The American Way to Menstruate

TUE BoDY
PRolEe T
An Intimote History of
Americon Cirls
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PuBERTY:
The Americon Vuy
to Menstruote
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f n the twentietl century, American girls iearned to menstruate
I ir, , .1.*, modern way that was vastly different from the expe'
Li"rr." of their Vctorian counterParts' Instead of spending
cramps' contemdays on a coudl with hot flatirons to ease their
their periods'
pomry girls are generally active and energetic dY""g
reach for a
When they start ro"rrrurrting, modern girk rJutinely
A1sanitary napkin even before *rey readr for their mothers'
from
though the shift ftorn inactivity to activiry and the change
freehomemade to cornmercial products generally meant greater
for
dom for women, there has been an unintended consequence
they
American girh and their development' At the moment when
typically
begin to menstruate, American girls and their mothers
thik first about the external body-what shows and what
of
doesrft-rather than about the emotional and social meaning
Socicty; (nglr) pcrmision
]epmcsc Amaio Historicel
Corncll Unircrsiry Photograplry'
Photos on p.27r (19ft) Pcrmision
Pcggy Poon
.1
Y
"nd
Rob.rt B"rl*t,
of Nrtionrl
of
the maturational Process.
The contemporary resPonse to menstruation actually follows
Lg
i
SANITIZING PUBERTY
THE tsODY pROIECT
with a Particular history' Over the
mencourse of the past century, there has been a shift in the way
srruation is viewed and handled-a shift that has certainly made
to the difdomestic life easier for women bur has also contributed
a culrurally constructed script
ficulties adolescenr girls at the end
of
the twentieth century have
with their bodies and sexuality' Instead of seeing menarche as a
marker of an important internal change in a girl-specifically'
het new capacity for reproduglfon-rnsdern mothers rypically
stress the importance of outside aPPearances for their daughtersl
right
keeping clean, avoiding soiled clothes, and purchasing the
"equipment." Hygiene, not sexuality, is the focus of most mater,rr1 dir.,rrrions with girls who have just started their periods'
The script that we follow in late-cwentieth-century America
tecfinoloinvolves mothers, doctors, and the producers of new
to
all of whom have collaborated over the past hundred years
gies,
prodtr.. a distinctly American menstrual experience that stresses
fep"rror,J hygiene over information about adult womanhood or
is a
male sexualiry. In the I990s, the sanitary products industry
more-rhan-$2 billion-a-year business, built on scientific and popular beliefs about personal cleanliness as well as changes in conand
temporary women's lives: eatliet menarche, fewer pregnancies'
lrt., -"r,opause-all of
which foster more periods and more
only affects
sales. The way we menstruate in America today not
the ccononry, it also contributes to the way in which adolescent
careful
gir:ls rrrnkc thc lrody into an intense project requiring
,.,,,,ti,ry itttcl constant pcrsonal control'l
A HvcrsNrc
CRIsIs
RerHsR TneN e MerunarIoNAL EvsNr
In the I870s, fourteen-year-old Alice Stone Blackwell noted the
onset of a menstrual period-"I14.P. number 3," she w1e6s-tu1
then she rested for the day and drank soothing tansy tea while she
"read and ached." Alice was the daughter
of feminist Lucy
Stone,
who insisted on keeping her own name despite her marriage to
Alicet father, social refolmer Henry Blackwell. Although Alice
to many liberal, progressive ideas, she never said a
word in her diary about how she coped with the problem of perwas exposed
sonal hygiene during her periods.z
By the I950s, the "menstrual talk"
of
American girls
was
laced with coricerns about personal hygiene. Unlike young women
in the Vctorian era, girls of this generation were routinely Prepared for menstruation in a number of ways that became commonplace after World War Il-conversations with mothers and
peers, as well as reading materials and corporate-sponsored films
provided at home and at school. These experiences provided in-
struction in female anatomy and information about the availability of commercial, mass-produced sanitary napkins, but not
about the emrrtions or sensations that were part
of
sexuality. As a result, when twelve-year-old Ruth
tischman got
her period in 1959, she immediately "put on
a girl's new
a napkin and
told
her modrer," in exactly that order.
In the months ahead, Ruth tischman continued a normal
round of school activities, phone conversations with her friends,
with her mother, and earnest ruminations about
death, boys, and blackheads. But she also watched the calendar
carefully and made notations about her flow and the number of
disagreements
f)
v\
7t
THE tsODY pROIECT
sanitary napkins rhat she used: "Today
SANITIZINC
I
got my period for the
fourth time. It is very lighr and black. But I think it is light because itt just begun and will get heavier later. I hope so. Not that
I like ic I dont like it at all. I just wanr ro have it a long time and
heavy so I can have something good ro talk about.,,3 Among
Ruth's girlfriends in suburban Queens, New york, heavy periods
had a certain cachet because they required many napkins; this was
alleged to be a sure sign of maturity.
