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23
Book Review: My Little Red Book edited by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff
2009 at 11am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Recently published by Hachette Book Group
Let me start by saying that I loved this book and am so excited to have it as the first of my Women’s History Month feminist selections.
When I was ten years old, my mother gave me The Talk. You know the one. The birds and the bees. The facts of life. “When a man and a woman love each other very much….” and so on. She worked in a hospital, so she had booklets with charts and diagrams and drawings of women’s reproductive organs. She told me all the correct terminology (though I spend the better part of the next year thinking about the eggs that would someday move down by Flamingo tubes) and made me feel comfortable asking questions, and she managed to keep the awkwardness factor pretty low. Of course, I’d already heard some of this information—or, more accurately, some interesting versions of it—at school, but I was glad to get the truth.
Someday, I was going to have a period. And I was going to have it for 3-7 days every month, for many, many years. But it was a good thing. It meant that I was healthy, that my body was doing what it was supposed to do, and that, if I wanted to, I could have a baby.
And I finally knew what those pad and tampon commercials were all about. (“No,” I would tell my little sister a few days later, “they’re not for ladies who pee in their pants.”)
A few months later, we had The Talk at school. The “human growth and development” talk, where they separated the boys from the girls and told us all about the wonders of puberty and maturation. There was the usual tittering and giggling, and when the talk was over, all of the girls—every last one—ran to get in line for the bathroom to see if talking about periods had the power to make them appear. Then we spent the next several months studiously observing each other to see who, if anyone, began carrying their purse to the bathroom. Oh, the elementary school purse, that tell-tale sign of impending womanhood!
Somewhere in fourth or fifth grade, I discovered Judy Blume and couldn’t really understand why Margaret wanted to have her period so badly. I knew it was an inevitability, but I can’t say I was excited about it. I wasn’t dreading it, either, but I wasn’t sitting on pins and needles waiting for it to come. Periods, it seemed to me, were no big deal.
My best friend’s mother didn’t feel that way, though. She was one of those “everything is a milestone….oh, my little girl is growing up” moms who wanted to make every developmental step into a embarrassing production, and puberty was no exception. When I was in fifth grade, Mrs. B signed up to take my best friend to a mother-daughter tea being put on by a local health center. And by “tea,” they meant “have a luncheon and try to find a less awkward way to talk about breast buds and pubic hair.” She talked my mom into taking me, even though I already knew everything I really needed to know, and off we went one Saturday afternoon, dressed in our Sunday best, to sip watered down iced tea and talk about periods. (By this time, I had straightened out the whole Flamingo tube thing and was proud of my ability to say “fallopian” and know what it meant.)
As dumb as it was, the tea did produce one good thing—my emergency period kit. As we sat there, rolling our eyes at all the silly euphemisms being bandied about, it dawned on both of us that with mom working full-time, there was a good chance that she wouldn’t be home when It came. A few days later, Mom came home with a cute hot pink bag filled with junior pads, panytliners, and tampons, and she put it in my closet “just in case.” Over the next year, I would open the boxes and try out the products, just to see what they were like, and though my mom never said that was part of her reason for giving them to me, I’ve always figured she knew I was curious and wanted to know what to expect.
And thank goodness for that.
January, 1995. I had just turned 12, and I was getting ready for school (sixth grade). I went to the bathroom, glanced down, and there it was. I didn’t have cramps, and there wasn’t a lot of blood, so I just thought, “Oh, I guess I have my period now.” Iwent to my hot pink bag, pulled out a pad, decided not to say anything to my dad, called my mom at work, and went about my day. I carried my purse to the bathroom, but I wasn’t the only one, and the whole thing was pretty uneventful. And I liked it that way.
When she got home from work that night, my mom winked and said “well, now you can get pregnant,” which is the only thing anyone (her 16-year-old brother) said to her when she got her first period and didn’t know what it was. That’s always been a family joke. (Can I get pregnant brushing teeth? Walking the dog? Watching a movie? Sitting on the toilet?)
And I’ve always been glad that I knew better.
