New this week: Napkin bag (U.S.A., 2001) - Clip sheet for fax tampon (early-to-mid 1930s, U.S.A.)

Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Words and expressions for menstruation
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?
Humor

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National Institutes of Health's Office of Women's Health invites MUM to celebrate anniversary

On 3 December the Office of Women's Health celebrates its tenth anniversary at the Bethesda, Maryland, headquarters, and I'll be there to hear senators and representatives, the Surgeon General of the United States, as well as others, speak. It's invigorating that the highest level of women's health in the U.S. government knows of this museum.


Next update of this site is in three weeks, not two

I'm creating a booklet tour of the future physical museum and I need another weekend to work on it (I'm an illustrator and painter). Thrill to the sight of the imagined museum! Delight in what the tour reveals about women's history to the family that strolls the halls, café, museum shop and garden! Suitable for children and conservatives. (Read some thoughts about the future museum.)


Letters to your MUM

and contributions to other departments I will postpone to the next update, as I drastically underestimated the time necessary to do the fax clip sheet, above, and Sunday is almost gone.

Plus, Mrs. Jablowski's daughter Teeger brought fleas into our house and I'm a-feared the joint will become infested, so I'm taking measures shortly. Mrs. Jablowski is a tortoise-shell patterned cat who, fortunately for her, immigrated to my back yard last year with her four kittens, another of which being The Supreme Kitten, a stunning long-haired orange tomcat with a most subdued cattitude. Read more about cats.


Did your mother slap you when you had your first period?

If so, Lana Thompson wants to hear from you.

I'm decreasing the frequency of the updates to make time for figuring out how to earn an income

I can retire from my graphics job in July 2002, and I really want to. But I can't live on the retirement income, so I must find a way to earn enough to support myself. I'm working on some ideas now, and I need the only spare time I have, the time I do these updates on weekends. So, starting June 2001, I will update this site every other week rather than weekly.

I have "independently-wealthy" envy, probably like most people in the world. But I would not fritter it away on fast cars and fast women - Oh, no! - but devote the little time I have remaining instead to your and my MUM - this Web site and museum.

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.)



Do you want to show items from this museum?

Please contact me if, on behalf of an organization, you want to borrow and show items from this museum and are willing to pay the shipping expenses, or if you have a good idea about where the museum can set up permanently.

All this depends on availability of items.

Items from the museum have appeared in television programs in Spain, Canada and Germany and in displays in the United States, as well as in magazines around the world (see media).

If you're able to pay my shipping expenses, and if I can skip work, you can also listen to me, live, talk endlessly about this endlessly interesting subject!

Money and this site

I, Harry Finley, creator of the museum and site and the "I" of the narrative here, receive no money for any products or services on this site. Sometimes people donate items to the museum.

All expenses for the site come out of my pocket, where my salary from my job as a graphic designer is deposited.


Privacy

What happens when you visit this site?

For now, a search engine service will tell me who visits this site, although I don't know in what detail yet. I am not taking names - it's something that comes with the service, which I'm testing to see if it makes it easier for you to locate information on this large site.

In any case, I'm not giving away or selling names of visitors and you won't receive anything from me; you won't get a "cookie." I feel the same way most of you do when you visit a site: I want to be anonymous! Leave me alone!


Help Wanted: This Museum Needs a Public Official For Its Board of Directors

Your MUM is doing the paper work necessary to become eligible to receive support from foundations as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation. To achieve this status, it helps to have a American public official - an elected or appointed official of the government, federal, state or local - on its board of directors.

What public official out there will support a museum for the worldwide culture of women's health and menstruation?

Read about my ideas for the museum. What are yours?

Eventually I would also like to entice people experienced in the law, finances and fund raising to the board.

Any suggestions?


Do You Have Irregular Menses?

If so, you may have polycystic ovary syndrome [and here's a support association for it].

Jane Newman, Clinical Research Coordinator at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University School of Medicine, asked me to tell you that

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.

Learn more about current research on PCOS at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania State University - or contact Jane Newman.

If you have fewer than six periods a year, you may be eligible to participate in the study!

See more medical and scientific information about menstruation.


New this week: Napkin bag (U.S.A., 2001) - Clip sheet for fax tampon (early-to-mid 1930s, U.S.A.)

Would you stop menstruating if you could?
Words and expressions for menstruation
What did European and American women use for menstruation in the past?
Humor

PREVIOUS NEWS
first page | LIST OF ALL TOPICS | MUM address | e-mail the museum | privacy on this site | art of menstruation | artists (non-menstrual) | asbestos | belts | bidets | founder bio | Bly, Nellie | MUM board | books (and reviews) | cats | company booklets directory | contraception and religion | costumes | cups | cup usage | dispensers | douches, pain, sprays | essay directory | extraction | famous people | FAQ | humor | huts | links | media | miscellaneous | museum future | Norwegian menstruation exhibit | odor | pad directory | patent medicine | poetry directory | products, current | religion | menstrual products safety | science | shame | sponges | synchrony | tampon directory | early tampons | teen ads directory | tour (video) | underpants directory | videos, films directory | What did women do about menstruation in the past? | washable pads

privacy on this site

© 2001 Harry Finley. It is illegal to reproduce or distribute work on this Web site in any manner or medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org