or initials) | Age now | Age at menarche | What was said after slap?
9. Do you have any ideas about this custom? Why does it exist?
Thank you!
One woman writes about her own experience on this site.
Women menstruating together
Hi,
I was surfing and came across your Web site. Oh, my gosh, I never thought there was so much information available about menstruation.
The reason I am writing is because a few years ago, a group of women that I worked with were discussing how weird it was that we all would have our periods within days of each other. One of the women stated that it was a known fact that women who lived or worked closely together would have their cycles begin to change, until they were all having them at the same time.
My question is in two parts really.
Part one: Is this true [probably, although I believe it has been disputed recently],
and Part two: If it is true, do you know where I could read about any study that was done to prove this? [Read Martha McClintock's famous study from 1971.]
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and respond to my inquiry.
Lawyer discusses briefs, etc.
Dear Harry,
Well, this has been interesting. I am a lawyer (with a hysterectomy so part of the museum is pointless in a sense) and was doing a search on asbestos clean-up in a New York public school. Somehow my search words brought me to your Web page. After finding the letters about asbestos, I finally figured out how I got here. [Rumors about asbestos in tampons have circulated for over 20 twenty years. Read more.]
Anyway, I just have to say that this page is great. I was a bit amused when I first got to the page and, sadly, assumed that you were a woman. Well, it seemed obvious at the time. Then I kept seeing letters addressed to "Dear Harry." Hmmm. Finally, I read a couple of the letters and it dawned on me. I'm not usually quite that slow. Aren't stereotypes sad? You have a great sense of humor and I have had quite a number of belly laughs with your asides in the letters. I also have for the longest time been curious about what women did in the dark ages about all of this. Your point about the stiff, cumbersome dresses of the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries made sense. Of course, most of the women wearing those types of dresses had maids. The poorer folks tended to wear much more flexible clothes. It is hard to work in the field in a crinoline or with paniers. In any event, it was a good point. It made me think about it in much more graphic ways. [Read what I think women may have used in America and in Europe in the past few hundred years (and maybe much longer) and how their clothing may have influenced their "menstrual options," including what substituted for briefs for much of the past thousand or more years.]
I'm trying to think who I could tell about this site. God knows, it is not my gentleman friend. Well, maybe, but he sure wouldn't visit the site. He really is not that squeamish, but is somewhat old fashioned. My ex-husband, however, would love it. Yet I couldn't tell my mother. Weird. But I will tell my sister and my daughter, who is 11 and on the verge. My daughter and I have talked candidly about the subject, but this site would give her more information about options with which I have no personal experience.
In any event, kudos to you. I'm impressed and I really liked all the historical stuff. Although I kept clicking on links and then not getting to the end of articles. I'm not sure what I haven't seen yet, but I will come back to check.
Thanks.
from California
Guys and menstruation
Thank you for this fascinating online museum. I've been enjoying it for a couple of years. Maybe someday we will be able to accept and discuss biological functions without shame and embarrassment.
This is really interesting! I've referred several (female) friends to this site. (The guys just can't be bothered about such minor stuff.) [Guys are often confused about menstruation. If they're interested in some way, most don't know how to broach the subject; women themselves seldom want to talk about it - hey, it's awfully intimate and many are ashamed of it! On the other hand, for maybe the majority of males, menstruation is just another thing that prevents sex, which many, perhaps even most, males are interested in.]
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." (Later this month more information will appear on the publisher's site, in Spanish.)
My guess is that Spaniards will regard the cover as risqué, as many Americans would. And the book, too. But, let's celebrate!
Two weeks ago I 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.