Ruth Teischmaris reaction to mensrruation says a great deal
about the direction of change in the American girl's experience of
her sexually maruring body. Because she had been coached on the
logistics of what came ro be called sanitary protecrion, Ruth knew
exactly what
to do. Menarche had
curred suddenly;
it
a certain drama
involved a display
for her: it oc-
of blood; and it
required,
above all else, an immediate and reliable response in order to protect against public disclosure. In rhis respecr, Ruth really was typ-
ical clinical sudies demonsrrare that in the united states roday
both pre- and postmenarcheal girls regard menarche
PUtsERTY
Ghana place a menarchear girr benearh
an umbrera and rhen sing
and dance in her honor; the yuork Indians
of Californi, .*p".i
her ro isolate herself from her f"*ily.Americans,
by.orrtr"rt, g"rr_
erally have no corununiry rituals of initiarion
or exclusion. And
yet this intimate biological evenr is marked
in our own, distinctly
American way, Acenrury ago, morhers lengthened
their
daughters,
skirts, or allowed rhem ro pur up their
hair; today, American
girls and their mothers characeristically
head for the
mall, where
coming-of-age is acted out in purchase5_such
as bras, Iipsticks,
and high heels, or "grown-up,, privileges
such
as
.a, pi.r.irrg. W"
also know; from the reports of market
researchers, chat when
American girls begin ro menstruate, rheir
morhers usually intro_
duce them to their favorire brand of sanitary
protecrion and thar
girls remain loyal ro that brand, generally
without much experi_
mentation. At menarche, then, contemporary
American girl. .r_
tablish a firm bond with rhe markerplace,
facilitated iy their
mothers.s
as a hygienic
crisis rather than'as a maturational event,a
For contemporary girls, menstruation implies new concerns
about hygiene, but it does not imply fertiliry or reproduction as it
did in the Vctorian era. Ruth Teischman! aftenrion was riveted on
what her body was doing at the momenr, nor on being an adult
woman or becoming a morher. In the modern world, the adolescent's normal concerns about spotting, staining, and smelling dur-
ing menstruation routinely ranslace inro
purd-rases
of sanitary
products-purdrases so ordinary that most of us never even question them. Girls who grow up in the modern world of sanitary protection learn early how to keep a mensrruaring body under control.
In contemporary American society, menarche has become
more of an economic ritual than a social one. The Asante of
Tnr MrorcALrzATroN or
MpNARCHE
The modern American mensrrual script originated
at the end of
the nineteenth century, when attituj.,
womens bodies
began to change as a result of an important"bo,rt
ideological
the power
seesaw: as
of spiritual berief decrined, the aurhority of
medicine
rose.
Although rhe menstrual process was still
charucterized by
many religious people as one of the
great wonderc of ,rrtur.,
emong the educated middle class,
menarche and
mensrruadon
were less and less likely ro be regarded
simply as evenrs ordained
11
SANITIZINC PUBERTY
THE BODY pROIECT
increasing realization that "monthly
there
courses" were more than the punishment of Eve' and that
medical exwas some actual physiology involved, physiology that
by God. There was an
perts could teach laypeople-especially the mothers
of
adoles-
cent girls.
American mothers had been told by influential Vctorian
that
doctors, such as Edward Clarke and George Engelmann'
whose moththere were multiple medical risks in store for girls
a
ers did not suPervise them properly' The threat of having
the
beloved daughrer become an invalid (or infertile) motivated
respect
*olh.r,
many women for medical authority' Because most'
did not understand the relevant biology and stammered
of
to call their own (or their daughters') body parts' they
of normal
were willing to turn to physicians for explanations
of
life experiences, including the growth and sexual development
over what
their daughters'
RseorNc Hsn Wav INTo ADULTHooD
In the Vctorian era-when mothers feared "vulgar" information
and felt inadequate about how to explain menstruation-many
families relied on health and hygiene guides to teach their daughters what they could not say out loud. Many experts considered
good books, monitored at home by sensitive middle-class mothers, the best way to teach girls about changes in their bodies. "I
learned everything I knew from good sources and in a pure and sacted way," explained a young woman who came
of
age between
1890 and World War L Apparendy, this experience was typical:
over half of the respondents in a survey at Stanford Universiry
learned about menstruation and reproduction through health and
hygiene manuals that were given to them by their mothers, or via
medical books read surreptitiously
in
libraries.T (Most women
The medicalization of menarche meant that, in the twentieth
job of socialcentury, doctors shared with women the important
girls about their bodies' What physicians did
today recall educational pamphlets such as "You're a Young Lady
Now" or "Very Personally Yours," which usually accompanied a
course, was their own self-interesu by estab-
But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, adults
izi.rg
"dol"rcent
not-acknowledge,
of
lishing themselves as exPerts in the management of menarche
ser,rrd -.rrrtrration, they enlarged the constituency for their
a wider age
vices and filled their waiting rooms with women of
justified their interrange than ever before. Vctorian physicians
on the
u.r,rion in this embarrassing, formedy female domain
that American mothers did not do their job' Convinced
grounds
ih", ,rrnny mothers did not tell their daughters about menstruation because they did not know how, doctors took an increased
role in defining and treating menstruation at th€ same time
their exmiddle-class women were more than willing to accePt
pert
helP.6
74
box
of
sanitary napkins and were hidden in dresser drawers.)
still worried about how to keep these menstrual discussions from
moving on to graphic descriptions of intercourse, particulady
among adolescent girls. "[We] would like to put books ffeating of
these topics in the hands of [our] girls," said Mrs. Shepherd, a
popular author of advice books for women. "There are plenty of
medical works which present them well enough, but there are so
many other themes introduced that [we] hesitate to give them the
book at a11."8 Still, reading was always regarded as a better oPtion
than learning from peers, because "gid
Iearning among
peers-implied
trlk"-1rr6otma1, social
a coarser, rougher way
sociated with the working class and the poor.
1t
of life
as-
l1
irl
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SANITIZINC PUBERTY
THE BODY PROIECI
By the turn
of
the twentieth century, learning about menstru-
ation was still private and highly moralistic, buc it was also more
systematic and sciendfic. Middle-class girls were exPected to acquire a basic anatomical vocabulary to describe their bodies and
Ehe
wete outside the day-to-day supervision
of
physicians, rather
than on their daughter's most important internal changes-drat
is, what really happens to a girl as both her body and her mind
grow into womanhood.
menstrual process. As a result, their parents provided popular
health books, usually writcen by doctors, that told the narrative
story
of how eggs are produced in the ovaries,
released every
MorHpns wrrH e SeNrreRy SsNsrrrr-rry
twenty-eight to thirry days, and so on. There were also rules about
how to behave at that "special dme of t}re month," menstruation.
