2023-10-13 12:27:00
“This topic concerns half of all humanity. If there were no menstruation, people would not be born. Every person is born from someone who has menstruation,” this message opens the exhibition “Läuft. Die Ausstellung zur Menstruation” at the Berlin Museum of European crops “This is more than just a physical process: it affects our thinking and everyday life, changes society, language, and also provokes the development of research,” the exhibition organizers are confident.
From aprons to seaweed
The exhibition begins with the section “History of Underwear and Menstrual Products.” A long stand, stretching across the whole hall, tells about the development of the industry for the production of hygiene products for “critical days”. It began to emerge only 140 years ago, and until the 1880s, women for the most part did not use special means, simply allowing the blood to flow freely into their underwear (panties were worn only in high society). In search of means for women’s comfort on special days, the development of menstrual pads, bandages and cups, as well as devices to attach them to the body, began. Over time, the materials, shape, composition and fillers of these products were improved, tampons with applicators, pads with an adhesive base, with “wings”, and absorbent gel inside appeared. Environmental trends are changing the assortment today: the popularity of reusable fabric pads is returning, and environmentally friendly fillers are being introduced (for example, algae).
At an exhibition in BerlinPhoto: Marina Konstantinova
In addition to these remedies, known to all women, some inventions that were popular in the last century have already been forgotten today. For example, menstrual aprons, which did not absorb blood, but only protected clothes from stains, sanitary belts, to which pads were attached, and so on. In a special space, visitors can try on models of historical “underwear for special days” and feel on their own bodies how the concept of female comfort has changed over the decades.
The section ends with an unexpected conclusion: “American researcher Sharra Vostral analyzes that all menstrual products serve one purpose: to help impersonate a person who does not menstruate. A blood stain is considered a disaster, causing embarrassment. Therefore, advertising for feminine hygiene products promises to preserve knowledge about these days “It’s a secret. In society, there is a common perception of menstruation as something disgusting and unclean, but isn’t menstruation something normal and natural?”
Ideas and muses
One of the sections of the exhibition is devoted to discourses around menstruation and tolerance. “Not all people who menstruate are women. And not all women menstruate,” remind the exhibition organizers. Here are public discussions of recent years, for example, a post on social networks by Joanne Rowling, after which the writer was accused of transphobia. It also talks about the scandal that erupted after a tampon dispenser was hung in a men’s public toilet in Stuttgart as part of support for transgender people.
The large-scale exhibition is curated by Jana Wittenzellner, deputy director of the Museum of European Cultures (MEK), Franka Schneider, researcher and curator of the MEK textile collection, and Sofia Botvinnik, researcher and curator of information – educational activities of the MEK – paid attention to a huge number of topics related to menstruation. This includes the environmental friendliness of waste from hygiene products, signs and taboos, medical misconceptions, menopause, premenstrual syndrome, and even an analysis of the precedent when a woman who ran over her husband’s car had her sentence reduced due to “heavy periods.” Doctors were able to explain what happens to the female body during menstruation only a hundred years ago. With the development of science, concepts have changed dramatically several times – what should a woman do these days, rest or work? Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi was the first physician to prove that a woman could work while menstruating and thus played an important role in the women’s labor market.
The exhibition features works of art inspired by menstruation, including one of the first works dedicated to menstruation, Judy Chicago’s candid and provocative photograph “Red Flag” (1971), as well as a portrait of Donald Trump painted by artist Sarah Levy with her own menstrual blood (2015), the performance “Miss Tampon Liberty” (1985) and much more.
“I don’t want to bleed!”
The exhibition demonstrates how attitudes towards menstruation changed in society, how a certain language was developed to describe special days, and rules of behavior and social norms were transformed. From Old Testament biblical texts in which a menstruating woman is called “unclean,” viewers move into the halls of modern pop culture. Today, advertising, videos, and films no longer taboo the topic of menstruation, and Ashton Kutcher’s character in the film “More Than Sex” brings his beloved, performed by Natalie Portman, the musical selection “Menstrual Collection” to ease her condition during her “critical days.”
In the last room, women are invited to express their thoughts about menstruation, share their experiences or give advice. You can write down your impressions, put them in an envelope and leave them for other visitors. These touching and funny personal messages adorn the last stand of the exhibition.
Photo: Marina Konstantinova
In one of the letters, the anonymous author tells a funny story from her youth: “I have seen many tampon advertisements where a woman clutches a tampon in her fist and says something like, “Dry and clean these days.” When I had my period, I made a decision: I took a tampon from my mother’s pack… and yes, I also squeezed it in my fist.”
Touching memories were shared by another visitor to the exhibition, who wrote down her message in a rounded, neat hand: “I learned about periods when I was in elementary school, in science class. I was terrified and sobbed: “I don’t want to bleed!” My mother is a doctor. “she reassured me that menstruation shows that my body is healthy. When I started my period, my mother gave me a gift and sent my father to buy flowers, which embarrassed me terribly. Now I am very grateful to her for this attitude.”
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