For this month’s column, I had the pleasure of emailing with Chris Bobel, Ph.D. about her new book which deftly tackles a taboo topic.

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You explore new feminist activism that focuses on menstruation. Historically, how have feminists viewed menstruation, and why menstrual activism now?

The issue of menstruation has not been a top feminist priority, though, since at least the 1970s, a few bold feminists have recknoned with socio-cultural and political dimensions of the menstrual cycle. I argue that the menstrual taboo–which impacts us all, even feminists–often puts the issue off-limits. In mainstream culture, the only menstrual discourse that gets any play is making fun of women with PMS. I studied menstrual activists who want to widen and complicate the conversation. Menstrual activism is part of an enduring project of loosening the social control of women’s bodies, moving women’s bodies from object to subject status–something absolutely foundational to addressing a range of feminist issues, from human trafficking to eating disorders to sexual assault.

What do you think of Kotex’s new ad campaign “Break the Cycle,” which lampoons traditional menstrual product ads?

The new campaign could be a game change, but I’m doubtful. First, the campaign only works as long as the menstrual taboo persists; otherwise, their frank talk doesn’t stand out, does it? While I can join in the joke of the industry poking fun at itself–and I love the message of “no more shame”–in the end, it’s the same, just repackaged.

Second, I resent this campaign for exploiting shame to sell product for nearly a centuray and then exploiting THEIR overdue pronouncement–“enough with the euphemisms, and get over it”–to sell product.

Also, you’ve got to wonder if not only Kotex but their whole industry is now pulling out all the stops to try to hold onto its market share as menstrual suppression drugs–like Seasonique and Lybrel–are gaining interest.

So, what do you think of pharmaceutical industry arguments that support these menstrual suppressants?

Their quasi-feminist arguments co-opt feminism to push drugs. Big Pharma is marketing suppression as a ‘lifestyle choice’, but what most don’t realize is that “menstrual suppression” is actually cycle-stopping contraception that does not only reduce or eliminate menstrual bleeding but also suppresses the complex hormonal interplay of the menstrual cycle. We don’t yet have adequate data to really show if this is a safe long-term practice for otherwise healthy women. Check out this position statement.

Furthermore, ad campaigns represent the menstrual cycle as abnormal, obsolete, and even unhealthy. These messages underscore that women’s natural functions are defective, dysfunctional and need medical intervention. This can lead to negative body image, especially in young women. How is this feminist? ‘Choice’ without good, fact-based information based on thorough medical studies isn’t real choice, and a campaign that exploits women’s negative attitudes about their bodies isn’t feminist either.

Your work uses menstrual activism as an analytical lens through which to view continuity and change in the women’s movement, from what some call the “second wave” of feminism through the “third wave.” So, given that the ‘wave’ distinctions are not without controversy among feminists, what do you see as setting third wave feminism apart? Is it truly unique, or is it merely a label that recognizes the next generation?

There’s a lot of continuity between the waves–mostsly in the tactical sense. Today’s feminist blogs are yesterday’s zines, which reflect earlier mimeographed manifestos; radical cheerleading recalls street theater and public protests, like early second-wavers at the 1969 Miss America pageant. Second-wavers practiced what third-wavers call DIY (Do It Yourself) healthcare when they modeled pelvic self exams. But, most third-wavers depart from most (but not all) second-wavers by troubling the gender binary. For example, the radical wing of menstrual activism movements reers to “menstruators”, instead of assuming that everyone who menstruates gender-identifies as a woman.

Tell me more about that!

Most assume that a female-bodied person, with breasts and a vulva, is a woman, and usually that’s true. We also assume that menstruation is a near-universal experience for women. Radical menstruation activists question these assumptions. Menstruation is not and has never been EVERY woman’s experience. Women don’t menstruate for lots of reasons, and they don’t menstruate their whole lives. Also, some transmen and intersex people DO menstruate. So, equating menstruation with womanhood is problematic. Saying “menstruators” makes room for more people, more experiences. This linguistic move is boundary smashing, inclusion-in-action and bodes well for feminism’s future.