This new "hygiene of puberty" was Presented in a mix of scientific and romanticized language. Although doctors tried to teach
the correct anatomical words, some authors continued to refer to
the uterus, for example, as the "mother-room." These popular
guides were also used to establish what was normal and what
could go wrong, such as too much pain (dysmenorrhea), too
much blood (menorrhagia), or no blood at all (amenorrhea). This
catalog of pathology always had an implicit m"tsag": menstrua-
tion required medical as well as maternal management'e
In the work of bringing girls successfully into womanhood,
the doctor (rypically male) assumed the role of biomedical strategist, and the mother was his chief assistant. He applied scientific
knowledge to the mysteries of the female body; her role was to
Although doctors were considered "experts" about the physiology
of menstruation,
left the dirry work to mothers. \z[e1hs1snqg dqs6els-saught adolescent girls how to "fix themselves" in
order to prevent dirplryr of blood and soiled dothes. Most women
at this time knew how rc make something absorbent out of superfluous pieces of cotton or chambray, the kind found in the everpresent "regbag," The best napkins were supposedly made from
folded linen, as opposed to cotton, and they were "worn between
the Iimbs." When they were soiled, they were left to soak {or afew
hours before washing, so that the same rags could be used again.
tJrey
Hygiene books were generally so polite that they avoided any men-
don of these intimate but essential matters.Io
,ti,
By the I890s, however, homemade equipment was on che way
monitor habits and behaviors that would affect blood flow and re-
out, at least among women with a certain "sanitary" sensibility
productive capacity, such as bathing, dress, and exercise. A good
motler announced a litany of things to be avoided during men-
and the pocketbook to go with
struationl excessive'exercise, hot and cold baths, wet feet. (The
ever-popular "gym excuse" is e remnant
of this
idea that a gid has
it. Many middle-dass
women
to purdrase gauze and cheesecloth to assemble their own
pads, or tley ordered mass-produced napkins through the Sears,
Roebuc.k catalog. This behavioral change was stimulated by new
began
scientific ideas about the sources of disease that had developed
a
to be especially carefirl during menstruation.) These directives,
which were repeated millions of times to millions of gids, encouraged American mothers to fixate on external matters of habit
with Joseph Listert concept
and behavior, such as deanliness and scirool attendance, which
human waste, and even air and water, contained something alive
16
77
few decades earlier. In the I870s, Americans became conversant
of
ii|:
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antisepsis and the idea that
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SANITIZINC
THE BODY PROIECT
and dangerous.
In the I880s, public health officials, motivated
by the new germ theory, began to advocate antiseptic cleanliness
of
the house and the person. As a result, feminine washing and
to new hygienic standards.
named Dawson began
to prepare for the physical m"turation of
their thirteen-year-old daughrer, Margarer. In rhis enlightened,
menstruetion time, this meant
middle-dass household, both parents anricipated their
daughter,s
need for preparation and spoke to each orher about
it. Mr. Daw-
of the body [should be] as clean as the face," wrote
Dr. Joseph H. Greer in his guide The Wholtsome Woman (1902). At
that "the napkins should
be
changed at least every morning upon dressing and at night upon
son, conveniently, was a physician who had educated
Margarer
retiring." Greer's recommendation was based on the idea that ab-
a young girl about female anatomy and the funcrion
of rhe
ovaries, but it was Mrs. Dawson who initiated
the subjecr'whicrr
sorption
of
blood was not wholesome, and that soiled napkins
generated unpleasant odors, a sure sign
of "noxious effluvia" and
breeding bacteria.rl
Menstrual blood, which had long been taboo, was now sus-
as
every girl should know, preferably from her own
mother,s lips.,,
In the cozy serenity of her sewing room, on a beautifi.rlApril
day, Mrs. Dawson used the example of dre lilacs outside
her win_
pect on scientific grounds as a porential contaminant. Menstrual
dow to talk with Margaret abour blooming and
rags were considered dangerous, precisely because they Gcilitated
rowing from Edward Clarke, Mrs. Dawson spoke
about .ycles in
nature and how they echoed the natural ,,periodicity,,
of women..
a dangerous mixing
of
germs and gases
in
a warm place. Conse-
quently, many middle-class women and their daughters began to
use disposable napkins made
of
gauze andsurgical cotton. Adver-
tisers claimed that doctors endorsed them because
of their
anti-
septic and absorbent properties, and they suggested that this new
product would revolutionize the menscrual experience by eliminating heat and chafing. In a growing number of middle-class
homes, American mothers were teadring their daughters
t}at
these commercially produced napkins were a personal necessity.I2
In I9I3,
+
the twenrierh cenrury, did not tark with their daughters
in d:e
AMA.
