Since moving to the Inland Northwest, I have joined up with some pretty rad ladies. The Shrinking Violet Society. We are young, we are free... wait no, we are entrepreneurial, motivated, active, and energized in general to connect to our community and make it work for us, as we work for, it.
Right off the bat, I got excited about the upcoming November Book Group read, Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. Then all of a sudden, as I do, I was raising my hand, marking my planner and declaring myself capable of leading the discussion. So here it is a week away, and I am accumulating talking points.
I first read this book on my way to Calcutta in 2006. My mom says, respectful of my journey into poverty, "That's a downer." I had read the first few pages already, as I do when I pick up an unfamiliar book, and replied "It can't be, it's all about birth and midwifery!"
I want to share some talking points with this forum (whoever you are.. Mom, Chanel, Chelle, Elizabeth, Johanna...)
We don't have red tents anymore, we don't honor and celebrate womanhood in our society, we shun it and perpetuate the mystery and fear, we successfully maintain the taboo and thus the misunderstanding, the unknown, the false. This goes for coming of age, rites of passage, menarche or first menses or as a young girlfriend said to me one day in the fifth grade: Have you come to the end of your sentence yet? THE PERIOD. Awesome example in my opinion. This also goes for SEX, conception, pregnancy, BIRTH, breastfeeding, childrearing, loss of pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, and in the end (as it always is) DEATH. Big, heavy, important stuff.
All I want, if you are inclined, is for you to think about your experiences. Here's a lead; Reminisce fondly and fearfully with a splash of mortification, about your first menstruation. What went well (hahah!), and what did not? How could that experience have been better, more supported? If you could bestow a different experience on a daughter/niece/friend's kid/student/other, what might that look like?
There are zillions of ways to empower women, this is one that is WAY up there on the list of Best Ways to Ensure Empowerment/Disempowerment in our female youth.
Men, you are not excluded. I was a part of a curriculum committee for a new course in the Women Studies department for this academic year, a Masculinities course. Men are also (perhaps not equally, but nonetheless) disempowered in our society. Women and men must support all of our youth. This is how new generations can change the world.
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9 comments:
I guess I'm first to share..... I was awake throughout the night with what I later learned were cramps. The next day I was crying and my older sister was trying to teach me how to swallow some Advil. My Mom walked past the bathroom and I think my sister told her what was going on. Next thing I remember is my Dad walking past the bathroom peering in at me. My Mom TOLD my Dad!!!!! I was mortified.
I couldn't figure out tampons at first and I happened to be dancing in a ballet concert that night, luckily my costume was black and it came down to my knees. I remember my Mom telling me that of all the teens and adult women performing, that 1/4 of them are having their period. That night I was waiting in line for the bathroom and one of the dancers in her 20's that I idolized stood near me. She said, "I started smoking cigars" as she flashed me the tampon in her hand. I was excited that we were even more alike now.
Something I read on a blog that I'd like to do with my daughter is have a Red Party when she gets her period. Get all the female relatives together to support the newest "woman", everyone wear red, eat red food, play games, talk, pamper, etc. All to celebrate her menses. I love how positive it is.
The Shrinking Violet Society sounds awesome. I wish there was something like that where I live.
What would I like to see instead? Advice for the future?
Not so much a singling out of the poor pre-teen going through this change. I would have been mortified. But some understanding, some shoulder-hugging, hot tea sipping, one on one being together time with the other women in one's life. Like when, at the end of Alice in Wonderland, Alice is invited to tea with the grown-up ladies as if she has become grown-up enough to join in the already on-going conversation. Not because she just had an extraordinary adventure and must be put on the spot to explain it/be examined because of it, but simply because she is now able to be 'one of them.'
Eileen! I love this idea of a red party, I know doula mamas who have done this for their daughters. Claire is a lucky girl.
I am compiling some of the private responses I received so I can put them here (anonymously since I assume that's why folks wrote to me privately..) and I'll write up my own as well. But huge thank you to Eileen for bravely being the first. You truly are an empowered woman, and you had a pretty amazing birth experience too ;)
I loved the Red Tent! And the copy I read was yours. I loved that you wrote where you read it. I found it so exotic. And the book was so beautiful, focusing so much on women and birth. This book made me understand your work better. And it made me love you even more!
So period. I was 12 years old and just noticed I was spotting. I ran to my mom, so glad I was finally a woman (that's what my grandma used to ask "when are you going to be a woman?"). I remember my mom giving me a HUGE pad. I think Always came up with small pads the year after! I was super proud. And then 5 minutes after I puked.
I guess I was not so happy after all -I throw up when I feel bad about something! My period arrived just 2 months after my dad died of AIDS (which now that I think of it would give a Freudian great room to interpret... blood and all!), and... well, I don't know. It was weird to have such joy and becoming a woman after losing someone so dear. But that's my interpretation now. At the time, I just threw up an thought "but I'm so happy!".
Then I told my friends. That was that.
Anonymous Post #1
"Dear Jane,
Leave it to you to jump in with two feet into life in the Inland Empire. You are a Jane whirlwind, that is a good thing!!!
My menses started just one month after my 12th Birthday. I knew about menustration but when I went to the restroom at school and had bloody spots in my panties that was a surprise.. My girlfriends knew just what to do and fixed me up. At that time we had a kotex dispenser in the girls restroom and for $.05 you could get a pad and 2 little gold pins. When I told my Mom what had happened she was sorry that she had not prepared me with the necessary trappings. So I started on that journey with an old belt of hers. I do think that God goofed when he designed woman. I think that after you have all the babies you desire tht it would be nice to have your menses go away. What a concept!