But, you’ve written that menstrual activists are not successful at all attempts at inclusion.

The first face of the feminist movement may have been white and middle class, but poor white women and women of color across the class spectrum have always been there, often toiling in relative obscurity. This could be the case with menstrual activism, too. However, I’m a white, privileged academic, and this biases my world view. I looked for women of color doing this work and found a few. But, was I looking in the right places? Was I using the right language? One activists of color said that I was likely missing Black women because I wasn’t clarifying how race and gender intersect in menstrual health. Also, menstrual activism is risky business for all, and especially for women of color, whose bodies have been denigrated throughout history. Taking on the menstrual taboo can make others see you as nasty, gross, improper…and if you’re already struggling to be accepted and taken seriously, then why go “there”?

Well, I and many other women’s health activists appreciate that you ‘went there’!

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For more on this topic and her research, check out Chris’s new book — New Blood: Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation (Rutgers University Press, 2010), previewed in the Our Bodies, Ourselves blog and in a provocative article in the Guardian last fall.

The things that become viral are unpredictable. Earlier this month a few friends on Facebook posted a link to a Fermilab webpage that showcased 31 seventh graders drawings of scientists before and after a visit with actual scientists. I re-posted it and then a few others did as well. I saw others on Twitter tweeting it. It wasn’t the double rainbow guy viral, but it certainly seemed to be spreading.

All the children learned something about who a scientist is. Sometimes their drawings didn’t change much, but their description did. The biggest difference I noticed was that the myth of a lab coat died that day. All the scientists the kids met that day seemed to wear jeans and sweaters or button down shirts. Which is pretty much what most of the scientists I know do wear.

A few of the drawings really touched me, especially Sandra‘s. Not only did she start off already picturing a woman as a scientist, but after meeting some scientists she tossed the lab coat and commented about all the fun things that scientists do in their lives. Plus her drew a woman and a man holding hands. Awww…

But wait…I started to notice that some of the girls (I tallied 4) started off with a white male scientist and then evolved to a woman scientist. One girl might have gone from woman to man. So what about the boys? All of them stayed with a male scientist drawing. Eric seems to be the only student to change from a white scientist to a non-white scientist. That is a bit unclear as crayon skin tones are hard to decipher in some of the drawings.

Does this mean that boys only met male scientists? Or did they simply draw scientists who they connected with? Did the boys leave Fermilab that day with the idea that girls can be scientists too? Will they support their girlfriends who want to take AP Computer Science? Support their wives who need to embark for three-weeks in the field? Yes, I know I’m being totally heteronormative, but this is where some tension develops.

My job is to ensure that the women majoring in science and engineering on my campus have a supportive community. But you know what, we have a few awesome men who attend our events and request mentors. I like to think it’s because our office is delivering a great service and some men could care less that the program they are attending is run by women, for women and featuring women because in the end, it’s still all science and engineering. And for me, that’s progress.

So while I’m all “Go Girl!” I also know that if we ignore our boys, the revolution will never be complete.

By the way…this drawing experiment? It’s ten years old.

Body Language proudly presents July’s guest writer, Laura Maffei. She is the author of the poetry collection Drops from Her Umbrella (Inkling Press 2006) and founder of the journal American Tanka. Her current project is a memoir called Girl with a Secret, or How I Tried to Hide Muscular Dystrophy with Tight Jeans and Makeup and she blogs about issues of appearance at lauramaffei.com.

When I was twelve years old, in 1980, I was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. There weren’t really any visible symptoms yet, but the disease was progressive and eventually there would be. During the car ride home, my mother turned to me in the back seat and said, pointedly, “We’ll only be telling Aunt Nancy and Uncle Joe.” These were our closest relatives. What she meant was, we would not be telling anyone else. She was telling me to keep it a secret.

My parents made this decision mostly out of protection. This was, after all, long before the Americans with Disabilities Act, and they didn’t want me unnecessarily labeled at school. But there was another side to it. My family cared deeply about appearances, my mother in particular. None of us, my father included, were allowed out of the house for any reason without being freshly washed and combed, wearing freshly ironed and color-coordinated outfits. We were also expected to look dignified and graceful at all times.