In an episode entitled ,,Life problems,,, an imaginary fr*ily
ways suggesred by the
"Every part
menstrual discharge were subjected
"c)
PUBERTY
Because she
frdirg foliage. Bor_
wx
concerned about her daughter! reaction to tlis
heady information, the pace of the conversation
was slow and deliberate; tlere was no maternal unease. Mrs. Dawson
warned Mar_
garet that "the sight
of a stain on her garment" was the sign that she
had "crossed the th,reshold from girlhood to womanhood.,,
But she
pointed out, in a reassuring manner, that staining was perfectly
nat_
ural and rhat it happens ro "all women in all lands.l,
When Mar_
garet asked nervously how much blood she could expect
to lose, her
the American Medical Association (AMA) presented its formula for the correct mix of maternal nurturance and
sanitary hygiene in "Daughter, Mother, and Father: A Story for
Girls." This widely circulated pamphlet stands as a model of
middle-class sensibilities in the early twentieth cencury and the
idcal of preparedness.Ir I stress the word idtal precisely because
there are so many indications that middle-class mothers, even in
a stain on her bedsheets, she immediately sought
out her under_
78
1g
mother assured her that
it
was only a few spoonfirls and, ,ho,rgh
periods may seem difficult at first, ,,they are your Creator,,
pr"prrr_
tion of you for future motlerhood.,, Margaret responded.
enthusi_
astically to this linkage to motherhood, proclaiming happily: ,,Oh,
thati differenr. ft isnt rca1ly asicl<ness at all rhen.,, (Ti"r.'**
,o
mention of intercourse.) Three weeks later, when Margaret
noticed
SANITIZINC
THE BODY PROIECT
standing and prescient mother. Mrs. Dawson Put her arm around
her daughtert waist and then showed her how the lower drawer of
tle
dresser in her bedroom already held a plain canvas pad<age con-
In the privacy of
about sexuality-but in the form
of
a pamphler.
(At that time,
Lysol was used for personal hygiene and not as a household deaner,
as
it
is today.) Maternal advice abouc rhe purchase and use
itary napkins,
as
well
of
san-
other hygiene products, was certainly well
taining two or three dozen disposable napkins.
Margaret's bedroom, Margarett mother offered instruction in the
latest methods. "Here is the whole outfit " she explained' "Some
girls wear little folded napkins made from old linen or cotton, but
effect ir encouraged the idea that menarche was a matter of consumer decision making, and that coming-of-age was a process to
suc}r napkins have to be washed. As a rule, the girl washes them her-
be worked out in t}re marketplace rar}rer than ar home.
as
incentioned and extremely useful, but
self But by using thoroughly laundered cheesecloth and absorbent
corton, materials whicl a giil may get in any department store at a
reasonable price, she is able to make for herself these litde 'sanitary
Bepcss
napkins' as we call them. They need not be washed; after they are
soiled they are rolled up in paper and thrown into the furnace"' In
it did
have an unintended
or Srerus
to her daughtert generational identity, she pointed out
that these products were the wave of the future: they Jvere used by
Among working-dass girls, especially those from immigrant fam-
young adult women in
Wodd War I, most working-class mothers did not have the money
or the indination to adopt commercially made products of the
Mrs. Dawson was.right' American middle-class women were
kind recommended by Mrs. Dawson. In immigrant homes, many
young women wanted to adopt the new ways because they were
an appeal
smart high scJrool and college girls,
as
well
as
the business world'
developing a heightened sensibiliry about issues of feminine hygiene. They found the new disposable napkins extremely desirable
because chey promised less work, more comfort, greater mobiliry,
and a germ-free environment' The new hygiene also provided
dl
dr
PUtsERTY
ilies, sanitary napkins became a badge
of American ization. Before
easier, less cumbersome, and cleady the modern, scientific thing
to do. But limited
made the purchase
fr-ily
of
budgerc, as wellas some old-world ideas,
commercial products extremely difficult.
Because working-class morhers and daughrers lived
in
middle-class morhers with a safe script for their private conversations with their daughters. Instead of talking about the "curse of
close proximity
Eve" or "nerve stimulation" (which one could not see), they focused on the logistics of "sanitary protection'"
around cofiunon washbasins and metal tubs. "Every once in a
while when rhe washing would come up, you would see rags soak-
In the twentieth century, intimate maternal conversations with
daughters were more often than not about the use of a particular
ing. So after a while you would ask what that was all about," explained a woman who came of age in an immigranr family in
Pittsburgh in the early twentierh century.Ia Watchful morhers
such
to one another, female biology announced itself
technology or product, rather than about sexuality or reproduction. For example, a striking 1927 ed for Lysol featured a con-
sometimes monitored the family wash to see
cerned mother offering her brooding teenage daughter advice
"change" had come,
or
if
if
a
young daughtert
an older daughter with a beau had
SANITIZINC
THE tsoDY pROIECT
she was not pregnant' Many
regular cycles-a clear sign that
saw proof of menarcfre bemothers simply waited until they
or offered words of advice'
fore they ventured any explanation
nothing of mensffuation and
One fourteen-year-old who knew
genitals with Mercuroclrrome
rhought ,h" *r, "hurC' treated her
divulged her secret' Ulike
and cotton undl her stained underwear
coddling'
menarche stimulated no special
Dawson, her
and no introduction to special
no lengthy scientific explanation'
with a rag to wreP
products. Instead, she was provided
*rrg.r",
"r*irrry';
directly to school'Is
around her bottom and sent
cosdy' working-class mothers
Instead of books, which were
at
uP the information they needed
left their daughters to pick
the
was the case with Kate Simon'
school or on the streel This
of growing up in a polyglot ethnic
popular writer, whose memoir
ii"tl'ded a vivid descripdon of
neighborhood before World W"'
of the female body' when
how she learned about the mysteries
btt'*" chummy with some older
she was only ten or eleven' K"tt
them' a twelve-year-old
girls who "knew everything'" 9"t.ot
"shooting scum" (male ejaculation)
named Debby, told ht' about
to carch the blood that allegedly
and the way women used rags
"the thighs seParate from the lower
came each month fro* hauing
how anyone who was butchered
b.11y." (At ten, Simon *o"dlred
jn rural
than one period') Similarly'
thar way could survive more
the
about the female body from
Minnesota, Malvis Helmi learned
lavatory at her school' Fifty years
whispers of older girls in the
girlatmosphere of that particuiar,
later she could rtill r.call the
we
so
talkedl just loud enough
dominated space: "[They always
tht- complaining-and bragging;;;"r* o.,.' tot'ld ht"'
coming to visit" "16
about'the monthlies' and'Grandma
was less private and
Learning about womanhood probably
more
class because poor girls had
more social among the working
of
PUBERTY
an opportuniry to mix with women
-St
4L
ages at
work'
developed early
in the kitchen, or in a shared bedroom' Girls who
Irene' the
initiated others into the mysteries of womanhood'
menstruaced for the
daughter of Jewish immigrants in Pictsburgh'
first time in I9l2 at age thirteen' Although her Romanian-born
from a girlmother told her nothing, she garnered information
"lMy friend] was
friend at the Irene Kaufmann settlement House:
tel1 me things rhat
mature, she was like a woman and she would
came' Irene was
would iusc go over my head"' When her periods
because of what this friend
able to take it "as a matter of course"
at home"'
had told her. "We didrit learn about [menstruation]
of an Austro-Hungarian coal miner' "We
confirmed the daughter
just had to learn it from each other'"I7
alIn every edrnic group mothers seemed reluctant to talk'
tell
We don't
though the reasons aifnt"a' "We ashamed people'
a Yugoslavian
nothing, mother no tell us," explained Mika'
at age
immigrant daughter, as she recalled her first menstruation
a corrunon
When her mother finally did mlk' she offered
-ori*
fourteen.
