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Every month half the world’s population seeks shelter from the red tide,
30 years after the Feminist revolution, women continue go to great lengths to hide it.
It carries with it a dirty and shameful stigma.
It is, perhaps, the last great taboo
Though it forms a common bond between women everywhere, there have always been, and still are, an incredible multitude of misconceptions about menstruation. Ancient peoples looked upon it as punishment of women handed down by the great moon, a curse cast on half the planet. The Roman naturalist Pliny said menstrual blood was a poison, fatal to seeds or plants. Catholic women have been refused priesthood because they bleed “down there”. Muslim women who are menstruating may not even recite the words of the Koran, for fear they will defile the holy words with the horror of their uncleanliness. The taboo of women’s menstrual blood is anchored in almost every known social system. Until recently, even Western medicine was ignorant of menstruation’s physiological purpose. As far as the late 19th century, scientists espoused the ridiculous theory that pregnancy in mammals came from male sperm mixing with menstrual blood!
Plagued with crippling periods for most of her life, Diana Fabiánová set out to learn the truth about this burden. Her journey took her through Europe, Brazil, the US and Australia, introducing her to indigenous people, anthropologists, scientists, feminists, and healers. She discovered ‘yoga for your uterus’, met a man who had photographs which he believed proved that positive thoughts re-align the molecular structure of menstrual blood, and an anthropologist who introduced her to the luxury of the Dogon women’s menstrual hut – a small, bare, dirty structure built so low you can’t stand upright – where women and girls are isolated during their periods. The self-appointed ‘curator’ of the Museum of Menstruation in Washington unveiled his quirky collection of Victorian sanitary belts, straps and pads.
Throughout her journey, Diana also surprised men and women across the world with random street interviews, peeling off many of the layers of meaning and myth which hang up around the menstrual taboo. She organized an art happening in Madrid. At workshops with primary-school girls, she encouraged them to share their fears of the “curse” they would one day face, knowing that soon their blood will flow. She also took a close look at the “menstruation industry” – the makers of sprays, pads and painkillers and the advertising they use to maintain this multi- billion dollar industry.
Finally, Diana is presented with the option of living without her period by suppressing it with Depo-Provera… but is she still tempted by what not long before would have seemed a liberation, or have her travels changed all that?
Light-hearted, enlightening, and bold, Bloody Woman is no bland work of sociology. It weaves together up-to-date medical knowledge and ancient healing skills; “yoga for your uterus” and the history of tampons; tribal menstrual huts and Freud’s “vagina dentata” – a personal journey and cultural investigation like you’ve never read.
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