There was one other layer. I was a girl. I think a boy would have been told to keep it a secret too, for general appearances’ sake and to avoid discrimination, but a boy, you see, could win his mate with his earning power, if he worked diligently enough. Which he would be expected to do (both work hard and find a mate), since we were a traditional and conservative Italian-American family with one foot still in the 1950s. When I was born in 1967, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all placed bets on what age I would be when I got married. The bets ranged between 19 and 24, with one uncle betting “never” because I’d be a career woman. One could not be both, because then how could you cook or clean for your husband and children? And yet one was definitely expected to marry.

And marrying required being attractive. While I was encouraged to study hard and go to college, it was always made clear to me that being attractive was essential, and that “attractive” meant very specific things: A slim figure with a flat stomach. A face covered in foundation, blush, eye shadow, and mascara. (From the age of 13 I was encouraged to wear makeup every day.) Certainly not a disease that would cause my lower stomach to protrude from weakened abdominal muscles and cause me to walk with a labored gait that made people glance at me when I went by.

I had to hide it as best I could, and for a while I found various ways, like super-control-top hosiery and lying to the gym teacher about how many sit-ups I did. I refused to answer questions about it, especially from men I dated. Because yes, insanely, I kept trying to hide having muscular dystrophy well into adulthood, long after it became ludicrous to try to hide the obvious fact that I had a disability, that my body wasn’t the perfect one I thought I had to have in order to be acceptable.

Which is why, even though my story is specific and a little bizarre, I see it everywhere. It’s the same old story, really: girls and women trying to conform to what the culture tells them is physically acceptable, and feeling shame if they don’t. I see it when a friend won’t take her cover-up off at the beach in 95 degrees. I see it when the students I teach totter across the stage during an awards ceremony in stilettos that are hurting them (and, in one case, fall down the stairs). I see it when a woman in a mirror in a public bathroom experimentally pulls her skin back tight from her face.

What is the solution? For me, two things helped somewhat: learning how to draw, and hanging out with a group of smart, funny, earth-worshipping Wiccans while I was in my twenties. The Wiccans showed me that everyone, EVERYONE, was perfectly acceptable whatever their face or body type. Drawing, with its requirement of intently caressing with the eyes every shape and shadow of a person’s face and figure, showed me that everyone is beautiful.

Not that I don’t still cringe at times, when I see myself unexpectedly reflected in a store window and I don’t conform to the image I was brought up to believe was the only one that was acceptable. We all have to keep finding our way, slowly, out of the morass of arbitrary decrees that tell us what we’re supposed to look like, and what we’re supposed to hide.

Here’s how it works: if you call it a “diversity initiative” or a “work family intervention” or stuff like that there’s the chance that you will see resistance to the project of, well, promoting diversity, or creating a family-friendly work place. On campuses, all the earnest and the marginalized check it out and everyone else goes, “what? Oh, I don’t think I got that email.”

You already know this intuitively, but a study in the current issue of Gender & Society (abstract only) tells the story of a workplace initiative that starts with the notion that framing matters.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota hung out at Best Buy corporate headquarters while Best Buy instituted a program that is not called “let’s try to reduce the sexism in our every day practices at work” — instead it is called “Results-Only Work Environment” (ROWE) : On the ROWE website they explain their project like this:

“Results-Only Work Environment is a management strategy where employees are evaluated on performance, not presence. In a ROWE, people focus on results and only results – increasing the organization’s performance while cultivating the right environment for people to manage all the demands in their lives…including work.”

The program was created by Jodi Thompson and Cali Ressler , and it has gotten positive recognition in BusinessWeek (twice!) and you can also hear about it on a recent NPR segment. It basically involves a flexible workplace.

The UM researchers (including Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen at the Flexible Work and Well Being Center) explain in their article how the focus on results reduced resistance. “ROWE was not presented as a work-family initiative or a gender equity initiative; rather it was strategically framed as a smart business move… [the founders] felt that a gender or work-family framing would lead to the initiative’s marginalization.”