religious explanation: "God made
.u.ry
-otth,
going to be sick,
a
lvoman that way' That's why we'
till you go into trouble"'r8 Alchough
for menstruating
Orthodox Judaism required special practices
Orthodox women
such as the mik^tah(a rirual bath to which
women,
experienced the
go aftera menstrual period), ]ewish girls generally
Goldman
communication, and many' sudr as Emma
or even insulted' by
and Kate Simon, remembered feeling shocked'
face at menarche' a gestheir mother! sudden ritualistic slap on the
wo**''e
against tt'" dfntt.rtUes of life
to
same lack
of
ture intended
"' '
Protect
According to
Among African-Americans, silence also prevailed'
rural Alabama: "NoOnnie Lee Logan, a midwife who grew up in
was right in her own
body told *" orr" thing' Mother thought she
that outa my sight"'zo
lettin *" k]lo* that' She
way fornot
Put
47
an
of different
THE BODY PROIECT
SANITIZINC PUBERTY
In the Italian community, the high value put on female innocence and chastity meant that mothers rcnded to say very little
to their daughters. Rose, born in Petilia, Italy, in 1892, came to
Pittsburgh at age fourteen and married at age sixteen in 1908. Her
rash, whidr caused Mrs. Pemillo to capit,late to her daughrer! request for Korex. Fifty years later, Lillian still fek uiumphanu ,,[My
mother] figured that was one expense she was going ro have.,'24
For immigrants' daughters, it was extremely important to be
"scientific" and "up-to-date" in menstruation as well as appear_
first menstruation, however, occurred one week after her marriage:
"I just got blood, that was it," she remembered many years later.
ance, Girls born on American soil learned about modern hygiene
Rose had been totally unprepared for both menstruation and sexual
at school, where sanirary napkins had become an articre
intercourse, but when she complained later in life, her mother justi-
Because daughters were rhe
fied her silencq "They say [we] werent supposed to tell you."zl Italian immigrants also resisted middle-class efforts to sanitize the
menstrual experience.
In fact, they worried about any intervention
that would divert or interfere with menstrual blood. To the chagrin
of physicians and health educators of the Progressive era, Italian
mothers did not encourage their daughters to drange dreir menstrual rags often. In their minds,
a
heavily stained napkin was a good
it signified fertility and stimulated the blood flow.zz
Although ideas ftom the Otd World lingered, the immigrants'
American-born daughters wanted New World bodies. In the
process of assimilating to American mores and values, young
sign, because
women in many ethnic groups became disdainfirl
pracrices
of their motlers and
of
the menstrual
grandmothers. They wanted
to
of
fairh.
primary conduir for bringing rech_
into rhe immigrant home, public
school teachers creared simadons thar fostered a diarogue ted by
the daughter rarher than by the mother. In I9iI, after Iearning
the physiology and hygiene of the pelvic organs from a papiermAch6 female body, girls at Cleveland's Technical High School
were required to take home and read our loud wirh their mothers
nine typewritten sheets containing "tlre essential facts.,,2s Of
course, these "facts" included descriptions of commercial products that many immigranr mothers still regarded as luxuries.
niques
of feminine
Daughters
hygiene
of immigranrs undersrood,
before their grandmothers
and mothers did, that there was an American way ro menstruate,
and that it required participation in the larger consumer society.
be
like the young working women and college girls who made up the
first mass market for disposable sanitary napkins-sold as Kotex
and made from cellucotton by KimberlpClark.23 How.ver, because
of the cost, some girls could not adopt modern sanitary protection.
