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Menstruation Matters: Introduction to Representations of the Menstrual Cycle

Would you wear your own menstrual blood as lipstick? Probably not—few women would. But that’s what made Ingrid Berthon-Moine’s photograph of a young white woman doing exactly that such an arresting image, and a compelling illustration for a recent Guardian article about menstrual activism. Along with Berton-Moine’s collection of photos of women with shocking red lips (“Red Is the Colour”), Kira Cochrane’s October 2, 2009, essay discussed Chella Quint’s Adventures in Menstruating zine; Rachel Kauder Nalebuff’s My Little Red Book collection of menarche (first period) stories; a post on the popular U.S. website Jezebel about a forgotten tampon; Giovanna Chesler’s film, Period? The End of Menstruation; and Chris Bobel’s new book, New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation, are examples of contemporary menstrual activism. As Cochrane notes, these texts share a common theme not only of menstruation but of talking about and revealing menstruation, shattering age-old taboos of secrecy regarding female biology. Sometimes the former is more shocking than the latter, as the reader comments in The Guardian attest. But talk about menstruation we must, and not merely to challenge taboos and restrictions. Because menstruation matters. And so do the ways we talk about it, write about it, and illustrate it.