You see, ROWE is about achieving excellence. This isn’t (merely) Foucauldian. This is what any diversity project of any sort is all about, right? ROWE–which has has been adopted by other companies, too–reports a 35 percent reduction in waste and a 90 percent reduction in voluntary worker turnover.

But here’s the other part of the story: The program didn’t reduce resistance completely–especially among men managers. But it created a different kind of conversation because the analysis wasn’t explicitly about gender or diversity or accommodating people with exceptional needs. It was about an alternative approach to  work that relied less on conventions of time use and more on outcomes. The resistance heard by the researchers was to the ways that the program was challenging what’s called the ideal worker norm.

What is the ideal worker norm? Well, you know what it is, it is the way you were brought up to work. You’re there or feel you should be there as much as possible (long hours). You are busy all the time, doing doing doing (look busy!). You are ready to drop everything when someone says there’s a panic (excel at “fire drills”). Thing is, this way of working is (1) not necessary for success and (2) damaging to people’s ability to balance work and other aspects of their lives. Joan Williams writes about the ideal worker norm wonderfully in Unbending Gender (2001). She shows us just how gendered this approach is, as it builds on an outdated model of family life.

By saying (as ROWE does), oh this norm of how we work (excessive hours, fire drills, et c) is a “choice” it says we can make other choices. This means that we can de-naturalize the sneaky connection of men as superior workers (especially men who can hide or evade their other personal responsibilities). And we start to allow men as well as women to make contributions and be achievers in all the domains of their lives.

–Virginia Rutter

Heard from Jeremy Adam Smith: “just tried to google ‘profeminist fatherhood’–to which google responded, ‘Did you mean profeminist motherhood’? As in, what the hell are you talking about?” (Read Jeremy’s blog and his book The Daddy Shift.)

–Virginia Rutter

Pink viagra (chemical compound to the left!) was voted down, 11-0, by the federal advisory panel that was reviewing it last week (background here). The recommendation goes to FDA to make the final decision. Meika Loe recommended this article by Susan Perry titled, “Hunt (and hype) for a ‘pink Viagra’ continues despite advisory panel’s rejection of flibanserin.” The article offers details of the comments from Amy Allina, program director of the National Women’s Health Network, but one highlight is here:

The “failure to show that [flibanserin] increases desire highlights the trouble with the push to put a label of disorder, dysfunction or disease on women’s problems with sex,” said Allina in her statement to the FDA’s panel. “There is no empirical evidence to establish a single, normal level of sexual desire for women….

–Virginia Rutter

Our next webinar at She Writes is one that many GWP readers might find useful.  It’s a great way to get a taste of Women’s Media Center-style training, geared specifically for writers.  Here are the details – and I’ll be hosting.  Hope to perhaps see some of you there!

MEDIA MESSAGING FOR WRITERS

June 23, 1-2pm via phone and login

REGISTER HERE for the live event or to order the download

Are you the next Barbara Ehrenreich, Farai Chideya, Rachel Maddow? Do you want to leverage your writing to position yourself as a thought leader in your field? Are you planning the release of a book or significant report? Do you want to feel confident and prepared for media opportunities? Have you realized that writing a book or an article is just the beginning to developing your media platform? Are you wondering how to jump in?

In this webinar, the Women’s Media Center will offer a brief training on how to give the pieces you have so skillfully developed a life beyond the page. You will learn to master effective presentation techniques and develop messages that resonate with an audience in a way that brings your work to life and makes you the go-to source on your issue.

The Women’s Media Center is a nonprofit organization working to amplifying women’s voices. We run a competitive media and leadership training program that helps women master effective interview presentation techniques and improve their media skills. These women – who represent diverse backgrounds, areas of expertise, professions, ethnicities, ages, geographical regions and levels of experience – are becoming part of a powerful network of women leaders who are changing the conversation on the important issues of the day.

Webinar takeaways will include:
· An understanding of how to connect with an audience
· Tips on how to prep for a radio or tv interview
· Tools for crafting strong media messages based on your written work

INSTRUCTORS

Rebekah Spicuglia

As Program Director for The Women’s Media Center, Rebekah Spicuglia coordinates the WMC’s media training and spokesperson programs, advocacy campaigns, and web content, combining her dedication to feminist, progressive values with her film production background to create and advocate for representative media.