Love you, Jane"
Anonymous Post #2
2) "Hi honey,
I guess I'll go for the anonymous posting. Not sure why.
My memory is not incredibly clear. I can't remember if I started my period right before my 10th birthday, or right before my 11th. Either way, it came too early in my opinion. I wasn't ready for it. And I didn't want anyone to know. I hated being the tallest in my 5th grade class. I would walk with my arms crossed in front of me to hide my new breasts. And I started bleeding. I didn't tell anyone for a long time. I think it was like 5 or 6 months. I stuffed toilet paper in my underwear. I don't remember what I did later with my stained underwear. But my mom found out about me starting my period that following summer, when we were on vacation at my aunt's house. Whatever I was doing at home with my undies, I couldn't do the same at my aunt's. All I remember is my mom found my brown stained underwear stuffed inside one of my shoes. And then she knew.
Later, my mom's women's group started making quilts for the daughters that had started menstruating. It was some time after I'd started when I got mine. And I still wasn't psyched about it. But I liked my quilt.
I should read the red tent. I'll look for it.
Love you."
Anonymous Post #3
3) "[...] Oh, and here's some of my Red Tent story:
I sat on the toilet in abject horror for maybe two minutes. Then it dawned on me that this was what the big all-girls-in-the-school meeting had been about. My period. Yuck.
I called for Mom and she calmly and plainly explained how to take care of myself, how to wear the pad and belt, and that "Yes, you will go to school, you are not sick. This will happen again and you will not be able to stay in bed every time."
It must have been a Thursday, maybe Friday, because she also insisted that I go ahead with the weekend plans of my Girl Scout campout even though I knew this meant life was supposed to be on complete hold and nothing was going to be the same. How could it?! I was coming apart, achy and Bleeding!
'No, you're not. And Mrs. B. knows all about this stuff, I'll tell her you've started. You will be fine.'
Right. Mrs. B. was not on my side when she made me get out of the cold tent, the cold sleeping bag, off the hard cot first thing in the morning in order to line up and do calisthenics with the Normal Girls without even allowing me time to go to the john and pee, let alone clean myself up, before I had to do jumping jacks half-heartedly, for godsake, all leaky and bloody and gross. How could this be an initiation into the secret world of womanhood when it felt more like punishment? I would never be one of 'them.' My friend Janet began to use "The 'B" word" as if 'blood' was a fifth grade swear word. No one talked about it. This was no way inclusive or ordinary, but shameful and secret. So even though a generation passed and things should have progressed, what with women's liberation and all, was I really surprised when each of my daughters kept it from me when their time came? That I learned they started their periods by doing their laundry? I guess not. But I learned to be careful what you ask for, because as soon as I thought "I wish there was a pill I could take or a way to just 'poof!' be through with periods and menopause and all of it once and for all," within celestial moments I was diagnosed, had surgery, and Bam!, heard the morning nurse say "Oh, we slapped a patch on you already," and I didn't even make the decision to begin HRT on my own. After the appropriate number of years, however, I weaned myself and am finally a Normal Girl again. No blood. No pain. No leaks, even. What a weird ride!"
Thank you ALL for sharing publicly and privately.
You have enriched this message with your stories. Powerful; despite a seeming lack of glamour and support. Still powerful.
Read in to it however you, but my mother and her mother both responded in the above postings and the product of those initiations lead to my own...
Twelve. First. During 'Silent Sustained Reading' in 5th grade. During a bathroom break, not a complete surprise in the middle of the whole class like all the movies and horror stories made it sound like it would happen. Mortified? Sure. Kept secret? For as long as I could, which wasn't long.
My mom collected me without warning from school and took me shopping for a token of this transition, and some one-on-one time if I so chose to open up. I didn't. I chose a necklace that I never wore (because I secretly thought everyone would know what it represented perhaps.) She asked me embarrassing questions. I was upset and remember saying that the nine months when I wouldn't menstruate would be "the best nine months of my life!" I recall saying with anger, in the hopes of eliciting sympathy.
Maybe they will be, but it won't be because I'm not menstruating. These days I use a Diva Cup and an organic washable Glad Rag and sometimes even ritually place my nutrient rich menses into my house plant soil :)
I remember being poorly instructed through the bathroom door how to use a tampon from our exchange student who had a few years on me. She was not prepared for that either.. "there's a hole.. I don't know, it will just go I think."
It took me a long time to appreciate this important part of my life. I do. I will absolutely create a beautiful and empowering recognition of this experience for any young lady who is in my life. It would be an honor to celebrate and commemorate like the red tent women and doulas, and a rich vibrant RED party owning this female secret, rite, power, energy, life and love.
Thank you to those especially who shared difficult memories, Johanna, I am so sorry to learn about your father's passing.
We are all women of our own red tent.
For that, I love you.
[url=http://www.pi7.ru/zdorove/1709-dvuhletniy-malchik-brosil-kurit.html ]сексуальная совместимость [/url]
Я не имею ввиду, что сам не стоит, а когда придерживаешь подмышки, он таже не пытается стоять, ноги согнуты и все, как ватные)) У моей подруги сыну 5 мес., а он уже твердо стоит, буквально без поддержки. Я переживаю, нормально ли все у нас)) Во сколько ваш малыш начал опираться на ноги?
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