scarlettina | Research fallout: menstrual rituals, their origins and meaning

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Research fallout: menstrual rituals, their origins and meaning

I'm taking a break from the novel to try to resurrect a story that's been in the trunk for a while. Because the story is so tied up with life cycles, I decided I wanted to include a scene having to do with the protagonist's first menstruation (which will play into the plot later). The idea brought back a conversation I had with my mother when I had my first period, about the custom of a mother slapping her daughter when she has her first period. (My mother didn't slap me; she only told me about it.)

I never thought much about this conversation until this morning, but it goaded me all morning, this idea of smacking your kid when she becomes a woman. So I did what any tech-savvy woman would do: I turned to the Internet! I searched on "menstruation, slapping." I discovered this essay (among others): "The Tradition of Slapping Our Daughters".

Turns out that this tradition is a cultural one, specific to Ashkenazic Jews and to populations in some parts of Eastern Europe. The way my mother presented it to me, it was a much more general sort of thing. This, I got the impression, was what everyone once did. Of course, menstruation was such a taboo subject for my mother's generation, and more so for her mother's, that I'm not surprised this ritual was presented as What Women Do rather than as What Jewish Women Do or What Eastern European Women Do.

So much of the other material that turned up in the results was gentler (some was a little woo-woo); this ritual stood out. Now, the reason it came to my mind in the first place is that it's perfect given the relationship between the mother and daughter in this story, but (as such things are wont to do), it makes me wonder what other baggage it might bring to the narrative. Having discovered that this ritual seems particular to my cultural heritage, I wonder how generally known it really is. I've decided I'm going to pass over that for now; there's a point to be made about the mother's experience with this scene so I'm just going to write it.

But I do wonder: How many of you have heard of this ritual? Did any of the women on my flist experience this ritual? Do you have a Jewish or Eastern European background or heritage? Other thoughts on the subject?

Points to those who get my rather obscure use of this particular icon for this subject matter.

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1. I got the obscure use! How many points do I get? :-D
2. I have a vague memory of hearing about that ritual, but no context for it...

1) I got the icon use too! *claps*
2) Angel's family is Bulgarian but not Jewish... and they'd never heard of it.

I never heard of it 'til you'd first mentioned it.

It somehow doesn't surprise me though.

Also, re: the universality of the presentation of this by your mom, given how insular Jews traditionally are, they wouldn't CARE what the customs of non-Jews were. They're only interested in how they do things.

Going to read the linked essay.

My Pentecostal upbringing never had that as a ritual. I'm surprised by it, actually.

Perhaps because I rarely menstruate, but I have no freaking idea why you used that icon. In fact, I was about to ask when I read the last line of your post and realized that asking will just make me look dumb.

But I am very used to looking dumb, and so I am asking.

It's an apple, not just a corporate logo: Eve, apple --> purity --> innocence and loss thereof --> menstruation and loss of innocence. Etc.

I'm British, from a mainly Welsh background, and it's certainly not part of that. I have done a lot of folkloric research, including in this particular area, but I've not come across this particular custom.

I've never heard of it, and I'm a little wigged out by the whole notion, actually.

Heh. Sorry to wig you out. It really is a custom from the Old Country, I think. My immigrant heritage is showing.

I hope I didn't come off all "eee, freaky old world customs!" in that. :-)

My immediate thought went to girls in families wherein discussion of menstruation was forbidden, and I thought... omg, the poor young girl bleeds, has no idea why, and then her mother slaps her?

Then again, it could be because I watched scenes from Carrie all too recently. That would do it.

My life as a datapoint: Yes, I knew about this ritual. I knew about it before I menstruated because I ran into it in a work of fiction (and from this distance of 40 years, I don't remember whether it was something age-appropriate for me to read or something I took from some random other part of the library). I knew that it wouldn't apply to me because I looked it up. I am so totally a midwestern blonde shiksa of British and German origin. The menstruation ritual of My People was the transmission from mother to daughter of a little pamphlet printed by Kotex even though Modess was what my mother used (I loved the evening gowns on the Modess box), along with an explanation of what all those elastic bands with the odd clips were really used for.

Women really should kiss the ground in Minnesota, home of 3M, land of technological advances in temporary glues, which have freed us from truly uncomfortable menstrual-pad-holding-in-place devices. I don't know who to praise for the improved absorbtion capacity that has made menstrual pads thinner; I suppose it's the disposable diaper industry.

Well, that's a big excursion into stuff we really, really don't usually talk about in public, isn't it? I wonder if we don't talk about all that in public because of the private nature of sex or because of the embarrassing nature of messiness, or if it's impossible to tell because it's so overladen with social history by now.