Well into the I930s and I940s, there were some American girls
who had to make do with homemade Protection. In 1945, when
Lillian Petrillo got her first period, she was totally unprepared and
her mother rmmediately supplied her with the kind of handmade
"diapers" she and her three elder daughters always used. But after
three cycles it was clear that homemade napkins gave Lillian a nasry
\-tr
GorNc PusI,rc
In the twentieth century, talk about menstruation
became acceptable in certain public sc-hool settings, in girls'groups, and in maga_
zines for women and girls. As a result of experience in worrd war I
with venereal disease, physicians, social workers, and teachers embarked on a crusade to promore rhe moral health of American
youth, a crusade in which many aspects of sexuality, including
4f
SANITIZINC
THE BODY pROIECT
These advertisements constituted the first real public ac-knowl-
and openly discussed'
menarche and menstruation, were sanitized
about "deAlthough there were conservative critics who worried
mother's
feared that teachers were uying to usurP the
..rr.y"
of menstruation. In the earliest ads, KimberhClark targeted mothers and their well-known difficulties preparing their
daughters. The illustrations rypically showed either the ideilized
mother-daughter conversation, or a pensive young woman with
unanswered questions. The ad was given authorirl by the personal
signature of a professional nurse, who was available to answer letedgment
Ld
"social hygiene" moYerole, the men and women who made uP the
ment agreed that "better
e year
too eady than an hour too late"'
as
information was concerned' As they argued over where
biology' physiolmenstruation should be taught-in high sclool
far
as sex
ters and send free samples in a plain, unmarked wraPPer. A generation of mothers who had suffered the indignities of unhealthy,
dx55s5-figy admitogy, physical education, or home economics
"No one
tl,"t maternai initiation was now just a faded ideal'
t.i
the mother in instructing her daughter
life'" physician
in ttre simple and beautiful truths of reproductive
education
wrote with nosmlgia, but he also called sex
can quite take the place
of
Emil Novak
a "legitimate" enterpdse, b'dly
among American youth'25
the first groups
The Girl scouts of America (GSA) was one of
I920s' a scout
to systematically teach menstruation to girls' By tht
Winner Badge had to learn about the
in
i
"t"dtd
rrr,rit of ih. Health
physiology
,roop
with 1rer
menstruation and also have a private talk
leader when
about it. She was also required to tell her
of
t.J.,
that the older woman could
she was menstruating, on the grounds
help her avoid "overdoing
and determine an aPProPriate level of
the Girl scouts recognized the difficulty
it"
act;iry. The leadership of
between
of asking volunteer troop leaders to position themselves
exPert (the
the natural authoriry (the mother) and the professional
but they also knew that s31e
physician, biology teacher, or nurse)'
As a result' GSA
girf, fr*a.ro orr. .1r. to turn to for information'
the hygiene of
Lri.,ing materials higtrlighted information about
strategies for
the female body ,oJ'tili"d tht most enlightened
talking to girls about menstruation'z7
burst out
In the effort to sell products' mensttuation finally
of
such as the lnlies'
the closet in the I920s when popular magazines'
for Kotex'
and Cood Housekeeping, began to run ads
Home
unhygienic makeshifts were now urged to tell their daughters:
"This new way is Kotex, widely urged by doctors and nurses,
Kotex is used by eight women in ten in the better walks of life."28
Across the countrp in large cities as well as in small towns, t'hese
ads were accompanied by thousands
c\
a6
of
drugstore displays that
made Kotex familiar and accessible even to young girls.
In the I930s and I940s, newly established educational divisions within the personal products industry (i.e., KimberlpClark,
Personal Products, Thmpax, Inc., and Campana Corporation)
began
to supply mothers, teachers,
parent-teacher associations,
and also the Girl Scouts with free, ready-made Programs of instruction on "menstrual health." Oral history interviews done in
pittsburgh reveal that tlese programs were exrremely effective. Beginning in the I930s, but especially in the I940s, almost all the
Slovak, Italian, and Jewish families in that city were
given corporate-sPonsored pamphlets, suc-h as "Mariorie May's
Twetfth Birthday" (1932), either at school or by their mothers' In
daughters
of
1946, in conjunction with Walt Disnep the industry also developed the first corporate-sponsored fi1m on the subject, The Story oJ
Menstruation, an animated cartoon that has been seen by approxi-
mately 93 million American women either at school or in some
single-sex setting.
Other films followed, elong with
Journal
\s
PUBER,TY
47
famous
THE BODY pROIECT
SANITIZINC PUBERTY
brochures, such as "Very Personally Yours," "As One Girl to An-
to either suspension belts or underpants.
Panty hose, which facilitated very short skirrs, also herped to hold
sanitary napkins in place.
other," and "You're
a Young Lady Now;"2e
These are the experiences that produced girls like Ruth
Teischman, who were comfortable thinking, writing, and talking
about menstruation. In recognition of earlier matutation, menstruation began to be taught as early as the fifth or sixth grade, at
age nine or ten. All the attention paid to menstruation untied
many tongues and stimulated e greet deal of talk about whicl
girls had their periods and which did not. This kind of girl talk
was not invented in the years after World War II, although it did
become more frequent and more audible in those yearc.\n 1952,
a Chicago gid wrote ro the editors o{ Swenteen: "I am fourteen and
have not as yet begun to menstruate, whic} worries me considerably. Since I am nearly fifteen,I often wonder if I am abnormal"
(The young lemer writer was told to see a gynecologist.)3o
The late I940s and I950s were absolutely critical in forging
the modern teenage girlt relationship to her sexually maturing
body. After World War II, mothers were deleted from advertisements and testimonials for sanitary napkins in order to encourage
autonomous consumption by teenage girls. Yet independent buy-
ing was embarrassing so long
as sanitary products were
kept be-
hind drugstore counters and sold by male clerks. Most girls still
needed their mothers to help them acquire the feminine parapher-
nalia they needed. After she went to see a "menstruation movie"
with her mocher at a Cleveland junior high school in 1950, Sandra Rubin wanted a sanitary belt like the one she saw in the film,
but her mother was not convinced it was necessaty: "I am afraid
Mom doesn't understand me and laughs when I ask for a sanitary
belt."3I Readers who have reached menarche since the I960s may
not realize that feminine napkins were once mudr bulkier and tlat
before the invention
'.\
s
of panty
hose and press-on paPer taPe, they
48
were usually pinned
Although the posrwar sanitary products industry encouraged
autonomy in .teens, it also stimulated angsL Advertisements for
sanitary protection consistendy played
to
adolescent awkward-
ness, concern about peers, and the embarrassing specter
of soiled
clothes. For young gids who were already self-conscious and un-
certain about their maruring bodies, the right sanitary product,
used correctly, was promoted as tlre most important form of so_
cial insurance, snenteen featured both artides and advertisemenrs
about how to cope with the sffess of ',special,, days and how to
handle aheavy flow while remaining acrive, anractive, and dainry.
