MENSTRUAL CUPS (you’ve got a few options, actually twelve!):

With a little research I found the The Keeper, Mooncup, Green Donna, LadyCup, Lunette, Fleurcup, MeLuna, Miacup, MPower, Yuuki Menstrual Cup, and The Diva Cup. There might be some more out there. Something I found to be interesting is that I’m pretty sure only one of the brands mentioned is made in the U.S. Not surprising, I suppose.

 Anyway, a menstrual cup is basically a little rubber (or latex) plunger that you fold in half, then fold again, insert in your vagina, and twist it to pop open inside your vagina. The cup seals the opening of your vagina with its little tip sticking out just a little bit. You can leave the cup in for up to twelve hours and it catches your menstrual blood until you’re ready to empty it. To remove it, you gently tug on the little tip and kind of squeeze and finagle it out. THIS TAKES PRACTICE! The first few times you try it you will probably get blood on your hands, but don’t be discouraged. Getting this little ritual down will be worth your while. I’ve been using the Diva Cup for about two years now and I struggled a bit at first, but now it takes two or four seconds to put in and take out. It’s just fabulous. You can run, swim, bike and even poop with it in. I have a bit of trouble sometimes with it leaking, but it’s just a little bit and I use a homemade reusable pad for back up. Speaking of that….

REUSABLE PADS:

Making pads is probably the most creative way to “control” your blood. There are so many ways to do this; I can’t even begin to touch on them all. My current way of making them is by tracing out a disposable pad with wings on a piece of cardboard giving extra room on the edges. Then I take a piece of flannel that is good for wicking moisture (old flannel pajama pants, shirts, or bed sheets work great) and use the pattern to trace and cut two identical pieces out. Next get some thick fleece (or fabric that is absorbent) and trace/cut the pattern out of that, minus the wings. Sandwich the fleece material between the two flannel pieces and sew along the edges of the inner piece and along the edges of the two flannel pieces. You can always double or triple up on the fleece depending on what your flow is like or for nighttime. After you have your pad sewn, you can either sew Velcro, snaps, or buttons to join the wings under the crotch of your panties. WARNING: if you use Velcro cut it into very small circles and make the wings longer and wider so that you don’t get scratched by the Velcro every time you walk. It’s a pain in the ass (inner thighs) to feel that all day long when you’re at work or wherever. It will seriously drive you crazy and make you walk weird.

OTHER THINGS:

Some people use small sea sponges to insert and absorb their blood. I am vegan so I do NOT recommend this. However, they are healthier than bleached non-organic tampons. Some health food stores even sell the sponges with strings on them for easier removal. If you’re interested in sponges, maybe try synthetic ones but research it a bit because you never know what’s in those either. Vaginas are very sensitive and you basically consume toxins and other stuff depending on what you put up them.

One time I was at an awesome workshop on DIY menstrual health at N.C.O.R. (National Conference on Organized Resistance – now defunct) and met someone that just used a bandana in her underwear. That’s punk as fuck. After she told me that another girl said “yeah? I don’t use anything. In fact, I don’t even wear underwear.” Double punk as fuck. So you basically have a lot of options as far as how you want to divert your period from ending up soaking through your clothes. You also have the option of not doing a thing at all. I think that’s awesome and it actually used to be the norm for some cultures to do that. But now, that’s not always an option for many of us. So hopefully the alternatives are helpful if you’re seeking healthier options.

Aside from corporations profiting off harmful menstrual products, they also trap us with controlling our cramps. One could write volumes on menstrual cramp treatment, but I’ll just name a few that I’m most familiar with.

Now, I totally understand the lure of pills such as Midol and Pamprin. They are kind of amazing if you are doubled over in your bed wanting to die, puke, or have diarrhea. Most of you menstruators have been there. Please, have no shame in using those products if you need to. Most of us have to go to jobs and do not live in a society that understands the pain that cramps can deliver. However, it’s also not healthy to rely on NSAIDs or painkillers over a long amount of time. Here are some alternatives that might help you.

