Welcome to the second to last Menstrual Monday of the year and the first official day of winter!  Enjoy this week’s dose of menstruation facts, art, news, and more!

• From Halle Tecco at the Huffington Post, an article about menstrual products in Africa entitled “When Menstruation Means Inequality”

• We found this intro to menstrual cup use through MyFrugalTips on Twitter: Using a menstrual cup instead of tampons: be eco-friendly while saving money

• Did you know that a recent female climber of Mt. Everest brought the DivaCup with her to prevent having to bury or carry out disposables products?  Cool!  We learned this neat fact from Carlin Ross’ interview with the women behind the DivaCup.

• The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research has put out a call for creative works!  They’re looking for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and menstrual memoirs    for a special issue of their interdisciplinary journal, slated for publication next fall.

• Check out this fascinating article about menstruation in ancient civilizations, snake goddesses, and the “Isis knot” — an early form of tampons used by women suffering from irregular menstruation and to prevent miscarriages!

• Strange but true: you can now (for quite a price!) harvest your own stem cells from your menstrual blood to save for “the future [when] these cells may be the basis of medical treatments for threatening diseases, personalized cosmeceuticals and regenerative medical procedures.”  The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research has more info — plus a funny video courtesy of In Living Color.

• An Ad a Day shares amusing advertisements for “sanitary napkins” as part of its Vintage Friday series.  Aren’t you glad we don’t have to figure out those belts anymore?

• Artist Amy E Fraser has a series of abstract paintings based on the “inner turmoil of the uterus.”  Strange, beautiful, and interesting!

Welcome to this week’s installment of menstrual news, art, activism, and more!  Today is another light flow day for us here at GladRags HQ.

• Afri-pads, a nonprofit providing Ugandan school girls with reusable menstrual kits, is listed on the philanthropist site GiveMeaning.com
• The long awaited Flow: The Cultural History of Menstruation (pictured) goes on sale!
• The Frisky shares with us 10 Outrageous Menstrual Facts That’ll Freak You Out from Flow the book– history is weird!
• Another Flow related link: How to Sell a Tampon is an interesting slide show documenting the vague and often shaming history of feminine product advertising from Double X
• Why Men Should Learn to Like Period Sex an opinion piece on Jezebel in the vein of women being humans and not just objects!  Woo!

After helping set up the pads to Sri Lanka donation, I was thinking of donating pads to Sri Lanka in my mother’s name for Mother’s Day, but decided a card would be cheaper.  Then, yesterday a friend posted a note on facebook.  She is from Sri Lanka.  She posted an upsetting message about the recent bloody strife in Sri Lanka and feeling like there was nothing she could do.  Her brother is living there as an activist and blogger.  He wrote an equally heartbreaking post about the recent tragedy that you can read here.  My friend’s pain inspired me to actually do something about it and donate.  There are many ways you can protest, but the best way to help the people suffering now is to donate money.  Menstrual products are an often forgotten form of aid, but once you put yourself in the shoes of a woman who has been displaced from her home it is hard to imagine living without them.

If you would like to donate pads please visit our site here.  We have only until the 20th of May to get all our donations in, because ECS World is sending a shipment out on the 23rd.  So please order soon.

Visit ECS World or Sarvodaya if you would like to donate money.

We were recently contacted by Srini Perera who asked us for donations of menstrual pads to help with aid efforts in Sri Lanka. Srini lives in California now, but she is from Sri Lanka. She, her husband, and family all work hard to help procure supplies to send there. Currently thousands of displaced families are living in temporary camps in northern Sri Lanka.  Rather than sending disposable pads to a community that is struggling with many basic needs and doesn’t have waste disposal systems to handle all of the trash created by such products, Srini is encouraging donations of GladRags for a long-term, sustainable solution. Srini and her family formed ECSWorld.com to inspire and coordinate donations.  GladRags is happy to support their work.  Purchase any number of GladRags Regular Day Pads 3packs (SL3) to donate and GladRags will donate two more pads! We have set up a special product page for her donors to use (and anyone else who wants to help). Srini has a shipment going to Sri Lanka on May 20.   Order quickly to make sure your donation makes the cut!  This donation would make an excellent Mother's Day present for the socially conscious mother. To purchase pads for women in Sri Lanka, click here. To read more about ECS World, click here.

Some folks who advise other folks on how to promote their business feel strongly that you should keep your political views to yourself, lest you offend a potential customer.  We feel, on the other hand, that it's important to put those views out there loud and proud because there's no time to waste.  We have a planet to save, after all! GladRags has always felt strongly about this logic, and to prove it, we joined a few groups while we were there setting up our shop.  We're particularly fond of the ones that are set up in order to share valuable information among women of the world.  Here are a few of our faves that we hope you'll look into: American Heart Association: Go Red for Women With over 21,000 members, their mission is to create more awareness about the causes and prevention of heart disease.  By encouraging women to wear red, it helps remind people to keep these discussions alive.  Who knows…one simple act might save someone's life! Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene! Do I even need to explain this one?  Who decided this was on par with pornography anyway? Real Women Have Curves!! This group is currently sporting a membership of over 32,000 people who spread the gospel that real women come in all shapes and sizes.  Case in point:  Marilyn Monroe was a size twelve!  If we were at the Gap, that would be the fat girls section!  'Nuff said. tips for all women… please join… and pass on This is a great group (over 300,000 members!) that features nine crucial tips that any woman can use to protect herself in the horrifying event of abduction or physical attack.  I can never read these lists enough, personally. 2 Million people against Female Circumcision{FGM: Female Genital Mutilation Although this group is still on its way to the desired number of members, they create awareness that this horrifying practice is still at large in many parts of the world. and last but not least, GladRags recommends the group "Commie Homo-Loving Sons of Guns," who got its name from Sean Penn's recent acceptance speech after winning the Oscar for his portrayal of slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.  Remember the day when famous actors wouldn't take leading roles as homosexual characters for fear it would ruin their careers?  (It wasn't that long ago, kids!)  Nice to see some positive change we can measure. that's all for now, but we'll share more of these important social issues with you another time.  (If you would like to suggest any groups, we're all ears!  Friend us and pass on your favorites.)

