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Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation
Di Elissa Stein e Susan Kim
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In this hip, hilarious and truly eye-opening cultural history, menstruation is talked about as never before. Flow spans its fascinating, occasionally wacky and sometimes downright scary story: from mikvahs (ritual cleansing baths) to menopause, hysteria to hysterectomies—not to mention the Pill, cramps, the history of underwear, and the movie about puberty they showed you in 5th grade.
Flow answers such questions as: What's the point of getting a period? What did women do before pads and tampons? What about new drugs that promise to end periods—a hot idea or not? Sex during your period: gross or a turn-on? And what's normal, anyway? With color reproductions of (campy) historical ads and early (excruciating) femcare devices, it also provides a fascinating (and mind-boggling) gallery of this complex, personal and uniquely female process.
As irreverent as it is informative, Flow gives an everyday occurrence its true props – and eradicates the stigma placed on it for centuries.
Azioni libro
Inizia a leggereInformazioni sul libro
Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation
Di Elissa Stein e Susan Kim
Descrizione
In this hip, hilarious and truly eye-opening cultural history, menstruation is talked about as never before. Flow spans its fascinating, occasionally wacky and sometimes downright scary story: from mikvahs (ritual cleansing baths) to menopause, hysteria to hysterectomies—not to mention the Pill, cramps, the history of underwear, and the movie about puberty they showed you in 5th grade.
Flow answers such questions as: What's the point of getting a period? What did women do before pads and tampons? What about new drugs that promise to end periods—a hot idea or not? Sex during your period: gross or a turn-on? And what's normal, anyway? With color reproductions of (campy) historical ads and early (excruciating) femcare devices, it also provides a fascinating (and mind-boggling) gallery of this complex, personal and uniquely female process.
As irreverent as it is informative, Flow gives an everyday occurrence its true props – and eradicates the stigma placed on it for centuries.
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Recensioni
Lots of information about the science behind menstruation! I understand my body better now :)
Rating: 4This book is thoroughly research, thoughtfully organized, fun, informative, and IMPORTANT! Stein and Kim have seized on an opportunity to reshape the way we talk about and think about menstruation, and if we can succeed in doing that, then the sky is the limit. I loved every minute I spent with Flow. I laughed, I cringed, I nodded in agreement, and I underlined like crazy. I learned all kinds of things I didn’t know before, and I revisited formative lessons from my women’s studies education. I reveled in the fun of reading this book in public and telling perfect strangers that yes, my book WAS about periods, and no, it wasn’t boring!Flow is a gift of a book (and I’ll be giving it as a gift to just about everyone I know), and I can’t recommend it highly enough. To everyone. Because you shouldn’t have to be progressive, liberal, feminist, or even female to see the value in understanding something that essentially affects all of us.Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog.
Rating: 5Very interesting. The influences of the feminine hygiene and drug industries are frustrating, but we wouldn't want to do without their products, either. My only complaint about the book is that the tone is excessively breezy at times.
Rating: 4This book was such a brilliant idea, and the authors did a great job. I read another bloggers review about Flow and they were just had such a strong reaction to it, not positive or negative really just strong, that I thought it was definitely worth reading. Flow tells the cultural history of the period and how woman's status and health care have changed over time. It's written in a friendly, personable style. While many reviewers feel like this means the book was geared at the younger set, I think what the authors were really going for was making the book readable, and to try and make a topic that makes many people uncomfortable a little bit friendlier. The book isn't couched in a bunch of scientific jargon that most of us will never understand. Everything is in language that is respectful and completely understandable.
Some of the information in this book is definitely scary. It is absolutely terrifying to see how woman's bodies have been mistreated over the years due to lack of scientific study and information. While there is a lot of good explanation in this book regarding fertility and how a woman's cycle really works, the most important thing I think a woman can take away from this book is too make sure that you are well informed about exactly what it is you are doing to your body when you use medications or how you handle your period.
Rating: 5Some of the information in this book is definitely scary. It is absolutely terrifying to see how woman's bodies have been mistreated over the years due to lack of scientific study and information. While there is a lot of good explanation in this book regarding fertility and how a woman's cycle really works, the most important thing I think a woman can take away from this book is too make sure that you are well informed about exactly what it is you are doing to your body when you use medications or how you handle your period.
This was a fun book, jazzed up with lots of vintage ads. The authors' bias is clearly feminist and anti-big-pharma, so I was in their court from page one. If I have a complaint about this book, it's that it skews pretty young. There's one breezy chapter covering perimenopause and beyond- and that's it. So the target audience is considerably younger than your intrepid reviewer, who admits to more than a passing interest in hot flashes and scary clots the size of Rhode Island. Not that this kept me from being fascinated by the rubber aprons of yesteryear, or being furious about the medicalization of perfectly ordinary reproductive processes.
Well worth reading for the historical perspective alone, but as a bonus, guaranteed to make steam come out of your ears when you read about the drug companies scheming to make women feel dirty and sick and inadequate.
Rating: 3Well worth reading for the historical perspective alone, but as a bonus, guaranteed to make steam come out of your ears when you read about the drug companies scheming to make women feel dirty and sick and inadequate.
LOVED IT. Loved it. As much as towards the end it really had one simple point to make - menstruation, a natural physical process, has been totally co-opted since time immemorial...but most recently by advertisers in what they call the 'Femcare product sector.' There's some really interesting stuff in here but I think my favourite part was the old school ads for all kinds of bizarre contraptions. I was left with two questions - I wonder why there's never been a Keeper-type product in Australia, and don't you know someone who's womb is constantly wandering and making her hysterical? If only doctors performed that service now maybe there'd be a little less crankiness in the world. I'm only guessing.
Rating: 4Fun and punchy. Finally answered some nagging questions like "How did industrial-era working women deal with this" and so on. I guess. The answer that that particular question just didn't seem right. Made me very glad for modern conveniences.
Rating: 4The vintage advertising and medical writings on menstruation were interesting and sometimes funny and absurd. I was surprised to know about the lack of medical research into reasons for human menstruation, which then caused me to worry about the current pills on the market to eliminate the menstrual cycle. This will influence how I talk with my own daughter about menstruation when we cross that bridge.
Rating: 3