BlogHer - Blood Money - Comments

My "make your own" class is this Thursday night

Birdie Jaworski — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:53:54 -0600

Jessi, thanks for such a kind and thoughtful comment. It's amazing how much we carry our own mythology through life, only dropping it for something better once we've exhausted ourselves in some way. I'm glad you found BlogHer! Welcome!

Birdie
La Pajaro
Beauty Dish

Wow.

Jessi — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:11:14 -0600

I'm new here at BlogHer, and you can give yourself credit for being the reason I'm staying. It's rare for me to be captured by a lengthy blog post enough to prevent myself from skimming, or skipping to the next entry after a few paragraphs. It's even rarer for me to be able to tolerate a description of a woman's monthly cycle. I'm not squeamish of blood, by any means, and I've never been religious, so the other scary issues have never phased me....but a 'period' is something my mother has mentioned to me only a handful of times, once when I was in fifth grade and wrote her a letter (yes, a letter, because I didn't know how to ask her out right), asking her what it was. She briefly explained things, but it's always been a rather taboo subject....you're just "not supposed to talk about" bodily functions.

Since then, I've grown up. I've gotten really involved in other taboo subject areas, especially sexual and reproductive health ones, because I realized that there are so many people who haven't the slightest idea what's going on. I still won't discuss my own cycle (I'm slightly cringing right now as I type), but I openly discuss issues that others keep quiet about, including a woman's cycle. I, too, read a small book a few years ago about making your own cloth pads. I read stories about how natural it makes one feel, and how a woman washing her own feminine garments can bring a whole new level of understanding and intimacy with her body. I have yet to embrace it to that extent, but I am so glad you have taken the step to not only do it yourself, but to enlighten others about it, too. This piece was amazingly written, and if you speak anything like you write, I'm sure you've already touched more lives than you can imagine.

(And fyi, a couple years ago my mom came to me about tampons, looking frightened and confused. She and I talk about almost everything (except bodily functions, of course), but it was still awkward. She had never used them before and had previously told me not to either....but after separating from my father and getting her own life, she expanded her world, including that of feminine hygiene. I sent her in the direction of how to use them and how to choose which ones would work for her, etc, and we never talked about it again. I recently visited back home and discovered she had switched over to tampons entirely. No, it's not making her own pads, but it's certainly a step up from thinking she only had one option.)

Hulgetta, thank you

Birdie Jaworski — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:16:38 -0600

I'm glad that you enjoyed my essay and that it brought back memories for you to consider. Every year I see my mom, my past in new light.

Birdie
La Pajaro
Beauty Dish

Menstrual products are taxed here, too!

Birdie Jaworski — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 09:15:14 -0600

Suzanne, thanks so much for your kind comment.

Menstrual products are taxed here, too. I didn't even think to mention it in my essay, but you're right - that percentage adds up! When you consider a woman is purchasing these items once a month (or more, sometimes), we're talking considerable cash by the end of the year.

So far over thirty women have signed up for my free class. I'm holding it next week, and I'll write it up for BlogHer after the dust settles.

Birdie
La Pajaro
Beauty Dish

thank you.

hulgetta — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:14:12 -0600

I clicked on this entry at random in the Blogher blogrolls, and I am so glad I did. This is a truly beautiful piece, and it really took me back - my experience with my mom when I got my first period was much the same.

Thank you for the beautiful writing.

Don't forget the taxes!

Suzanne Reisman — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:01:38 -0600

Your experience and words are so poignant. What I find even more upsetting in the context of poor women not being able to afford menstrual products is that most states define them as "luxuries" not "basic needs" and thus charge sales tax, somethting I also wrote about here. For those counting all of their pennies, that extra 3-8% really adds up.

I hope yout class was well attended!

Suzanne, BlogHer Contributing Editor - Feminsim & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS)& Other Rants

Dana, my deepest thanks

Birdie Jaworski — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:02:30 -0600

Thanks, Dana. All my love and peace to you and yours this holiday and New Year! I love sharing my experience through my essays.

Birdie
La Pajaro
Beauty Dish

Jane, it's our memories that bind us together

Birdie Jaworski — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:01:03 -0600

Jane, thank you for your kind comment. Each of us has an encyclopedia of experience to share. I wish you a wonderful New Year!

Birdie
La Pajaro
Beauty Dish

Atena, thank you.

Birdie Jaworski — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:59:22 -0600

Atena, so sorry to take so long to respond - I had my 19 year old son staying with me this holiday week, and an uncle who showed up unexpectedly, so it's been crazy! I posted and ran!