Oh, and the bitten apple, sure. The idea that my adolescent menstrual cramps were directly attributable to my distant ancestress's disobedience was a minor contributor to my atheism. I mean, really, that's a bit far to carry a punishment.

Your whole response made me chuckle, Kate, from the Rituals of Your People, to memories of being repelled by the elastic bands with odd clips to your brief discussion of absorption technology.

Yes, it's a taboo, and I actually wondered if I shouldn't put this post behind a cut and beneath a girls-only filter when I wrote it. Then I decided that there were a) too many writers on my flist and b) too many men with daughters on my flist to limit the discussion to any particular subset.

And really, I can't believe that anyone on my flist would be shocked by discussion of such a topic. We're a pretty progressive bunch here at Scarlett Letters, and I figured there'd be a little examination of the subject once it got rolling. Interesting to see who has and hasn't heard of this particular ritual so far.

I think women should talk publicly about menstruation at least as much as men would if we did it.

(Also, I've never heard about this ritual. Also also, I think you should put it in the story, if it feels relevant to the relationship involved.)

I just wrote the scene. I need to tweak it a little, but it achieves what I want it to achieve, I think. And thanks. :-)

I'm quite happy to discuss it in exhaustive and repellent detail if required. It's just one of those things.

From the descriptions I've read, better the little pamphlet than the Disney animated menstrual education film for high-school students. And better the Disney animated menstrual education film for high-school students than the Disney animated anti-VD educational film for high-school students...

Never heard of it (and I studied Anthropolgy).

I thought it was a reference to the "bring forth your children in pain" curse laid on Eve...

And no, I don't know why I would know about that ritual because my mother's idea of bringing me into womanhood was to show me where the box of pads lived in the cabinet. (The box of pads that must never just be set on the back of the toilet, lest people see them!!!! I have said before that if there hadn't been sex ed in school, I would have had no idea about the whole thing and probably spent my entire first period trying to hide it from my mother so she wouldn't be mad at me for whatever I'd done wrong to cause it. And then my mom would have punished me for trying to hide it...)

I vaguely heard about this as a young girl. Like

mimerki, think it's a reference to the line about "bring forth your children in pain."

Menstruation wasn't a topic for conversation when I was growing up so I don't know what was done on the East European side of the family. I got the "facts talk"from my mother who was Scots-Irish and I know it wasn't part of her culture.

Hm. Based on what I'm hearing from other women here, my education was pretty thorough and pretty liberal. My mother and I had a talk about female function about a week before the girls in my class were invited, with their mothers, to see a film about menstruation and reproduction. I was given a little booklet on the subject, and my mother gave me a copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves," which I didn't look through too thoroughly until a couple of years later when I needed to know more about myself and about boys. This is all just fascinating to me.

As the youngest daughter of three (by about 6 years), there wasn't much Talk that needed to be talked about by the time I hit that stage. I shared a bathroom with my sisters, I knew the deal.

The cramps were a bit of a surprise, though.

"Our Bodies, Ourselves" should be required reading, IMO. Along with the one with the dancing sperm. *grin*

I was born in 1980, which might explain it, but one of the books that I learned to READ on was "Where did I come from?" and a slightly more scientific volume with pictures of chickens and ovaries. My mom is also a nurse, which I suspect contributed somewhat.

I have a non-Jewish, Western European background. I know some people of that particular cultural background, but none of them ever mentioned it to me. I hadn't heard of it until now, and I wouldn't know the origin of it if I read about it (I wouldn't know it was cultural rather than a weird mother/daughter relationship). But it's really cool learning about it now.

My mom's response was minimal. "Oh. There are maxipads in the closet."

Woot! New information and presented in a cogent manner! Thanks for giving me the "I learned something today" gift.

I wonder if the author of the linked essay really understands the dispassionate use of violence. A slap isn't "brutal" in the accurate sense of the word and I think at that moment she lost the chance for some understanding to filter in.

Even so, a slap – as in any brutal act – brings about shame and humiliation. Why should we equate those emotions with our bodies and our lifeblood?

The author is assuming all over the place here and that's when I got disappointed. Begging the question and setting up a form of a straw man just puts this piece into a political statement for me. However, the goodness I took from it is that now I know a bit more about a subject men rarely get the chance to understand in the western world.

To me, the important question is, what is the teaching surrounding the ritual? My ex-girlfriend's mother explained it to her as a way of symbolically acknowledging the presence and significance of the blood. It wasn't at all a punishment, or a lesson that her body was evil.

Thanks for giving me the "I learned something today" gift.

Heh. You're welcome.

Begging the question and setting up a form of a straw man just puts this piece into a political statement for me.

