With all this ‘white feminist playing and making art with their period blood’ on my dashboard, I did some research and came across this South African artist who uses hers own menstrual blood to address the queerphobia and violence she has experienced with being a South African lesbian, Zanele Muholi.
Through her use of menstrual blood in her show Isilumo siyaluma (Period Pains, 2006-2011) in Cape Town, Muholi sought to tell the story of black lesbians in South Africa and represent “curative rape.” She wrote of the project in a press release for the exhibit:
Isilumo siyaluma is a Zulu expression that can be loosely translated as “period pains/ periods pain”. Additionally, there is an added meaning in the translation that there is something secretive in and about this blood/“period in time.”
At one level, my project deals with my own menstrual blood, with that secretive, feminine time of the month that has been reduced within Western patriarchal culture as dirty.
On a deeper level then, my menstrual blood is used as a vehicle and medium to begin to express and bridge the pain and loss I feel as I hear and become witness to the pain of ‘curative rapes’ that many of the girls and women in my black lesbian community bleed from their vaginas and their minds.
Between March – May 2011, three (3) young black lesbians under the age of 25 were brutally murdered in various townships [….] As we continue to live and survive in troubled times as black lesbians in South Africa and within the continent, where rampant hate crimes and brutal killings of same gender loving women is rife, this ongoing project is an activist/artist’s radical response to that violence.
yet another reason to love her.
Trigger Warning: blood, menstrual fluid
Source: autostraddle.com
“Down there.”
[TW: use of correct and slang terms for male and female genitalia, ideas of male dominance over women]
Stop for a second. Think. What do you call your genital area?
This blog is supposed to be breaking the boundaries around menstruation, showing you it’s not necessarily some dirty, unspeakable hell that you go through once a month. Yet here we stand with our followers, and those who come to us for advice, unable to use the proper terms.
This is a good post — to an extent.
Sometimes, I really hate the fact I have a vagina.
No, not in a self-hating way, not because oh woe is the life of a woman, but in an honest to god gender dysphoria kind of way.
So any reference to my genitalia is “down there” because then I don’t have to reference the specific anatomy that’s bugging me.
It’s not because I feel dis-empowered as a woman. It’s because I currently do not feel like a woman.
I’m fine with the word vagina on days I do feel more feminine. I just don’t feel that way every day.
That actually brings up a really good point. I think it’s different for people who don’t identify as cis-gender or do have some sort of gender dysphoria. At that point it’s okay to call your genitalia whatever makes you comfortable. It’s just when you DO identify as having a vagina but you feel so uncomfortable with the word because we’ve been taught that our genitalia is a disgusting thing that we need to train ourselves to call it a vagina.
fyeahsexeducation put it into exactly the words I would.
The post wasn’t really meant to be cis-sexist at all. Turthfully, sometimes it has to be taken with a grain of salt that I am a cis woman, was born as a woman, and I am writing from the perspectives I have. I’m lucky in that I was born into a body that is me. I can’t put myself into the shoes of someone with gender dysphoria because I don’t feel that way.
The article really is meant more to apply to people who are flat out afraid of their vagina. If you are uncomfortable with calling it a vagina because you think it’s “icky” that’s a problem. If you are uncomfortable calling it a vagina because you feel is doesn’t apply to you or makes you feel devalued at the gender you express yourself as (awkward wording is awkward) then that’s totally fine. :)
The post was also written after getting several messages from people referring to the area as “down there” in the sense of being afraid of the true terms.
So, again, no offense! We try to keep our blog as gender-neutral as possible.
:)
Source: itsjustaperiod
“Down there.”
[TW: use of correct and slang terms for male and female genitalia, ideas of male dominance over women]
Stop for a second. Think. What do you call your genital area?
This blog is supposed to be breaking the boundaries around menstruation, showing you it’s not necessarily some dirty, unspeakable hell that you go through once a month. Yet here we stand with our followers, and those who come to us for advice, unable to use the proper terms.
“Not Yours” by Heather Freeman
A woman’s body belongs to herself and herself alone. This pro-choice, pro-woman art piece strives to drive this point home as firmly and diversely as possible. 50% of the proceeds will go to the National Network of Abortion Funds.
Available as greeting cards, postcards, prints, and posters.
“Your discomfort is not worth my life.” FTW
(via fuckyeahsexeducation)
Source: prolongedeyecontact
Have you read this book? Would you be interested in writing a guest book review about it?
Let us know and we might feature your work on this lovely blog of ours, you creative-writer-type, you.
Happy reading!
“Ooh, touchy! You must be on the rag!”
—First we need to deal with the fact that anyone who says this is an idiot, and not just because they have the emotional maturity of a zygote. The misogynistic “joke” here is predicated on the concept that women are “moody” when they have PMS, which stands for premenstrual syndrome. Pre. As in before. As in not having her period yet. For many PMS-sufferers, getting one’s period alleviates some of all symptoms of PMS, particularly as regards irritability and tension. So the whole “on the rag” thing doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, for a whole lot of women. I suppose the sort of fuck-knuckle who uses a “joke” like this isn’t too concerned about its medical accuracy, but I’m a pedant, so there you go.
My real gripe, however, is the general presumption, which is widely held, even by some of the most feminist people I know, that women who suffer cyclical irritability with their menstrual cycles get “irrational” and/or express anger about things that don’t really bother them; it’s just that they’re being “sensitive” because of the whole period thing. The problem is that I’ve seen people using that erroneous presumption as an excuse to not deal with the issue about which anger is being expressed, including women themselves, who have been told over and over that their periods do make them irrational and sensitive and thusly feel inclined to exhort partners to “just ignore” them—a request often obliged with no small amount of self-congratulation.
Let’s put this shit to bed right now: Women don’t lose their minds when they have period-related irritability. It doesn’t lower their ability to reason; it lowers their patience and, hence, tolerance for bullshit. If an issue comes up a lot during “that time of the month,” that doesn’t mean she only cares about it once a month; it means she’s bothered by it all the time and lacks the capacity, once a month, to shove it down and bury it beneath six gulps of willful silence. Those are the things most worth paying attention to. (By both people involved.)
-Melissa McEwan, progressive feminist blogger
(via Shakesville)
I’ve seen bits and pieces of this quote posted all over Tumblr, but here’s the entire blog post if you’re interested in reading it: Feminism 101: Periods
Source: shakespearessister.blogspot.com
