Blood Stories: Menarche and the Politics of the Female Body in Contemporary U.S. Society

by Janet Lee, Jennifer Sasser-Coen

Blood Stories focuses on menarche as a central aspect of body politics in contemporary US society, emphasizing that women are integrated into the social and sexual order through the body. Using oral and written narratives of 104 diverse women, the authors address the central question of how menarche as a bodily event signifying womanhood takes on cultural significance in a society that devalues women. Exploring issues of contamination and concealment and the sexualization of women's bodies that occurs at menarche, the authors emphasize how the politics of gender are negotiated on/through women's bodies.

Genres: Feminism

208 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 1996

Reviews

[Mouska Mousekewitz]

The only reason I am rating this less than five is because I think it's in serious need of an updated edition. I love the research methodology of "storifying" but I think that there is such a profound absence of non-cis memories that it's hard to read as an intersectional quiet feminist. It has immense value but I would love to see the text updated to combat what could be read as trans-exclusionary and almost essentialist feminism.