The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation, was co-authored with Janice Delaney and Emily Toth . Originally published by E. P. Dutton in 1976, it was updated by University of Illinois Press in 1988. Newsweek magazine called The Curse a “blessing.”
"In its hard headed, richly documented concreteness, it is worth a thousand polemics."
-- New York Times, from a review of the first edition
"The Curse deserves a place in every women's studies library collection."
-- Sharon Golub, editor of Lifting the Curse of Menstruation
"A stimulating and useful book, both for the scholarly and the general reader."
-- Paula A. Treichler, co-author of A Feminist Dictionary
Reprinted University of Illinois Press, 1988
352 pages. 6 x 9 inches.
Paper, ISBN 0-252-01452-9. $18.95
Popular Culture / Women's Studies / Medicine
Selections (from ) "Disposable tampons have been on the market in the United States since the invention of Tampax in 1933, but from the myths, misconceptions, and dark mutterings about spoiled virginity, you would think they had sprung full-blown from the forehead of Jack the Ripper. When they were first introduced, even the churches got into the act, in a rare show of concern for women's bodies, and disputed for some years over the tampon as an engine of contraception, masturbation, or defloration (even though the napkin, with its constant pressure on the clitoris, is a more likely candidate for devil's disciple)." ( 139)
"Female circumcision—clitoridectomy and infibulation—...is actually practiced today on millions of women in 20 countries throughout Africa. Pre-menarcheal girls, some as young as seven, undergo surgical excision of the clitoris, labia minora, and inner walls of the labia majora and suturing of the sides of the vulva. The operation which, except for the rich or educated, is performed without benefit of hospital, anesthesia, or sterile instruments, may bring on shock, infections, urine retention. Throughout their lives the women suffer chronic infection, painful menstruation, complicated childbirth, sexual fear and pain.
"Men and women alike accept female circumcision as a way to preserve the purity of unmarried women and to curb the sexual appetites of married ones. In The Politics of Reproductive Ritual (1981), Karen Paige and Jeffrey Paige describe infibulatioin as a father's means of protecting the 'marriage value' of his daughter, who, in many of these societies, is likely to be betrothed well before her menarche and married soon after it occurs. Infibulation ensures that the intended bridegroom gets the virgin he has bargain—and paid—for. Although many Moslems believe circumcision is a requirement of Islamic law, no doctrinal justification for it exists, and it is not done in Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam. It is practiced by Africans who are Catholics, Protestants, Copts, animists, and nonbelievers and, as an ancient African puberty rite, probably predates all the religions predominant in the area now....While we can empathize with the herculean task faced by those who would eradicate such an ancient and pervasive puberty rite, we cannot refrain from calling female circumcision what it is—torture, mutilation, cruelty, and the most extreme form of fear of female sexuality yet to be uncovered." ( 35-36)
