The Curse
Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this history of "the culture of concealment" surrounding menstruation and the effect of that secrecy on American women, Houppert presents medical, historical, literary, religious and anecdotal material documenting attitudes toward menstruation dating back to the Bible. Writing with a bravura that occasionally crosses the line into crudeness, she also convincingly investigates the role of advertisers and manufacturers of "feminine" products in perpetuating "superstition, shame, and sexual self-consciousness." In 1995, Tampax "reduced the number of plugs in a box from forty to thirty-two and raised the price," which incensed Houppert and sparked her research. She found that when tampons were introduced in the 1930s, clergy of all stripes opposed them as a threat to pubescent virginity, but few stepped forward to protest in 1980 when 38 women died of "tampon-related toxic shock syndrome." The FDA did not implement regulations until a decade later, after 60,000 women had been affected. Houppert shows how feminine-products manufacturers are maneuvering to stave off the coming industry economic crisis when baby boomers enter menopause by "hawking to pubescents" in middle schools with "traveling menstrual shows" that effectively keep the culture of concealment intact. She shows how PMS "has slipped into the cultural lexicon to discount women's legitimate concerns," noting how it has been blamed for everything from indigestion to murder. The silver lining for Houppert is a Museum of Menstruation (called "MUM" for mum's the word) and Web site (www.mum.org). Illustrated examples of each era's advertising introduce each chapter.
