#275: That Time of the Month
A visit from Aunt Flo, being on the rag, riding the crimson wave, girl flu, even the red wedding \u2026 menstruation is something that half of the world\u2019s population experiences for a week at a time, for years on end, and yet we struggle to talk about it directly. But the uterus is capable of incredible things, as anthropologist Kate Clancy explains in her new book, Period: The Real Story of Menstruation: menstrual fluid contains chemicals that repair tissue, the cervix contains crypts for storing sperm for later use, and periods might even be the body\u2019s way of improving its inner architecture. But shockingly, doctors viewed periods as useless\u2014even toxic\u2014well into the 20th century, and some still believe that it\u2019s unsafe to swim with a tampon in (it\u2019s not). Clancy, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, joins the podcast to challenge uterine myths, expose the eugenic roots of gynecology, and bring a feminist perspective to that special time of the month.
Go beyond the episode:
- Kate Clancy\u2019s Period: The Real Story of Menstruation
- Read Emily Martin\u2019s paper \u201cThe Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles\u201d
- Anatomy is amazing: the cervix contains crypts to store sperm for later usage
- A new generation of artists is making art with menstrual blood, The Guardian reports
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