I had a little bit of that reaction, too.

quizro's anecdote is the answer to the "brutality" question. It's all in how it's framed.

When I was in my late teens/early 20s, I dated a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. She told me that her mom slapped her when she got her first period, but did it joyfully, as if it were a celebratory act. My girlfriend was bewildered and a little scared at the time, but she laughed when she told me about it--it was just another crazy story about her family and her religious traditions.

The explanation that I got (either from my girlfriend or her mother, I can't remember which) was that the slap is a ritual meant to bring blood into the girl's face.

That sounds about right. The article mentions it, and now that I think about it, my mother may have mentioned something about that as well.

Love the icon, btw.

No slap (Manx ancestry, for the tail-female line) - just the movie at school. I think Mom must have talked to me about it before then, because I don't remember the movie as being all that surprising.

However, there is a British custom in some areas where a parish or other corporate body marches the boundaries of its property or area, and children are slapped or bopped at the borderstones, so they'll remember where they are.

Momself reports no slap from Grandmaself, nor has she heard of this custom.

That's just sort of fascinating to me. And thanks for the check-back.

I'm ethnically Irish/Scot and I heard of the ritual as a preteen, teen, something like that. I don't remember quite where--not from family, certainly. I know it was from reading and at the time had the vague impression it was something all Jewish mothers did.

And yes, I got the icon usage.*wry grin*

When I was eleven we moved back to the town I was born in. My mom took me to the pediatrician (who happened to also be the OB who delivered me) for something or other, and somehow he got it into his head that my mom hadn't taken me to see a doctor since I was a newborn!

Worried that my mother was horribly lax in child care, he gave me a book called "What teenagers want to know", which included rather non-judgmental info on sex, including the helpful hint that you might enjoy your first sexual experience more if you "waited until you had your own place", since then you wouldn't be worried about someone walking in or you, or (this was hilarious to me) about a policeman knocking on the car-window.

I didn't menstruate until just after I was 14, and it happened while I was on a two-week student-exchange in France. Ugh! Then after a few months of on-again-off-again, it stopped completely when my mother got pregnant. Then, while I was on student-exchange the same time the next year, it started up again. Fortunately, I'm a fatalist, so I was prepared that time!

My cycles have never been very predictable, my fertility has been problematic, and now I'm on birth-control that has pretty much shut the whole thing down. . . I sometimes feel like I missed out on some deep mystery of femaleness. Deep down, I just feel sorta androgynous. :P

Worried that my mother was horribly lax in child care, he gave me a book called "What teenagers want to know", which included rather non-judgmental info on sex, including the helpful hint that you might enjoy your first sexual experience more if you "waited until you had your own place", since then you wouldn't be worried about someone walking in or you, or (this was hilarious to me) about a policeman knocking on the car-window.

Somehow this brings to mind the infamous WWII "health guide" given to members of the British Army that began "You may have noticed, between your legs..."

Yes, I've heard of it! I have clear memories of reading about it in two completely different autobiographical essays, although, unfortunately, I can't remember any bibliographic information for either of them. In one, the author's mother was delighted to learn that her daughter's period had started and slapped her softly on both cheeks, saying something like "My mother did this to me and now I've done it to you! It's so you'll always have rosy cheeks." As I recall, the author was surprised but certainly not upset. In the other, the mother delivered a "stinging slap," saying something like, "This is necessary when a girl becomes a woman so that she does not become shameless."

If I think of any information about either of these books, I'll let you know.

I'm an American Mutt of Northern European and Native American extraction. I think the most recent immigrant in my family line came over before the Civil War. I have never heard of this particular ritual.

As to the rest, being the youngest of three girls (my sister-in-law is lucky we trained our brother so well ;-), no 'talk' was needed. Six people, one bathroom, you do the math.

I must remember to make a pilgrimage to 3M headquarters someday. The day I was able to throw out that horrid belt ranks right up there with my wedding day, the birth of my daughter, the day I realized I was better off divorced after all and my first fiction sale.

Now, this doesn't mean my mother didn't have her own weirdnesses regarding periods. You weren't supposed to wash your hair during your period or you'd get sick. Supposedly, your flow stopped during a bath, but you weren't supposed to go swimming during your period for some reason that was never quite clear. If your flow stopped during a bath, wouldn't it stop while swimming? Yes, I spent many years driving my mother to distraction because I refused to just accept her at her word when she made these pronouncements. There was something about cramps, but I don't remember what it was. I never *had* cramps until fairly recently. Now that my ovaries are winding down (much too slowly for my taste), everything's decided to go haywire and the cramps can be horrid. If only I could remember my mother's wisdom on this matter. ;-)

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Research fallout: menstrual rituals, their origins and meaning

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Heh.

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