I am so excited to provide my free class to the community. DIY can help so many women! I'm going to pass along the Keeper link and information to everyone. I think that most of these women can't afford it (hell, I can't), but it's a wonderful option, and perhaps we can come up with a way to help each other earn the money to purchase one. Thank you so much for the info.

Birdie
La Pajaro
Beauty Dish

Birdie!! This piece was

Dana J. Tuszke — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 08:11:14 -0600

Birdie!! This piece was amazing! You really know how to strike a chord and bring emphasis to the topic at hand!

Thanks for sharing this!

Alayna, your comment is out of context here

Lisa Stone — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 06:23:02 -0600

Hi Alayna,

I can tell you feel strongly about this issue -- but I don't see how it pertains to this discussion. Can your move your comment to a more appropriate discussion, such as Morra's piece, "Kansas Attorney General uses last days in office to attack abortion rights- even though he lost bid for re-election"?

Thanks,
Lisa
Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Is anyone following Tiller Case-late term abortion?

Alayna Staggers — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:10:00 -0600

Log on to Operation Rescue to read about Wichita, Kansas
abortionist, George Tiller. Some really bad stuff happening
with pregnant women seeking abortions. If people were aware
of fetal development, and how an abortion is really done, I
wonder if it would be chosen as an easy option. Please read
info. on Operation Rescue to enlighten yourself on the truth
about abortion......Alayna

A wonderful piece of

ByJane — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:11:15 -0600

A wonderful piece of writing. Brought up lots of memories of my own.

By Jane
ByJane.blogspot.com

What a lovely piece - your

Atena — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 14:02:25 -0600

What a lovely piece - your writing style is informative and lyrical.

Since I got my Keeper, I only returned to pads briefly after my daughter was born. I'm a big Keeper fan, and when my period returns, that's what I'll be using. The environmental impact alone is worth the investment.

I think it's awesome that you not only overcame your fears and embraced the DIY attitude and the "handling of blood" in your own situation, but then took it to the community and helped other women who needed it. The Keeper is a (one time, maybe two) investment of about $30, and well worth it. But not everyone can realistically get that much money together at one time to spend on a menstrual cup (though it's really worth it if you can).

I think you're right - handling your blood creates a different relationship with your menses. You realize that it comes from you, not at you (at least, I realized that).

Thanks for sharing your story.

Atena

Assumptions, Biases & Irrational Fantasies

My Life As a Radical Whore/Madonna

Blood Money

Birdie Jaworski — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 09:09:33 -0600

The morning of my thirteenth birthday I stood in the family bathroom, my panties in my hands. Frost carved symbols across the window. The mirror weeped with condensation. I stared at the coming winter, at the faint outline of our dilapidated barn through the frost, at my own distorted image in the crying mirror.

I don't understand this, I thought. I know what these stains mean, but they don't look like what I expected. They're the color of rust. They smell funny, like the pile of broken pipes in the backyard.

I didn't have to summon the courage to show my mom. She barreled through the unlocked door the way she did every morning, into the tiny space crowded with my seven-bodied family's cheap toiletries. She noticed my panties, saw my frantic expression.

"Is this the first time this has happened?"

It was a demand more than a question.

"Yes, Mom. I think I just got my first period."

She bent over at the waist. I heard two vertebrae crack beneath her chenille robe. Her fingers worked the child-proof mechanism surrounding the cabinet latch. The warped particle-board door popped open and hit me in the leg but I didn't flinch. My mom reached inside and pulled out an elastic contraption and a sanitary napkin. She pressed one hand into a heavy thigh, grunted as she rose. Her robe gaped open and I saw her breasts, loose and large, mottled with deep blue veins.

"Happy Birthday, Birdie. You're a woman now."

Her tone was almost sarcastic. She didn't tell me what to do. She left the room, left the belt and pad on the toilet tank, let me fumble in confusion and sadness.

I spent my birthday shifting my body at school. The cotton between my legs felt foreign, felt wet and alive. I worried that everyone could tell I was marked with blood. I wore my puffy winter coat tightly tied around my waist, over my plaid uniform skirt, as if I thought a blizzard might fall from the popcorn ceiling covering my ninth-grade English class.

My friends were like me - Catholic, thirteen, afraid. We didn't understand our bodies' natural rhythms. We learned the facts of life at school, flim-strip mythology, sat in darkened sixth-grade rooms three years in the past, the boys shooting hoops at the playground. The school nurse adjusted her sensible glasses and padded to the front of the class in soft white shoes. A solid gold crucifix flapped against her chest in time to her gait. She flipped the light switch. We blinked hard in the florescent blaze, blinked in surprise and discomfort. We would have to bleed every month the rest of our lives?

