Word: taboo
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...menstrual blood, and it is the source and symbol of a universal taboo. In most cultures, menstruating women are shunned as dangerous or vaguely contaminated. Throughout history, they have been isolated in menstrual huts, forced through purification rituals and sometimes beaten if they ventured into male company during their periods. Exactly why is a mystery. Some think the taboo arose from a general repugnance of having sex with a bloodily discharging woman. Others see it as caused by primitive man's sense of awe-and fear-at the sight of blood that does not clot and signifies neither illness...
Psychic Slap. In her new book Menstruation and Menopause (Knopf; $10), Feminist Paula Weideger goes a step beyond Menninger. To her the taboo represents man's historic fear and envy of woman and a desire to keep her from gaining equal status. Argues Weideger, an M.A. in psychology and a staff associate of New York City's Women's Health Forum: "The taboo fills certain psychic and economic needs of men. It is alive, it is flourishing...
Weideger's book is the latest sign that menstruation is a fast-rising issue among feminists, who contend that the taboo teaches women self-hatred and worthlessness. Today, some Jewish women pass on the taboo with a hard slap to the face of a daughter at her first menstruation. Most other mothers, says Weideger, deliver the slap in psychic form, teaching daughters to feel shame about a natural process (the periodic shedding, brought on by a drop in hormonal production, of the lining of the womb when the ovum has not been fertilized...
...Author Weideger suggests that many of the troubles attributed to menstruation can actually be traced to the taboo. The idea is not new. Some 50 years ago, Anthropologist Margaret Mead observed that in Samoa, where the menstrual taboo is mild, discomfort during periods is slight. The idea of severe cramps and pain, she wrote, "struck all Samoan women as bizarre when it was described to them...
...younger feminist researchers are making the same point. Some argue that the Dalton data merely show that many women have absorbed the mythology of the menstrual taboo. Others challenge the interpretation of the data. For instance, Barnard Psychologist Mary Brown Parlee points out that stress can hasten a period; therefore, many menstruating women who do poorly on exams may be victims of stress, not menstruation. Concludes Parlee: "We believe that hormonal change brings certain sensory change, but there is no scientific proof that the hormones make any difference in a woman's behavior...