CRAMP BARK:

This stuff is amazing. I’ve only had it in tincture form which is basically herbs super concentrated in alcohol, usually vodka. I’m straight edge, but I am very willing to make an exception when it comes to consuming tinctures. If you’re concerned about that aspect, the amount of alcohol you consume is basically the equivalent to flavor extracts you bake with. Anyway, take a few drops of cramp bark under your tongue and hold it there for thirty seconds. Swallow and relax. The calming affects of this herb will occur within seconds. “Cramp bark” is not the herb’s scientific name, but it is named as such for its healing properties. You can also take a tincture of Dong Quai which helps to support the functioning of your uterus and can help alleviate cramps – but it tastes like absolute shit. So I’d really go with the cramp bark. You can get it at most local health food stores for about ten dollars a bottle that will last you maybe six months depending.

MAGNESIUM:

Magnesium also helps with cramps. You can get a large bottle for around ten or eleven dollars at health food stores and take two pills with food. I can’t remember why it helps, but it does. Not as quickly for me as cramp bark does, but other people have said it works instantly for them. It’s also good for you too regardless of your cramps.

TEAS:

Red raspberry leaf helps support the uterus. There are many different teas out there that have this in them. I don’t notice a drastic or instant difference in my cramps when I drink this tea, but it certainly helps to take the edge off. Many packaged medicinal teas will recommend taking red raspberry leaf prior to getting your period. Follow the directions or else you will not get the full benefits.

** There are additional herbs out there you can take as tinctures or teas, but please, please be careful and read about them first. Just because something is natural, doesn’t mean you can go willy-nilly with it. You can die or get very sick from taking the wrong kinds of herbs or taking them improperly. Talk to an herbalist if you don’t know something or look it up in several books to be sure about what you’re doing.**

ETC…

Sometimes just good old fashioned relaxing in bed with a heating pad or taking a hot bath can help you. Avoid caffeine, lots of oils and grease, eat dark leafy greens and lots of vegetables. This will really help you and you should be doing it anyway. My roommate Karen also swears by doing sit-up exercises to get rid of cramps. Try to remember that cramps are only temporary and that they will go away and that you are very strong.

** However, if you experience very extreme cramps and extreme aching in your legs or puking, you need to see a doctor and do not hesitate. These could be symptoms of something more serious than just regular cramps. Do not try to diagnose yourself. If you don’t have a doctor or insurance, call Planned Parenthood or 911 in extreme cases. It’s possible you have cysts or something else wrong and need them removed.**

So after touching on some tactics to reclaim our bodies from capitalism and fucked up social constructs, let’s get creative and take the whole system down. Dismantling the menstruation industry is a big job and boycotting alone might not be the only way to do it. So let’s work to apply the tactics we’d use on any other industry we want to eradicate.

Deface tampon dispensers with stickers and graffiti explaining why tampons are awful. Cause economic damage to corporate headquarters or companies that make harmful menstrual products. Educate your family and friends on reclaiming their menstrual health. If you don’t menstruate, you can still teach people about this stuff and be a strong ally. Try talking and thinking about this issue with spirit and rage and you will come up with endless tactics to employ.

We can come up with a million reasons why capitalism is screwing us and the Earth over, and this industry is certainly one of them, but now I hope you’ll think of it as a target now, and not just another reason.

            So I have done a few workshops on D.I.Y. menstrual health over the past year and have really grown to have a passion for this topic. There have been some awesome zines and articles written from a feminist/anarchist/radical perspective on this issue and I encourage further reading because I cannot fit everything (nor do I know everything, obviously) into one column. The following is inspired from my workshop.

            I usually begin with asking the folks in attendance to share, if they’re comfortable, what their introduction to menstruation was. This is usually very interesting. The majority of the stories shared are ones of embarrassment or when parent(s) (mainly mothers) get overly excited about their “daughter’s” “becoming” a woman. Some participants said they had celebratory dinners, others received a piece of jewelry or some kind of gift. In contrast, others said they wanted to crawl into a cave and hide it from everyone, even their mother or parent(s). The most shocking—and surprisingly common of older women—introduction was getting their first period. Meaning, they were completely unaware that a female even had a period until then. One person shared that they thought there was something unique and wrong with themselves. Another said she thought she was dying—her mother passed away when she was a child and her father never told her about menstruation.

            Among the stories shared, there is a similar strand throughout many of them which is, not surprisingly, shame. Shame for thinking your body is gross. Shame for thinking there is something wrong with your own body. And shame for knowing nearly nothing about this change that you’re facing simply because people generally do not talk about menstruation in a supportive manner.