"Girls, you might see advertisements for something call tampons."

The nurse spoke the word with careful anger.

"Do not use these. You all want to be virgins on your wedding night, and tampons will take your virginity."

I didn't use tampons until I lost my virginity to a slim gymnast, until I gave birth three times, until I turned twenty-four, until I grabbed my babies, two suitcases full of clothes, and left my young abusive husband in a cloud of fear. He hated the change of the moon, the way it swelled my belly, the boxes of pads hidden in the child-proofed cabinet the same way my mom hid them.

The week I left him I attended a yard sale and bought two pans, bought two rough Army blankets, a set of chipped plates, bought a dog-eared book with a fertility goddess on the cover. A book about menstruation. I turned the pages at night, while my children slept in our one-room apartment. My mind resisted the words, the simple discussion of female blood empowerment. My mind resisted.

I am not like these women. I'm Catholic. These things are sinful, I murmured to myself as I read about women who painted with their blood, who sewed their own pads, who let men do things to them while they bled, sexual things. I am afraid of these things. I don't want to go to Hell.

I left the book under the sink with a box of pads and didn't open it for a few months. The moon grew full and waned, grew full and waned. My body responded to the tide, my breasts and belly ached the days before new moon. The bleeding would start, I would stick a fresh pad to my panties, wish it were five days later, wish the flow would hurry, would end. I had to carefully dole out my pads. They cost a lot of money, too much money for a poor single mom who took in other children during the day to earn a few dollars.

One new moon my period began. I felt the cramp, the signal of her royal arrival. I rushed to the bathroom and opened the cabinet. No more pads. I had no money, no hope of collecting more for three more days, until Friday, until the working moms collected their own pay. I picked up the goddess book, and in a motion that mimicked my mom so many years before, pressed into my thigh, rose to face the mirror. I followed the book's instructions, sewed my own pads that night, by hand with a needle and thread, made five pads from the cotton polka-dotted dress in which I had faced the Justice of the Peace on the day of my marriage. I rotated the pads, let the blood-filled ones soak in a ceramic jar filled with water, salt, and vinegar.

Handling the blood taught me to embrace the moon. The slick redness signified change, power, my connection to our animal nature. I slept with a new man, let him celebrate my body, honor the tides. I crossed a bridge, the Golden Gate, the Wall of China, all kinds of mental construction elaborate, built by men, by the women who served them. I never looked back.

These days I live in a poor rural community filled with hard-working people. When the moon carries change, I use whatever means I like - pad, tampon, my homemade garments. I like the feel of blood outside my body, know it tells me secrets of what lies inside. Last month I walked to a small drug store to buy a box of tampons. I found them under lock and key, in a glass case, next to razor heads and bottles of weight-loss pills. I couldn't imagine what danger a tampon, a pad held. Maybe you could smother someone with one? I laughed at the image and signaled a clerk.

"Hey, why are the feminine supplies locked up? I need a box of tampons, please. Surely they aren't considered dangerous?"

The young woman looked me in the eye. She wore her hair swept up into an elaborate bun held in place with two pencils.

"Too many people are stealing them so we have to keep them in the case. Manangement decision. I think it sucks."

A flurry of poor faces cascaded through my mind. The women I laugh with when our children play in the park, the poor women of my town who spend saved pennies on bread, on milk. They don't have money, have even the four dollars necessary, to buy a box of labeled supplies. I did the only thing I knew I should do. I refused the clerk, told her to keep the cotton under secure protection, marched home and printed up a flier, in English, in Spanish, telling the women of my town I would teach them how to Make Their Own. I'm holding the class at the library, after the New Year, and in the short time I advertised, it has filled beyond capacity. We have the power to take back what belongs to us, our bodies, our blood, our acceptance and love of the moon.

Rural New Mexicans aren't the only women suffering at moon time because of expensive, politics, and supression. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings blogged about women in Zimbabwe:

I ran across a story with the astonishing headline: Zimbabwe State Security Agents Seize Sanitary Pads. I thought: huh? (or, as Sokwanele, whose blog it is, wrote, rather more articulately: "Does the Zanu PF government expect Zimbabweans to believe that sanitary ware for women is now an issue of national security - that tampons and pads are lethal weapons?") Apparently so.

Jules at BlogHer.org also covered the topic last summer in her essay "When Tampons are a Human Rights Issue" in which she has some wonderful links and a great discussion in comments.

Please take a few moments today and check out these sites, add your voice, your actions. No woman should be ashamed of her period, no woman should have to wonder how she will take care of her personal needs each month.

Birdie also blogs at La Pajaro and Beauty Dish.