Period: The Real Story of Menstruation
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15
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Average rating4
A bold and revolutionary perspective on the science and cultural history of menstruation Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual’s period as useless, and some doctors still believe it’s unsafe for a menstruating person to swim in the ocean wearing a tampon. Period counters the false theories that have long defined the study of the uterus, exposing the eugenic history of gynecology while providing an intersectional feminist perspective on menstruation science. Blending interviews and personal experience with engaging stories from her own pioneering research, Kate Clancy challenges many of the myths and false assumptions that have defined the study of the uterus. There is no such a thing as a “normal” menstrual cycle. In fact, menstrual cycles are incredibly variable and highly responsive to environmental and psychological stressors. Clancy takes up a host of timely issues surrounding menstruation, from bodily autonomy, menstrual hygiene, and the COVID-19 vaccine to the ways racism, sexism, and medical betrayal warp public perceptions of menstruation and erase it from public life. Offering a revelatory new perspective on one of the most captivating biological processes in the human body, Period will change the way you think about the past, present, and future of periods.
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This book was nowhere on my radar but when I got an ALC from Libro.fm, I found the idea of it very interesting and because I've only been consuming audios recently, I got started with it almost immediately. And it turned out to be very good.
Considering how much of a taboo topic menstruation is ( my iPhone keyboard doesn't even show the word in autofill when I'm typing it out), I'm firstly glad we have books like this. When I first started menstruating as a teenager, I got no knowledge about it except that it happens and a small 30 mins health class at school. There was nothing about why it happens, the implications surrounding it, the pain and how to manage it or just about any other information. I'm just surprised but happy that I'm reading a book about it more than 20 years after experiencing it myself.
What I did like was the author giving her credentials in the beginning, mentioning that the book would be inclusive of genders based on whoever the topic is applicable to, and then proceeded to discuss many important topics - the historical discourse surrounding menstruation and how it came to be such an unmentionable topic, the impacts of patriarchy and our world being more male centric affecting the amount of time and resources dedicated to studying something like menstruation which happens to atleast half the world population, the various stigmas attached to it, and how much less information we have on the diverse ways in which people can get their period and how it affects their body and how circumstances affect it.
I don't think I got everything into my head already in this first read but I'm glad to have a general idea. But I definitely feel I will benefit from a more slow reread of it whenever I can in the future. And it'll surely be a more informative experience for younger kids who are just starting out and maybe knowing so much more than we did might help them manage their bodies better.
Absolutely loved this book. Kate is wildly intelligent and shared much scientific research regarding periods