Previously, Spicuglia served as a Media Field Strategy Fellow at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), where she contributed to GLAAD’s Media Essentials guide for community organizations, developed a media toolkit for immigration equality for same-sex couples, and worked extensively on GLAAD’s “Announcing Equality” program in coordinating a national survey of newspaper policy and creating toolkits to encourage people to share their personal stories in visible ways.
Through her NonCustodial Parent Community blog, Spicuglia also serves as a spokesperson on parenting issues. MSN highlighted Spicuglia as one of eight “Moms Inspired to Change History,” and Spicuglia has been featured in or written for the NYTimes, Slate, Huffington Post, About.com, Brain,Child magazine, WBAI, Feministing, Feminist.com, MomsRising, Mamapalooza, Wikipedia, and the WMC website.
Originally from Virginia, Spicuglia grew up in California, where she worked on several film and television projects before attending the University of California at Berkeley, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications.

Jamia Wilson

After growing up as an expat-brat in Saudi Arabia, Jamia Wilson graduated from American University in 2002. Following graduation, Jamia worked for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and later managed their youth outreach arm Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood. At Planned Parenthood Jamia served on their national Structure and Governance Committee.

After working with coalition partners and campus organizations to help bring thousands of students to the historic March for Women’s Lives, Jamia was honored as one of the “Real Hot 100” by the Younger Women’s Taskforce. Serving as one of the youth holding the banner leading the March remains one of her proudest moments.

In addition to being selected as a two year nominee for the Women’s Information Network’s annual Young Women of Acheivement Awards, Jamia has written for Alternet’s “Wiretap, Teenwire.com,GirlsHeadQuarters.org and Hampshire College’s Civil Liberties and Public Policy Project. In 2007, Jamia was selected to serve on the Ms. Foundation Advisory Committee, The Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom Youth Advisory Committee and worked for Young People For The American Way (YP4). Jamia recently received her M.A. in Humanities and Social Thought at NYU and worked for NYU’s Residential Education Department where she received their Fall 2007 Hallmark Award for Wellness, and The Center for Multicultural Education and Programs NIA Administrator Award.

Kristen Springer, a sociology professor at Rutgers, presented some very cool research on men’s health at the recent Council on Contemporary Families conference, and a related paper in the journal Gender & Society (abstract only) is out now. She was looking at men who earn less than their wives. You need to know what she discovered next time you are trying to figure out what to make of those articles in the New York Times or wherever about the “troubling impact” on the changing economic status of men and women. See this post for background in the “new economics” of marriage.

Springer asked if men who earn less (specifically less than half) than their wives have worse health than men who earn the same or more. The simple answer: yes. But hold up! Don’t go yet. There’s more, and it is important.

Because Springer asked why. She looked at whether it was because of who gets to make decisions in the couple, and came back with the answer NO.

She looked at whether it was because of marital unhappiness among these couples, and came back with the answer NO.

In other words, there weren’t couple issues or any kind of home front “war between the sexes” being played out here.

No, it looks like, instead, there is a war within the sexes going on.

She looked at a high fallutin’ but also very powerful concept that folks in the biz call “hegemonic masculinity” — that is, the “most honored way of being a man” in a given society (see Connell and Messerschmidt 2005 if you wanna read up).  In the US, men’s breadwinning is a central component to this. This means that men’s earnings puts them on top of the heap, over other men (as well as over their women).

Here is what she found: For men who were not earning less, the more money he and his family earned, the healthier he said he was. This is your basic wealth equals health situation. (In the figure below, this means the blue bars are higher at the rich end, lower at the poor end.)

But for men who were earning less than their wives, the guys at the top of the heap were the only ones to report significantly worse health relative to guys earning the same or more than their spouse. The guys at the top, for some reason, were especially stressed by the inequality. The study didn’t have direct measures of men’s beliefs about the situation, but it looks a lot like only for men of the upper ranks is there a sense that earning less than their wives constitutes a failure. (In the figure the red bars are lower for the rich guys.)