"Above all, dont retire from the human race during your period,,,
advised a postwar physician. "Mensrruation is not a ,sicft time.,
as natural and normal as breathing. It should be viewed. wirh a
It!
healthy, matter-of-facr artirude."32
This was clearly an improve-
of the "ovarian determinists,,, but girls
still had to be extremely wary-nor so much about health but
ment over the fear tactics
about showing, smelling, offending. In effecr, they had ro ger rheir
bodies under control.
Marketing straregisrs understood rhar sales to rhe baby-boom
generation-5oon to be rhe largest cohort of adolescents in
American hisrory-seuld turn menstrual blood into gold,33 As a
result, tJrey elaborated even more exacting standards of feminine
hygiene. Girls growing up in posrwar America (like Ruth Teischman and myself) were taught that napkins had to be changed as
often
as six times a day. Women
born in those decades, many of
whom are still menstruating, routinely selecr from at least three
rypes of sanitary protecrion-, napkins, rampons, and panry lin_
ers--each with different absorbent capacities. And some use &rm4S
Piif!
THE tsODY PROIECT
pons and napkins simultaneously and
SANITIZINC
pan{ liners almost contin-
uouslp throughout the month. Foreign visitors often stare in won-
der at the size and diversiry
of
the sanitary products aisle in
a
contemporary American supermarket,
Despite our long-standing and vigilant attention to feminine
for "menstrual talk" is still relatively new. Although people today refer casually (and loosely) to something
called PMS (premenstrual syndrome), this was not true thirty
years ago. In fact, in 1965, the publication of a novel by Louise
hygiene, tolerance
Fitzhugh, entitled The Long Suret, prompted debate about the ap-
of even mentioning
propriateness
girls. Fitzhugh was the author
ture story;
The
Lory
Secret
of
menstruation
Harriet
was a sequel
the
in fiction for
Sp, a popular adven-
that focused on Harriett ef-
forts to solve a local mystery by being brash and ingenious.
Reviewers, hor.u.r, focused on the fact that Harriet's friend Beth
got her period, and that Fitzhugh allowed the girls to talk about
it. Although the entire discussion was upbeat and healthy"fMenstruation] happens to every woman in the world, even
.
Madame Curie," Harriet 53ld-5681s critics were disquieted because they thought it inappropriate to include the subject in juvenile books. A reviewer in The Washington Posr reported that there
I
was unaware that she also wrote a coming-of-age classic that
put menarche and menstruation at its center. (By 1995, the book
had sold over six million copies.)3s
Blume's story about growing up in New Jersey clearly tapped
into the contemporary menstrual script. The central character is
twelve-year-old Margaret, who repeatedly asks God for two biological favors: bigger breasts and periods. At het new school, Margaret makes friends with a group
share her preoccupations.
gether in order
of equally undeveloped girls who
In secret club meetings, they
to develop tfieir
exercise
to-
chests, and they are ever vigilant
(and sometimes dishonest) about who does or does not have peria great deal of humor and includes
of watching a movie about menstruation in sixth grade. After listening to the stilted language of a
ods yet. The story is
a parody
of
told with
the experience
representative from "Private Lady" personal products, Margaret
mocks her pronunciation ("menstroo-ation") and vows never to
buy Private Lady napkins even
if
she needs them.
Grland Louisa May Alcotti Litth Women,l
had known Blume as the successful author of "problem books"
for young people, novels about suci topics as divorce and death,
My students rcalizedthat this was not sophisticated literarure,
but they were more than willing to suspend that kind of aesthetic
judgment because the subject-how a girl adjusts to her sexually
maturing body-was treated so realistically and hit so close to
home. Just like the fictional Margaret, they had all worried about
the pace of their own development and giggled tleir way nervously through "the movie." In contrast, when I taught Littlt
Wmen, a student complained that she had real difficulry relating
to the women in that famous story of nineteenth-century family
life. There was something "unnatural," she said, about Alcottt
depiction of the March girls because "you never know when they
[Meg, Jo Beth, and Amy] get their periods."
According to our contemporary script, girls should talk about
menstruation. And, in fact, they do, and that talk is increasingly
fo
lt
were some "startling scenes," such as the gids' "clinical discussion
of
the physical changes of maidenhood, that will make squeamish
parents blanch."3a
Bodr the times and girls have changed.
a group
of Cornell women
In 1995,
when
students to construct a list
I asked
of favorite
books from their adolescence, Judy Blume's Are You There, God? lt\
IvIe, Margaret (1970) was number one, well ahead of both Anne
Frankt Diary
\$
\N
but
PUtsERTY
oJ a Young
THE tsODY PROIECT
SANITIZINC
PUtsERTY
graphic, just like the television and movies we watch. In a i989
issue of Sass1, alively and sometimes irreverent magazine for ado-
out shame are better prepared in adolescence for changes in their
own bodies and for making distincrions among the barrage of
lescent girls, the editors (all women in their twenties) shared per-
sexual stimuli that popular culture directs at adolescents.
sonal stories about menarche and menstruation.'5
A. if
they were
sitting in a private bedroom sipping diet sodas, they swapped
"menstrual nightmares" about what it was like to leave a puddle
of blood on a chair, or to struggle to find the right opening for a
tampon. These stories
of
embarrassing personal moments were
honest and funnp but rhey all focused on issues of personal hygiene because that is the language we use in America for talking
Unfortunatelp though, more information does not always
translate into a real understanding of one's own body. Before she
left for a Cape Cod vacation in 1982, a sophomore ar a select
New York City high school wrote in her diary: "I would ger my
period tonight. It's just Iike my eggs ro reach ovulation tonight."
