Period #11, in honor of Cocaine Bear
Book news
My first official book review is in, from Publishers Weekly! And it’s good!!! Addressing what might be my favorite chapter, the reviewer writes:
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, [and] dynamic” nature of menstruation.
Also if you’re a GoodReads person I also got my first review there as well, and it’s both positive and honest – feel free to head on over and like it! A sampling:
A crude summary of her findings is that science in the West has been white male dominated and biased against women for centuries. Yet Clancy goes deeper into the implications of what it means to demerit someone's voice and their pain. Although this book is primarily focused on presenting a history of the scientific research for periods, she'll attempt to pinpoint when this narrative began. And how broad reaching this unfortunate medical bias carries on into the present. I appreciated how she even included the COVID vaccination side effects as well.
The actual introduction I was writing before I found out about those reviews
I’ve definitely been feeling like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland lately – it’s taking me all the running I can do to keep in the same place. I am feeling the strain of having little support for any of the work I do – from directing our graduate program, to running my lab, to running an anti-asshole workshop series to eliminate sexual harassment, to teaching my class. Plus, like, I have two kids who keep needing dinner every night.
Just this morning a colleague was pointing out the incredible amount of executive function it takes just to put an assignment together in one of our learning management systems: you have to name it, provide a description, provide an open date, provide a close date, put in the number of points it will be and how it will be graded, decide which file types you will accept, categorize it in the gradebook, and a million other little decisions, almost none of which are related to content or pedagogy. Then somehow in the thirty minutes we have between class prep, meetings with students, committee meetings, teaching, and more, we are supposed to do deep thinking and writing? Lol how about I just work on this newsletter instead!
(This newsletter takes close to two hours a week to make.)
(Thankfully the executive function piece is much easier for Buttondown than for Moodle.)
(I probably should get back to writing.)
Back when I had a blog (hashtag I Am Old, hashtag Those Were The Days), I wrote once or twice a week about all sorts of things, and that writing helped me develop my voice, connect with other like-minded people, and make a number of friends that eventually became real, in-person friends. I know this newsletter is different – I have yet to figure out a way to add commenting functionality in Buttondown, I think that might be the only thing I don’t like about it. So I hope you will find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Mastodon so we can talk and hang out there (and I have not committed yet but am looking at Project Mushroom and Spoutible as well!). I’m writing this newsletter because I like to write… and because what can be wonderful about writing is that through it we can connect with others. So please do say hi!
Links
1. Former Senator Jim Inhofe – you know that Jim Inhofe who is one of the biggest climate deniers around, bought Raytheon stock while voting on defense spending acts, and abstained in the vote for a January 6th Capitol riot commission – says that part of the reason he retired from politics is due to lingering long COVID symptoms. He also implied other politicians are dealing with long COVID behind the scenes but that he’s “the only one who admits it.” Interestingly, back when he announced his retirement on February 25th 2022 he had a “very mild case” of COVID which is why his chief of staff was the one to make the formal announcement and take questions.
The story also points out that Inhofe voted against coronavirus aid in both March of 2020 and March of 2021.
Listen – I don’t know what mitigation measures any of you do. But you do not want long COVID, you do not want to give someone COVID, and there are straightforward ways to be in the world and be in community with others while greatly reducing that risk. Improve the air, wear a mask, enjoy hanging with your friends!
2. Some of you may know I played roller derby for ten years, and rugby for several seasons in college. I would still be playing derby if it weren’t for the pandemic making indoors sports a bad idea. Roller derby has a “women’s” and “men’s” league however our policy for a very long time has been “idk, just join whichever one makes sense for you” (and there are also plenty of co-ed (multi-ed?) recreational leagues). And you know what? It works pretty darn well. I have played roller derby with just about every gender and my overall take is: skating ability, strength, athletic background, and mental toughness matter more than gender when determining the best players.
I have had my ass kicked by all genders. I have kicked the ass of all genders. Frankly I’ve been a much better player than plenty of cis men I’ve played against. And the ones who have been better than me have been gracious about it and never played with the intent to harm.
It is a joy to play sports alongside any and all athletes who are there to play responsibly, cooperatively, and competitively.
Playing sports is a gift, it is a joy, it is something that makes the lives of so many people better. For those of us who like to play sports, doing so is how we find community, strength, how we learn to work together, and how we learn to push ourselves.
So anyway, trans women are not destroying women’s sports. People who try to essentialize sports performance into something related to menstruation, gonads, or chromosomes are, though.
3. Some assholes have filed a lawsuit against the FDA and HHS to try and get mifepristone off the market. In Texas. Because they’re assholes.
Weird period fact
In honor of Cocaine Bear, which I’m told is out today, I thought I’d ease your minds and tell you that there is no actual evidence that bears scent or in any way care about menstrual blood. There is a little unsubstantiated anecdata, and a study of polar bears that show that they are “indifferent” to a used tampon. To test the hypothesis that bears (and other omnivores and carnivores) are attracted to menstrual blood, where deer (and other prey animals) avoid it, someone actually put menstrual blood, venous blood, and urine on deer feed. Guess what? The deer didn’t like any of the contaminated feed. Maybe it’s not that prey animals can sense potential predator menstrual blood, but just don’t want to eat it? Oh and if any of this sounds familiar, yes I wrote about it many many years ago for Scientific American (archive here).
Sources:
Cushing B. Responses of polar bears to human menstrual odors. Int Con Bear Res Manage. 1983;5:275-280.
Floyd, Timothy. “Bear-Inflicted Human Injury and Fatality.” Wilderness & Environmental Medicine 10, no. 2 (June 1, 1999): 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1580/1080-6032(1999)010[0075:BIHIAF]2.3.CO;2.
March KS. 1980. Deer, Bears, and Blood: A Note on Nonhuman Animal Response to Menstrual Odor. American Anthropologist 82(1):125-127.