Springer’s key graph looks like this:

(click here for the full version)

What’s the take home from this? First, beware of stories that bemoan what is happening to men in the face of women’s growing presence in the job market and the economy. The health hardships for the men at the bottom of the ladder are not about gender inequality, they are about the hardships of inequality, full stop (the blue bars). Second, recognize that when we are anxious for men (or they are anxious for themselves) about being breadwinners this isn’t about being a man; it is about social class. It is almost as if the better-off can “afford” to have gender strife, just as in decades past they could afford to have a stay-at-home wife when everybody else required two earners. Finally, don’t be taken in by the notion of the immutable organization of gender in families (nor by the notion that social class doesn’t exist or doesn’t have a meaningful cultural as well as economic impact).

Springer recommends a whole bunch of policies that create more economic justice for all by creating more family friendly policies that can in the end help to eradicate “hegemonic masculinity.” Well that won’t be a slogan you’ll use with your Member of Congress, but just wanted to call it what it is.

–Virginia Rutter

A long time ago I got a call from a reporter asking what I thought of “viagra for women.” I said a bunch of different stuff, but mainly I pointed out that any clinical trial on interventions for women’s orgasms really ought to include a men-doing-housework control group. My how times have not changed.

To wit: Meika Loe–a sociology professor at Colgate–posted at Ms. on “Female Viagra” Up for FDA Review.  Loe, author of The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America, has followed the search for pink viagra since 1998 when Viagra was first approved by the FDA. Read her post: it gives background and context and a powerful argument about what this all means.

Want to learn more? Visit newviewcampaign.org. They are an organization founded in 2000 to counter drug industry efforts to simplify and distort women’s sexuality in order to sell drugs.

You can read/sign a petition against FDA approval here.

–Virginia Rutter

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The amount and length of graduation ceremonies has proliferated a great deal since my days in K-12. Not only are 5^th and 8^th grade promotions growing ever more elaborate (with increasingly questionable choices of attire), now there are even kindergarten and pre-school ceremonies.

A friend recently shared with me that her eighteen-month-old was put in a cap and gown at his daycare graduation. What’s next, popping a miniature tasseled hat on newborns to honor their graduation from womb to non-umbilical-cord-dependent-existence?

Another acquaintance noted he has twenty-two graduation ceremonies to attend. Twenty-two??? I hope he is flush considering each graduate likely expects a gift!

I get the importance of honoring achievements and communally celebrating life’s passages, but our culture’s graduation overload runs the risk of cheapening worthy accomplishments. When you get photos, gifts, and pomp starting with “daycare graduation,” might’nt the allure of a college graduation have a been-there-done-that type of feel by the time one gets there?

The popularity of graduation ceremonies and parties in our culture is further evidenced by the endless consumer opportunities: Buy professional photos of your three-year-olds pre-school graduation! Purchase a kindergarten-promotion DVD! Get your hummer limo rented now for 5^th grade graduation Pay for a select group of your classmates to have exclusive entry into an amusement park! Get your graduating 8^th grader a new laptop or designer purse! Or, as this mom suggests, offer a trip to wherever they want to go in Europe! For your high-school graduate, how about a new car or new boobs? What better time to surgically alter yourself “for the better” before you head off to college?

From the cards to the flowers to the photos to the gift certificates, if you are not spending on your young grad, the message is that you must not care. And this – the conflation of achievement with expenditure – is problematically championed from birth on.

This commodification of achievement is further evidenced via the fashion at such events. At my daughter’s 5^th grade promotion, high heels adored the tiny 11-year-old feet and some of the dresses rivaled those seen at Hollywood awards ceremonies.

When young people are schooled to believe achievement is consecrated via consumerism, academic accomplishments go by the wayside. Instead of celebrating brain power, dedication, and hard-work, graduates are encouraged to focus on the cut of their dress, the height of their heels, the size of their after-graduation party.

Whatever happened to good-ole graduation certificates/diplomas and perhaps a few flowers? Those days are gone it seems in this culture of consumerized kids…