            I don’t need to get into how hard it is for a person in their pre or early teens in life. We’ve all been there. I’m not saying life is easy for everyone after that, but we can all recognize that biological changes then are, in particular, difficult to deal with. But I find it interesting that amongst all of the changes people encounter when they “grow up”, none are hardly things to feel shame for except when it comes to a female’s period. Sure, maybe awkward feelings, but rarely shame.

            While this notion of shame may seem insane, it is actually a carefully cultivated idea by the “menstruation industry” that wishes to profit from it. It’s simple. You make someone who is young, vulnerable, and easily influenced by their peers and society that being dirty and gross is a bad thing, and you teach them through media, school health classes (yes Tampax advertises their products in sex ed. classes by providing videos and curriculum and in some cases a “tampon lady” to come and present their product), and parental guidance about how to take care of themselves so that they do not feel dirty and gross, and they will do it. Obviously. And if you’re a woman, you better purchase their products and believe what they say or else the girls in the locker room will shun you or gossip and spread rumors about how gross, or to use the industry’s phrase, “unsanitary”, you are.

            So getting young girls to use corporate menstrual products is obviously very simple then. Once a young female tries pads or tampons, she is hooked because of their convenience and availability and as they appear to be the only option for her, as she has most likely never known an alternative. The problem with relying on corporate products such as pads and tampons is that they are very unhealthy for our bodies. Tampons are filled with bleach (to make them white – and what does society tells us about whiteness in other contexts and its close association with purity, sterility, and superiority) and dioxins. They can tear the inside of you due to their jagged and fibrous properties which in turn can cause more bleeding (which is not menstrual blood) thus drying and absorbing an unhealthy amount of girl juice. They can also cause toxic shock syndrome (TSS) and endometriosis as well as make some people experience more cramping than what might be normal for them.

            The materials used to make tampons are also of the lowest quality. The vagina is one of the most sensitive organs of our bodies, but again, corporations that seek profit by any means will go to great extents to ignore that fact and even include very harmful materials in their products to save on production costs. In California, it has become illegal to feed the leaves, stems, and short fibers of cotton known as gin trash to livestock, because of the concentrated levels of pesticide residue. Instead, this gin trash is used to make furniture, mattresses, tampons, swabs, and cotton balls.

            Disposable tampons and pads are designed to be quickly removed, peeled out of our undies, or yanked harshly out of our vaginas, wadded up, and tossed. Most women can do it so quickly they don’t even really touch themselves or come into contact with their own blood or body. This lack of contact is also very intentional by corporations and very problematic. Again, being taught by society that vaginas and what comes out of them is disgusting further promotes the fact that society hates women—thus women learn to hate themselves and what is “down there”.

            But not only do these products teach us distance from our bodies on top of contaminating them, they pollute the environment as well. Proctor and Gamble and Kimberly Clark produce the majority of these products. I won’t go into details because there are too many for this column, but if you imagine how many people consume their products and consider that the average menstruator will consume approximately 10,000 to 16,000 commercial pads/tampons in a life time, that equals out to 250-300 pounds of waste per person! Experts estimate that tampon applicators alone may take 300 to 500 years to break down. The chemical bleaching processes, pesticides, commercial seeds (Monsanto), and industrial farming of the cotton used to create these products contribute to global warming, ecological devastation, and over all a world that I simply do not want to be a part of.

            Additionally, disposable pads and tampons sterilize and erase our beautiful history of traditional herbal and D.I.Y. menstrual care that have been carried on for decades. For years women have been making their own pads and rags, using herbal treatments to alleviate cramps and pain, and acknowledging a menstrual period as a natural and necessary time of cleansing as well as something that is not hidden.

             I recently was talking to a co-worker of mine about an alternative menstrual product called “the Diva Cup” (which I will discuss in part 2). The Diva Cup is a latex cup you fold and insert in your vagina which pops open and catches menstrual blood. You only need to change it once every twelve hours and one cup can last up to ten years. Quite an incredible invention. Anyway, as I was very briefly explaining the cup to her (and in no great detail at all), she made this awful hurling face and was disgusted by it. Another co-worker, who is a male, started to enter the room and she quickly silenced me and told him he walked in at the wrong time of the conversation. She was very grossed out by what I was telling her. I only said that the cup catches your blood and you empty it like once a day and that it’s also nice because you save money (approximately $6,150-$8,200 through out your menstruating years!) because they last a long time. Her reaction proved my point all too well.  