This young woman sounded sophisticated, bur she obviously misunderstood the relationship between ovulation and her monrhly
period. Others diagnose themselves on the basis of medical mod-
about sud-r things.
in popular periodicals: "I was reading an arricle in
I have now.
I have all the classic symptoms except cramps-I'm moody, irritable, bloated and have low self-esteem. I really want to get some
Midol PMS and see if it works."37
els provided
Snenteen
KBaptNc CreeN Is
Nor Euoucn
In the course of the Past century, menstruation has been demystified by medicine, by marketers, and by mothers. Each group had a
particular interest in the bodies of adolescent girls; each group
helped
to
shape the experience
of
menard-re and menstruation
into the hygienic, essentially commercial ritual it is today. The
long-term consequences of demysti$,ing the Process of menstruation, however, are not entirely benign. On the one hand, American girls are more knowledgeable about their bodies than girls
were in the Vctorian era. More than at any other time in human
history, young girls are equipped with a clinical vocabulary and
medical information learned from parents, from lessons at school,
and from discussions in magazines. In some liberal families, parents have even stopped using euphemisms for genitalia and en-
Aithough information is always better rhan silence, we need ro
think about how girls learn about their bodies and whose inreresrs
inform the presentation
of this critical information. Unfortu-
nately, many American girls grow up equaring the experience of
menarcle and menstruation with a hygiene product. A woman
who grew up in che I940s recalled that before any of her friends
had gotten their periods, one
of
her fellow fifth-graders suddenly
not slide down a snowy hill.
When asked why, this prepubertal girl said laughingly, "I cant. I'm
practicing Kotex."38 This childish remark captures rhe exrenr ro
declared one day that she would
which the sanitary products industry dominates the experience
of
sexual maturation in America. The comment was also a perceptive
of
of
vagina and penis. Children who grow up in an environment with-
girl coming of age
in a society where female identity is so closely linked ro purchases
in t}re marketplace. By creating a profit-making enterprise from
lL
f1
courage children as young as three or four to talk openly about the
*-!-
about PMS and I'm almost posirive that's what
piece
cultural logic on the part
a young
SANITIZINC
THE BODY pRolECT
in-
sanitary products
adolescent self-consciousness, the Postwar
of other areas of
dustry paved the way for the commercialization
concern to
such as skin, hair, and breasts-all of great
the body,
developing girls.
sanitary
Th. ,r*.rrder of a life event such as menarche to the
in some measure to the
products industry probably contributed
sexualiry' As
difficulties we face today with female adolescent
in motherthe industry became an ever-Present "third party"
discussions' Perdaughter, doctor-patienr, and teacher-sudent
became even
,orril .*p.rience and testimony from older women
or important' Although there was more infor*
less authoritative
from realJife expemation available, it was increasingly abstracted
than more) personal in the
rience, and it was also made less (rather
hope
of reducing embarrassment' In the
case
of
the Disney fi1m'
which mothers
menstruation was reduced to an animated cartoon'
ever engaging in the
and daughters could watch together without
or reproduction that
kind of frank, intimate talk about sexualiry
nor reproduction is
modern adolescents need' (Neither sexuality
the availabiliry of so
mentioned in that influential film') Instead'
material meant that
much free, corPorate-sPonsored teaching
simply gave out pamphlets and lammany mother, ,rrd
""Jt" individual advice and counsel about
ples rather than provide
niques for coping with the vagaries
high, it now seems obvious that it is not enough to teach girls how
to be clean and dainty.
When contemporary American gids begin to menstruate, they
think of hygiene, not fertiliry. That is the American way, and it is
taken for granted-as if it were part of the "natural order." But
the historical "disconnect" between menstruation and reproduc-
tion is actually quite modetn, and it has important psychological
implications for how girls think about themselves and what kind
of women they become. It was strategically helpful for our grand*
mothers and mothers to cast menstruation as "only" a matcer
of hygiene, in order to offset Victorian mirths about its debilitating effects. In todayi world, however, that dismissiveness means
something else. In fact, it ses the smge for obsessive overattention
to other aspects of the changing body, such as size and shape. In
an environment like ours, where looks mean so much, this turning
away from the hidden aspects
of
in the twentieth century, this reorientation toward t}re visual, or
the outside of the bodp has only intensified the difficulties of
being an adolescent.
from the
a pamphlet or shown a
about menstruation-that being handed
women want meanmovie is not very satisfring, and that young
well as the best techingful exchanges about female sexuality as
t4
female biology has put excruci-
ating pressure on those body parts that the world can see. For girls
.*p.ri.rr.. of generations of American women-and
,,r...r, of ]udy Blumet insightful parody of school instruction
$-l
of menstrual blood. In a world
where the female body is sexualized so early and the shkes are so
growing uP female.
"
to emphasize seI., ir.p"rirrg girls for menarche' we still tend
meaning or the responlecting a sanitary product rather than the
from the
rhat menstruation implies' However' we know
sibility
PUBERTY
It