Issues of Blood: The Politics of Menstruation

by Sophie Laws

This unique approach to the subject of menstruation, claims that women's feelings about their periods are shaped by men's attitudes and by the imposition of their views on women. Sophie Law's research covered men as lovers, fathers, husbands, doctors and "experts'. She suggests that men's attitudes to menstruation are inseperable from their ideas about women in general. These attitudes include the feeling that women are "naturally" inferior and that their problems may inconvenience men. Women are therefore prevented from creating their own meanings for bodily events, and are forced to observe the etiquette of silence. They are unable to have positive feelings about an undeniable aspect of being a woman. Sophie Laws is the author of "Seeing The Politics of Premenstrual Tension" and "Living with Sickle Cell Disease".

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[saizine · Rating 4 out of 5]

’There is no need… for us to romanticise our physical characteristics in order to see the possibility that we need not allow them to be used against us… I see the social meanings of menstruation in this culture as a thoroughly messy area of discourse.’ (30)

My hope is that the anger induced by listening to men on the subject of menstruation will transform itself into an increased confidence that women can and must change these attitudes…. The question is not what is wrong with us. If we refuse to let patriarchal ideas set us against one another, we could come up with entirely new ways of seeing our bodies, and a new set of problems worth discussing. (214)

A fascinating approach (attempt?) at what the author describes as a social-constructionist radical feminism; this study examines attitudes towards menstruation as articulated through interviews with British men in the 1980s as well as gynaecological/medical texts, with special attention paid to notions of pollution, the (non)centrality of reproductive ability, menstruation and sex, as well as menstrual pain and PMT. I actually find Laws’ critique of the expectation for a study with a feminist methodology to interview women very interesting, if not convincing; however I must admit a certain uncomfortable feeling with the assertion that women can learn something by listening to men (is this not intensely patriarchal in itself?) Nevertheless, I think there is utility in interrogating mens’ views on menstruation, especially as Laws highlights the conceptual shift from period-as-antisexual to period-as-sexual, a movement which some have considered to be liberation but are revealed here to be equally as oppressive. Certainly one to take a look at if you’re interested in the politics and rhetoric of women’s health issues.

[Kira · Rating 2 out of 5]

A British woman interviews very British men to see how the view menstruation. Blech.