I came across this article in my research for CALM lab and I found it both fascinating and hilarious. It provides excellent examples of Victorian discourse surrounding sexuality and women’s health and I think because of that it ties in nicely to our class. The link below takes you to Dickinson’s JumpStart, but the full article can be accessed through JSTOR.
3 thoughts on “Victorian Women and Menstruation”
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Thanks for sharing! We should bring up in class the Victorian reaction to menstruation. This could be a really productive conversation about bodily fluids and their erasure in our texts.
This isn’t Victorian but is super relevant:
I think it’s interesting that this is still a thing; generally I can understand with the Victorian attitudes towards sex and the body that then, menstruation would be mindboggling, but that it is considered against “community guidelines” today is just bizarre.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/sallytamarkin/the-patriarchy-is-leaking
I too saw this post, @Oscar Wilde. Thanks! Would you bring it up in class next week? It could be an interesting conversation about taboos– what we can and can’t talk about as well as what we can and can’t see. And I am thinking both about Victorian England and our contemporary moment.