We just found an interesting blog about women's issues that I thought might appeal to some in the gladrags community.  "Women's Rights" at change.org explores many different areas in a well written, concise, and interesting manor.  They write about a variety of topics from a feminist perspective from sports and politics to make-up and the media. In a recent entry mentioning yours truly, GladRags, the blogger critiqued a recent tampax commercial depicting an anthropomorphized version of Mother Nature destroying a young woman's dream by causing her to wake up to change her tampon.  Having recently seen this commercial on television, I was disgusted by its attitude toward women's natural processes.  Dorothee at Women's Rights succinctly expressed the problem with the advertisement and many similar advertisements.  In addition to her assessment, I also find it interesting that at the end of the ad, they say that their tampons last up to 8 hours.  I don't know about everyone else, but 8 hours is the minimum I need to sleep in a night.  I would much rather wear a cup or night pad with some extra inserts and not worry about toxic shock syndrome or leaking if I don't set an alarm.

December Monthly Friend: Michele A.

Age: 26

Current Location: Brooklyn, New York

What she does: She is a performative story teller and a kinesthetic monologist. “They don’t have words for what I am.” she says. And, oh yeah, she’s also a waiter.

Dreams: “I wanna have a dream!” She guesses that right now her dream is that her friend, who is due to give birth sometime next week, has a healthy baby. Another dream of hers is, “That someday I will chill out and realize that I am not in control of the whole universe, and to let things just happen to me.”

How long she has used menstrual alternatives: Probably for about 9 years, starting around the age of 17 or so. Michele said that she stopped using tampons and pads at this young age because she realized that conventional products were inconvenient, expensive and uncomfortable. Around that time she was validated in her ideas while reading the book Cunt by Inga Muscio and realized “Wow! Other people don’t like those either? Awesome!”

Reason for switching:  “Back then I wasn’t about to use a pad (they’re like diapers!), and just forget about tampons! So I just started to bleed all over myself.” Eventually she started innovating -  she would stick a sock in her underwear, or just whatever soft fabric was around. After a while it seemed right to do something more intentional, making her cycle more hers.  She started collecting rags for this purpose and after a while she had her “bag o’ rags”. In a culture such as ours where bleeding is hidden and forgotten, this enlightened young woman was celebrating hers.

Michele once had an assignment in her ritual dance class, in which she had to find something she did with intention, and create a dance about it. Her dance was about the ritual she had cultivated of “reading” the period blood on her rags. When she had to change or refold her rags she would ask ask the universe a question and then apply what she saw in her blood in whatever way seemed right.

As an ending note and as a great plug for us, Michele would also like to say how much she loves her GladRags, and how dainty and lady-like it makes her feel to use her beautiful, soft, lovely Rags.

The following excerpt is from a New York Times op-ed page.

Blocking Care for Women by HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON and CECILE RICHARDS

LAST month, the Bush administration launched the latest salvo in its eight-year campaign to undermine women’s rights and women’s health by placing ideology ahead of science: a proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would govern family planning. It would require that any health care entity that receives federal financing — whether it’s a physician in private practice, a hospital or a state government — certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable.  Read the complete article here and make a comment on the proposed ruling by September 25. 

When possible, the GladRags team loves to make donations. Jessica Morell contacted us because she uses our book, Passage, as part of the curriculum in her work as a sexuality educator. In this case, we were able to donate quite a few copies of Passage. We’re very pleased to hear that GladRags plays a positive role in such important work. Thanks for the kind words, Jessica!

“Thank you to GladRags for the excellent design of an ancient technology! As an early self-awareness/sexuality educator it is wonderful to be able to share with young women a safe, eco-friendly and cute-as-a-button option. The middle school girls love the fun colors and environmentally safe design. I appreciate having such a sane choice to share with them as they learn all about the magical mysteries of their cycle.” – Jessica Morell, MiT the RISE workshop Reproductive Information/Scientific Education

Hey Everyone, Elizabeth here, GladRags’ elusive third team member.  I’ve been elusive because I’ve spent the past two months out of the office traveling through 28 states via bus, train, bike, car and plane. The primary impetus behind this adventure was an 1800-mile bike ride from New Orleans to New York City called Wanderlust . Wanderlust is a story collective and bicycle caravan. We pedaled 40 to 60 miles a day for about six weeks; listening to stories and observing how communities in the south and northeast are working to expand access to reproductive health care, defend reproductive rights, and promote reproductive justice.  The trip was motivated by the belief that sharing stories is a powerful way to create awareness and foster social change.

Needless to say, it was a life-changing experience in just about every possible way.  I got to connect with activists from all over the country and see what the movement for progressive change looks like on the ground in those places.  More than anything, I think Wanderlust was a fabulous opportunity for me to practice wholly embracing adventure when it comes my way.  Traveling with 11 other women by bicycle, you learn quickly to expect the unexpected; there was always a flat tire to be fixed or a dramatic change in weather to send us scrambling to protect the bikes and gear. For a person who usually relishes routine, it was exciting to learn that I can happily cope with and even meet unexpected challenges with gusto.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in a trip like Wanderlust. I seriously recommend that y’all out there seize the opportunity to do something that maybe other people think is crazy, but you believe in passionately, you won’t regret it.