Period
The Real Story of Menstruation
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A bold and revolutionary perspective on the science and cultural history of menstruation
Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual’s period as useless, and some doctors still believe it’s unsafe for a menstruating person to swim in the ocean wearing a tampon. Period counters the false theories that have long defined the study of the uterus, exposing the eugenic history of gynecology while providing an intersectional feminist perspective on menstruation science.
Blending interviews and personal experience with engaging stories from her own pioneering research, Kate Clancy challenges a host of myths and false assumptions. There is no such a thing as a “normal” menstrual cycle. In fact, menstrual cycles are incredibly variable and highly responsive to environmental and psychological stressors. Clancy takes up a host of timely issues surrounding menstruation, from bodily autonomy, menstrual hygiene, and the COVID-19 vaccine to the ways racism, sexism, and medical betrayal warp public perceptions of menstruation and erase it from public life.
Offering a revelatory new perspective on one of the most captivating biological processes in the human body, Period will change the way you think about the past, present, and future of periods.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clancy, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, debuts with a bracing look at periods and how society lets down those who have them. She pushes back on menstrual stigma and busts myths about periods, noting that the incorrect understanding of menstruation cycles as "static, twenty-eight-day phenomena" stems from eugenicists' belief in an "ideal" cycle and overlooks the "malleable, responsive, dynamic" nature of menstruation. Chronicling historical perspectives, Clancy traces how medieval views of menstruation as attempts to "purge the impure from the body" have evolved into contemporary stigma that encourages remaining silent about periods to better fit into professional and educational settings originally designed for men. The medical establishment, she argues, continues to fail in this regard. She recounts how her tweet asking if the Covid-19 vaccine had also affected other people's periods turned into a formal survey that found 40% of respondents had experienced heavier bleeding, raising awareness of the fact that vaccine trials seldom take menstruation into account. Technical explanations of the biology behind periods might go over the heads of lay readers, but Clancy excels at outlining how sexism influences the production and process of science, as well as public understandings of research findings. The result is an urgent call to reconsider how periods are researched and discussed.