            Anyway, bottom line: secrecy, shame, and distance from our bodies is not positive for self-esteem. There have also been studies proving that women who are aware and familiar with their flow, cycle, and body become more confident in themselves which leads to being more assertive in sexual situations. So that’s one more reason to say “no” to these products and not let them capitalize off of our shame, our bodies, the environment, and our dignity!

            If you find this interesting and relevant, stay tuned for my next column, part 2, to learn about alternatives to corporate menstrual products, taking back our menstruation, and taking down their industry!

Gardening is punk and I can explain why.

Self-reliance and sustainability are amazing concepts, but I think we have a very long way to go to try to achieve them. I think that planting a garden that is as organic as you can make it, is one of many pretty good steps in the right direction. While ecological devastation persists through our addiction to fossil fuels, massive clear cuts being performed daily, and contamination of all fresh water, we still seem to forget that it’s OUR fault the Earth is crumbling and that it’s equally OUR obligation to stop it.

As the fumes from this greedy nation billow upward in the sky and then circulate back into our lungs, the need for change (and drastic change at that) is evident more so now than ever.

So here’s my take on it:

This ecological devastation can be ceased through social movements of focused people standing in strong solidarity with each other (and to give them credit these social movements already exist) taking action against the corporations and governmental policies that perpetuate it. This is one part. The other is living our lives in such a way that unhooks us from our addictions and reliance’s on this devastation. 

In our current culture it is impossible, or maybe I should say extremely difficult, to practice both of these parts in absolute. But maybe the point is that we hardly practice them and if we do already, we certainly can do it better and should strive to. I think gardening is an incredible tactic and right now is the perfect time to start if you live in West Michigan.

Here are some quick tips on how:

-       Start a compost pile with kitchen scraps, hair, coffee grounds and filters, strips of newspaper, grass clippings and leaves. You can compost anything vegan. Turn your pile with a shovel once a week (at a bare minimum) and you will notice dark rich matter in the center – this stuff is really good for your garden when you go to plant. You’ll probably have lots of worms and beetles too, they are great for getting air in the soil so leave them be.

-       Acquire vegetable plants (I got a flat of 36 tomato plants for 8 bucks) and/or seeds that you or others will actually eat and not just want to grow because they look neat. The farmer’s market is a great place to go if you can stomach tons of strollers and white yuppie folks with sunhats.

-       When you go to actually plant, make sure your soil is tilled up and loosened. If  your compost is good and decomposed, feel free to mix that in too. Just follow the directions on the seed package or plant label, and you should be fine. After that, make sure you water your plants everyday and immediately after planting. If you are going out of town, have a friend or someone water it for you and give them a tomato or something in exchange. DO NOT let more than two days go by without watering unless we’ve had rain.

-       When it comes time to harvest you will have vegetables that you grew yourself that you can dehydrate, can (speaking of which I think I will do a column on canning soon because it’s awesome), freeze, dry, or eat right away. How cool is that?

While I am trying to encourage gardening vegetables in backyards, city lots, or abandoned spaces, I totally understand where one might have some difficulty making that a reality. It does cost something to start one up, but hey, most of my plants were purchased with money from bottles and cans collected from the sidewalks and garbage cans of Eastown. Or if a full on vegetable garden is a tad ambitious, why not try growing herbs on your porch. Plants like basil, parsley, chives and rosemary are fragrant, beautiful and very simple to grow either from seed or plant. Herbs are truly amazing if you read up on them. I don’t know tons, but I have checked out some good books from the library on them. You can make teas, medicines, tinctures, and you can dry them either through hanging or sun baking to have all year round. While most herbs and spices are just about the easiest thing to swipe from the store, having fresh basil on hand compared to store bought (swiped) will not even compare. I promise you.

So I could clearly go on and on about the wonders of gardening, but I’d like to return to my original motives behind why I feel one should garden. I garden because it is one step I can take that is by nature sustainable and self-sufficient and helps me give back to the Earth I am helping to destroy.

Gardening is punk because it says “no way, we can feed ourselves” without fucking GMOs, mass produced crops harvested by people who work for shit wages, pesticides, and lab-grown produce. Garden punx for life, get hoe-ing!