Now, my period isn’t something I think or talk about much. It can be annoying and inconvenient; it can cause cramps and give me a headache; it can gross my husband out if I forget to flush; but I am always, always glad (and sometimes relieved) to see it. A sign that things are working as they should be. (And that I don’t have to become a mommy, at least not for another month.)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It would never have occurred to me to write the story of my first period (and to post it here for all the world to see) if I hadn’t read Rachel Kauder Nalebuff’s collection of first period stories My Little Red Book. This young woman (she’s only 18!) realized that fully half of the world’s population has a period every month, and we hardly ever talk about it. Periods have somehow become inappropriate topics of conversation. “Private” matters that we aren’t supposed to discuss, except behind closed doors and with our doctors.
And she wasn’t okay with that. So she collected first period stories from women around the world in
an effort to embrace the awkwardness and thereby end it…
…to bring periods into the arena of acceptable discourse so that all of us can gather and share these experiences without a smidgeon of self-consciousness.
Whether the contributors are writing about not knowing what their period was and thinking they were dying, or lying about having it (or not having it) to fit in with friends, or hiding it from their mothers, or thinking it will never come (or wishing that it hadn’t), all of theme express experiences that all of us who have periods can relate to and that all of us who don’t can learn from.
And, oh yeah, nearly every one of them learned about periods and sex from Judy Blume. Seriously.
Erica Jong, author of the classic Fear of Flying, writes in “Fear of Fourteen” that she views our periods as evidence that our bodies are always moving, always changing, and that they are a symbol and reminder of the cycles of life. “We are always changing,” she writes. “All wisdom is in understanding that.”
Many women shared Amy H. Lee’s experience, as described in “Mehn-Su”
This was my introduction to my period: many questions and no answers.
A surprising number write about not only their first periods but their first experiences with tampons. In my favorite piece, “Hot Dog on a String,” Ellen Devine remembers seeing her mother change a tampon as a four-year-old and thinking it was a hot dog on a string.
Why did my mother store hot dogs in her vagina? Did she always store one in there? Was she able to store more than one? Why did she take it out? What would she do with it now? Did other women keep hot dogs in their vaginas?
And Krista Madsen, in “Ink Blots and Milk Spots,” recalls thining that “it was a tad awkard, devirginizing yourself like this over the toilet.”
For me, one of the most important themes of this book was the problems related to equating menarche with sexual maturity. One minute, a girl is a little girl, and the next minute, just because she has her period, we’re supposed to think of her as a woman? A sexual being? Even if she’s ten? Many of the contributors reflect on this problem and suggest that we should instead view first periods as a sign that young girls are on their way to womanhood, not that they have arrived. In “I Know You’re Not There, God. It’s Me, Kate,” Kate Zieman hits the nail on the head:
I’m not sure why girls were suppoed to matter-of-factly accept their sudden status as sex objects with nary a whimper, but there it is.
More on that idea to come later this week.
My Little Red Book is a fantastic collection that explores an experience that ties all women to each other and that, more importantly, goes a long way in making these common experiences something we can feel more comfortable with and open about. It would be a great addition to any woman’s library, but it is a great fit for anyone interested in women’s studies, sexual health, and feminism, or who wants to begin an open dialogue about periods, puberty, and sexuality with the girls and women in her life.
But it shouldn’t just be for women. Getting comfortable with the fact that women have periods is an important task for all of us, and we can help the men in our lives understand what we experience and where we’re coming from by sharing this book with them. Periods are nothing to be ashamed of. They shouldn’t be kept secret. Thanks to Rachel Kauder Nalebuff and dozens of talented women writers, they don’t have to be. 5 out of 5.
Click here to learn more.
If you haven’t had the opportunity (or if you haven’t taken it) to reflect on your first period on a different review of this book, please join the conversation and share your story here.
[...] Book Review: My Little Red Book edited by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff [...]
Thanks for sharing your story with us. No one told me anything so when it happened to me at age 11, I thought it was because I fell down on my roller skates.
BTW.. I heard that girls are getting theirs around age 9 now. ACK! My daughter is 5, I cannot, DO NOT want to even imagine what it is going to be like when it happens.
And at the age of 40, with a hubby that had a Vasectomy that took over a year to work itself out (ahem), I am also glad to see that little sign each and every month.
I love your story. No wonder flamingos have such long tubes, I mean legs!
I stopped having periods in my early 30′s. Isn’t that weird? I guess some women (like me) have a limited number of eggs stored up.
