Remember fourth grade or fifth grade when the school nurse pulled all the girls into the library to show them a filmstrip (in my day it was a filmstrip--some of you may have had a video or a movie. By the way--what happened to all the filmstrips and filmstrip projectors? But I digress.)about...menstruation? (Shhhh!)
A young woman (a very young woman--18 years old!) thought to collect and edit women's stories of their first periods. She writes the most eloquent introduction to this small collection about how many women had to hide or felt ashamed of this very natural, normal occurence. But no more. The revolution has begun. This delightful collection of stories contains memories of dozens of women which are sad, funny, comforting and celebratory. The editor has included a classic essay by Gloria Steinem called "If Men Could Menstruate" (updated for 2008) as well as a list of euphemsims for "that time of the month". She provides commentary throughout the book about different customs and rituals surrounding menarche. She ends with a list of charities to contact to contribute to causes that help women in third world countries with no access to sanitary supplies. Imagine not being able to go to school once a month.... www.healthandwater.org
My Little Red Book by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff.
5 comments:
As always, you alert me to interesting reads, Esme!
I might have to try to borrow this one over break.
:)
I ordered it and checked it out from the library. I returned it so it is there--waiting.
Kudos to you Esme- It seems your review has sparked other interest in this book locally too! I am third in line at MCPL for this book.
:)
OK, I'm going to request it now, too. By the way, Full Frontal Feminism will be on its way back to the library soon. It's a spirited read!
Funny, I recently found a collection of these stories when I was sorting through some old papers. We'd done this on nervousness.org back when I was involved with some of the projects/experiments on that site. I'm glad someone made an actual book out of this concept!
Post a Comment