Cycling & Menstrupedia

Book reviews by Alison Kent

When I was approaching menarche in the early 1970s, I was informed about what was about to happen to me by my embarrassed mother, who thrust a wholly inadequate pamphlet into my hands, featuring irrelevant photos of long-haired white girls in flowing white dresses running blissfully through fields of flowers. It left me with more questions than knowledge, gaps I filled by talking to peers (who were often worse-informed than I was). Laura Szumowski’s book, Cycling: A Guide to Menstruation, states in the dedication, “For me when I was in the 4th grade, because this book would have come in handy” which suggests that my experience wasn’t unique. Cycling and Menstrupedia: A Must-Read Period Guide for Every Nine Year Old Girl by Aditi Gupta and Paul Tuhin both set out to make this embarrassing and even excruciating rite of passage a thing of the past. They are both informative, accurate, and intent on dispelling myths surrounding the potentially frightening prospect of a life where monthly bleeding is a woman’s lot.

Cycling

Szumowski sets out to write and illustrate the kind of experience for young girls that Our Bodies, Ourselves provided for us as young women in the 70s: liberating, informed, empowering. It shares a style and look with that iconic text, and approaches menstruation holistically and energetically. The illustrations are simple and clear line drawings, and the section titles are also hand-drawn. Throughout, “Fun Facts” enliven the text which at the beginning focuses heavily on the biology of female reproductive organs and the role of hormones. Not all the fun facts are facts, of course, including some historical treatments that were clearly misguided and even dangerous, but a good deal of “healthy” traditional knowledge is also included (which some might find confusing).

The section “Just the Facts” includes clear explanations about cramps, anemia, PMS, irregularities, endometriosis, and a discussion of dioxin; the home remedy section to address mostly cramps and pms is extensive. Yoga poses are illustrated and recommended for cramps (any mention of pharmaceuticals, by contrast, is omitted entirely). Types of absorbing or collecting methods for flow are explored with a handy chart. Deodorants are debunked as unnecessary and even harmful. Though Toxic Shock Syndrome is far less common now than it was in the 1980s before warnings were required on all tampon packaging regarding appropriate levels of aborption, it’s addressed here with the common-sense advice to use the correct absorption.

Cycling’s timeline of the history of menstrual supplies is fascinating, giving a glimpse of the continuity of the problem (how to contain staining blood before it reaches your visible clothes) and various ways women have handled it over the centuries, some of which are quite ingenious. Szumowski clearly feels that the commodification of menstrual products in late capitalism isn’t the best answer and is enthusiastic about picking up earlier solutions such as cloth pads with a modern twist. (Also: if I had discovered the silicone cup in my 30s instead of two years before menopause, I’d have saved tens if not hundreds of dollars.)

I was recently told by a young friend that girls who have been through the American public school system in recent years can’t really remember a time when they didn’t know about periods, which I was glad to discover. In any event, this small compendium of essential knowledge in Cycling would be a welcome addition to any household or school library where girls are approaching adolescence. The unicycle drawing on the cover is a neat subterfuge, too, in case snooping brothers or other onlookers might be a concern.

Menstrupedia

From the other side of the world, Menstrupedia tells the story of three girls in India who are all around nine years old. A doctor, older sister to one of the friends, arrives for her sister’s birthday party. She tells the girls about growing up, puberty, and periods in a natural but fact-based way. Men are not left out of the instruction but sex, while alluded to, isn’t the focus. The complexities of hormones, the reproductive process, menstruation as a natural part of being a woman are all discussed with clear diagrams and scientifically accurate, straightforward language. During the birthday party one of the girls notices a strange sensation in her underwear and goes to the bathroom; she has just started her first period. Her experience is handled in a compassionate and natural way by the doctor, her mother, her friends, and even her father — and provides a narrative reason to discuss menstruation in more detail.

The full-color comics are beautiful, and several familiar “I remember the time when” moments make their appearance — classroom and picnic anecdotes, all designed to lessen the anxiety and shame around menstruation and fear of becoming pregnant. The doctor’s statement “… your body is too young and not prepared to bear a baby yet! You should be at least 20 years old before you have a baby” is a timely riposte to patriarchal expectations of early motherhood that are alive and well in many cultures in the twenty-first century including ours, as conservative responses to the US Supreme Court Dobbs decision have sadly reminded us.

Throughout the book are yellow warnings: “You should visit a doctor if…” which have the effect of letting girls know whether their experience is normal or abnormal. The section on tracking cycles and predicting when a girl’s next period might start is detailed and excellent, because this is something that is often confusing and a cause for anxiety. (The picnic story illustrates how accurate prediction would have helped one of the young friends.) Debunking myths such as the one about avoiding showers during menstruation is handled deftly and successfully, replaced by a simple a recommendation to shower daily while menstruating.

A note on the sponsor of this book, Johnson & Johnson. Products featured are Stayfree sanitary pads with adhesive wings. Although cloth pads are also discussed (including care and maintenance), and the problem of disposing of used sanitary pads is hilariously illustrated in another story, I worry that placing expensive western products at the head of what’s available for girls in India might exacerbate differences in access. The families portrayed in the book are clearly educated, middle-class and affluent. A note on the front cover asserts that this comic is used by over 10,000 schools in India. I wonder about its reach beyond the kind of families that are portrayed within its covers.

That said, Menstrupedia is great, entertaining, beautiful and above all informative introduction— “A friendly guide to periods for girls.” It’s available in all Indian languages as well as English. I have passed along my copy to a friend who is a new stepmother to a nearly nine-year-old American girl; I doubt the cultural differences will matter much to her in the face of such a lively, engaging way of learning about her body. Cycling is approachable and fun. Books like these give power to young women in the form of knowledge about their bodies. That they are grounded in the best available science makes them invaluable.

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Alison Kent is a graphic recorder based in Davis, California, which she describes as a cross between Berkeley and North Dakota and whose symbol is a penny-farthing bicycle. She is a founding member of VEOLI (Visualizing End-of-Life Issues) and is working on a graphic memoir whose organizing principle is birds.