No one told me about it beforehand. I screamed when I went to the bathroom and saw quite a bit of blood. It was traumatizing. I remember my mom asking if she could tell me dad. I was mortified.
A sign that things are working as they should be. (And that I don’t have to become a mommy, at least not for another month.)
I had to laugh at this. My husband and I high five every month when it comes and celebrate that we’re not pregnant yet. We are in no way ready for kids!
It’s awesome that your mom was so helpful and you knew everything when it was about to happen. I know I was much more confused than you even though I’d had several “talks”. I knew it was coming but it was still a shock, especially because I was in school when it appeared, and it was weirder because it came and then vanished for 3 months! I’ve heard that this is normal, but it was stressful at the time. I also have always had horrid cramps and that first time was no exception.
This sounds like a great book. I want to read it now, thanks!
Wow. That’s a great review. I really enjoyed reading your story–what a great mom! I wish I’d felt more normal when I got my period. It made me horribly self-conscious and, even though I knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing that, I also had a strong aversion to public bathrooms–especially school bathrooms–which complicated matters (at least in my mind).
I’m sorry I didn’t get a copy of this book (I’d pictured that “Why Me?” section of YM immediately when I read about this book the first time), but I’m thinking I might make this my book club selection this summer. What do you think? Would it be a good reading group selection (it’s a women’s book club)? They’re a very open group of women, so far as I can tell.
I just read this book the other day, isn’t it great?? I loved it as well.
I was one of those girls that dreaded it coming. I didn’t really think about it, but knew that I did NOT want it. Just didn’t sound like fun. And, just to prove me right, I got my first period while out of province at a swimming competition!! About 10 minutes before going to compete my Mom was yelling over the bathroom stall in a crowded locker room trying to tell me how to get a tampon in… a practice kit may have been a good idea
Now I am more resigned to it, and am happy to see it every month, if only because of the same sentiments you expressed which is that things are working normally and there is no baby on the way.
I’m one of the kids who dreaded getting mine. I felt it was really awkward and gross. A book like this probably would have helped me a lot- in my family, it was one of those subjects just Not Talked About (except for one or two awkward “mom-daughter” talks. This sounds like a great book.
I actually got mine when I was 9 (I’m 23 now). Luckily, I did know what it was – I had found out on my own reading a second-hand book (published in the ’70s, but not Judy Blum) about a girl a couple years older than me who was also growing up.
Gloria Steinem wrote a very interesting essay called “If Men Could Menstruate,” in which she says: “Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much. Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.” Very humorous and thought-provoking. Basically, she views the secrecy and discomfort surround menstruation as another symptom of women’s oppression. This sounds like a great book!
I have read other reviews of this book, but this is my favorite one! Maybe because of the, um, personal details. Brave of you for sharing
What a great post! I am speaking this week at a college’s Women’s History Week celebration, and I was wondering what gift to get the professor who invited me. Methinks I have found it.
I have to save me own story for the sequel to my memoir, but here’s a recollection from my mom. She received a brochure from the school nurse in sixth grade (roughly circa 1960), and it suggested that menstruating women avoid washing their hair while they were having their periods, as “they can become chilled.”
Yes. What a wonderful time of the month to suggest bad hygeine.
This is a fantastic post, Rebecca! I linked to it in my review. I really enjoyed this book too. Thanks for sharing your story!
Great review! I loved your story. I hope that, someday, when I become a mom, I can help my daughter as much as your mom helped you.
Wow, I have never heard about this book! How interesting…And it’s true, we treat this as a “taboo” sometimes.
I was excited to stumble upon your blog! I just started blogging about non-Western books, and I look forward to sharing book lists! Feel free to check me out!
http://multiculturalreader.blogspot.com
-The Half Breed
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[...] (Heave)163. Melanie (La’s Orchestra Saves the World)164. Melanie (Miss Chopsticks)165. Rebecca @ The Book Lady’s Blog (My Little Red Book)166. Rebecca @ The Book Lady’s Blog (The Purity Myth)167. Vasilly (Hansel and Gretel)168. [...]
[...] last March, when I celebrated Women’s History Month by talking about periods? Well, I had so much fun that when author Elissa Stein offered me the opportunity to do it again, [...]
[...] since I’ve already told you the story of my first period, let me tell you about this problem I have. Normally, I have a pretty nice relationship with my [...]