Spring has arrived and so have my giddy feelings of biking in weather other than snow. Mid-January I was telling myself that I will be the happiest kid in the world when I see green grass, daffodils, and roads that aren’t slippery. And so the time has come. Late night runs to dumpster non-frozen produce, group bike rides, riding without gloves (seriously not having to wear bulky mittens when the weather gets nice is an incredible feeling) – could it get any better than this?

Oh hell yes it could.

When I breathe in the Spring air and fly down Fulton on my way to work (usually with a Ghost Mice tune in my mind about getting enough fresh air) I feel just great. I feel great until some bike jock dude whizzes past me acting like he’s in NYC delivering a package (to my knowledge Grand Rapids does not have any bike courier services except for maybe Jimmy Johns just to throw that out there) and cuts me off while glancing at my “gear ratio”. Oh, ya gotta love ‘em. Skidding down Fulton on a thousand dollar bike with a dopey little hat on and no helmet really impresses a girl. I also feel really well accepted as a woman in the biking “community” in this town.

But for real now, the bottom line is that this macho-jockish shit’s just gotta go. It infects all things that are good. Patriarchy is so poisonous and truly imbeds itself so deeply in all of us. While it’s awful to fear for your life when motorists exhibit raging attitudes that could very well kill you, it’s also clearly not acceptable for other kids on bikes to act like jerks either. I know there is a big difference, but I’m just so sick of these attitudes. It’s not cool to constantly feel like your body and your bike are being appraised for their components. It’s tiring to be assumed you’re just an idiot that doesn’t know a damn thing when you go in to a bike shop unless you’re there with a male (and in most cases they’ll just talk to him anyway.) I also don’t appreciate these kids that can’t even say “hi” to you when their riding by but usually just weave in and out of traffic like they’re on some mission.

I know a lot of this is really strong stuff to say, but I’m not going to apologize for saying how I feel and calling this shit out. There is simply no point in working to create a “bike community” (as many would claim we’re doing) when women and other people who are oppressed are not included. This non-inclusiveness is found everywhere: at our jobs, our schools, our circles of friends, and most certainly can be found in our punk scene.

While a lot of people might argue women just need to be more assertive or that maybe women just naturally don’t enjoy biking (not true!) or that Grand Rapids just happens to have more men that bike than women, I’d argue that most of us (women) are taught that there is no place for us in the “biking world” to begin with. Same is true for the dominating presence of men when it comes to things like skate boarding, being in bands, hell… doing graffiti… and the list goes on and on.

What I’m getting at is that all of this is not one big coincidence. I’m attempting to write on complexity of emotions I feel everyday as a woman who does something she loves, biking, but feels threatened, unaccepted, and completely overshadowed. And I’m going to briefly explain why I think this happens.

I think that anyone who is not dominant in our society (i.e.women in this case) that express themselves in an assertive manner will face some pretty scary and threatening shit (think about women in the punk scene for example). Biking (which is legal on the shoulder of most roads in Grand Rapids — and not that I care about laws) in traffic exhibits assertiveness and people (motorists) largely do not like to see this. Cyclists typically get shit no matter who they are, but I’m arguing that it’s even worse for a woman. Patriarchy tells women that they should not be taking up space in general. It teaches us that we should be quiet, behaved, looked at only for our bodies (or in this case our bikes), fetishized or tokenized as the girls that ride bikes, and not confident in our rights (to the roads).

Beyond this, we can see clear examples of biking as solely a male activity or even genre. Look at who typically are the bike mechanics in town, who owns the bike shops and who works at them, who participates in races and even leads and largely attends group rides for that matter. Again, no real room for us and no attempt to make any either.

This is all pretty fucked up. I hate cars and hope to never own one again, so I view biking as not only a passion, but also a way of life for me. I’m simply not going to be quiet about this. While I believe patriarchy needs to be eradicated from every facet of our lives, I especially think it needs to be eradicated from our passions – but unfortunately just I can’t do this by myself.

So, anyone out there that identifies as a woman want to start women-only bike rides this summer? I really wanted to do it last year, but I didn’t. Seriously though, this could be really cool. Get a hold of me or leave a comment if this interests you. I think a very fruitful way of smashing patriarchy is to employ a tactic that gives us a safe space and produces something that is empowering at the same time. Bike rides are just one idea, I’m sure there are folks out there with even better ones.