Flow Book Summary - Flow Book explained in key points

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Flow summary

Name: Flow
Rating: 4.4 (18 reviews)
Author: Elissa Stein and Susan Kim

Elissa Stein and Susan Kim

The Cultural Story of Menstruation

4.4 (18 ratings)

20 mins

What is Flow about?

Flow (2009) explores the historical and cultural context of menstruation. By doing so, it seeks to debunk the myths that surround periods and address the misperceptions people have of the basic bodily process of menstruation.

Table of Contents

Flow
summarized in 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Get to know your body on a deeper level.

Did you know that women have on average about 450 periods during their lifetime? That may seem like a big number, but despite it being such a common occurrence, many women don’t know what’s going on during menstruation.

Historically, menstruation has been taboo, and thus the topic is often misunderstood. Today, we still find many women who are embarrassed to talk about this natural bodily function. Because of this shame, the knowledge surrounding periods and, to a wider extent, female sexual health, is lacking. This needs to change.

These blinks dissect the historical taboos about discussing periods and provide you with answers to basic questions, such as, “Is period sex normal?” and “Why do periods even exist?”

With greater insight into what’s normal and what isn’t, you’ll be able to make more informed choices about your body.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why women experience cramping during their period;
what women did before tampons and pads; and
how drug companies use outdated perceptions to sell their products.

Since ancient times, menstruation has been taboo and surrounded by misperceptions.

Before the age of scientific knowledge, myths provided explanations for why young girls and women bled from their vaginas on a monthly basis. Though these stories portrayed menstruation as a powerful process, ancient people also perceived it as a marker of women’s inferiority. Thus, period blood was simultaneously understood as a sacred substance of life and a toxic matter.

So, though they often believed that this vaginal bleeding was the sacred remains of an unborn child, ancient peoples also condemned it as evil and dangerous.

According to Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder in his book Natural History, written in AD 77, period blood could cause a horse to have a miscarriage and the extermination of flowers, among other things. These assertions remained uncontested for more than a thousand years. Furthermore, the belief that period blood is toxic persisted well into the twentieth century. Even today, certain cultures still believe it.

Based on the ancient belief that menstruation is the process of the body cleansing itself from the toxicity of menstrual blood, doctors developed a procedure called bloodletting. Bloodletting was a process in which illnesses were treated via the draining of blood from a vein.

Bloodletting was used on both men and women. But since menstruation was a wholly feminine phenomenon, the myths and misperceptions surrounding it were used to subvert women’s position in ancient society.

Back then, a woman on her period would have to go away to a menstrual hut. Unbelievably, this arcane act still exists in some parts of the world. Not only that, but menarche, or the onset of menstruation, would be followed by rituals. One such ritual in British Columbia forced girls out into the wilderness; one in New Ireland kept young women in cages for up to four years.

Menstruation was also used as an excuse to exclude women from different types of institutions. Even in the 1920s, for example, menstruating women weren’t allowed to enter churches around the world, wineries in Germany or opium labs in Vietnam.

Today, menstruating women are banned from partaking in Islamic rituals. These outdated beliefs surrounding periods have had a significant effect on contemporary societies all over the world. We’ll explore this more deeply in the upcoming blinks.

What we know as PMS today used to be diagnosed as hysteria.

Throughout the Middle Ages, women exhibiting signs of “hysteria” were accused of being witches. These signs included anything from insomnia to random bursts of laughter or crying. In modern times, however, the same symptoms of hysteria are referred to as premenstrual syndrome or PMS.

The diagnosis of hysteria had a great impact on women’s history, illustrating the general ignorance of female anatomy and sexuality. For example, even the “Father of Medicine,” ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, believed that hysteria was caused by the uterus snaking its way around a woman’s body. The term was only dropped by the American Psychiatric Association in 1952, and the diagnosis of premenstrual syndrome developed a year later.

Menstrual sex carries negative connotations, but in fact, it’s safe and normal.

Of all the many taboos related to menstruation, the biggest is probably period sex. Though it may be a messy activity, period sex has not been found harmful by modern science. By educating ourselves about where these taboos originated, we can begin to unpack the myths about sex and menstruation and start challenging the stigmas surrounding them.

Historically, most religions held the dogma that period sex led to contamination, and that women required cleansing after menstruation before they could have sex.

The women’s rights movement gathered momentum with the development of femcare products.

Can you imagine what it was like for women before pads and tampons were commercially available? Having a rag strapped between your thighs for roughly seven days a month, every month, would’ve made it challenging enough to walk, let alone fully participate in societal events and activities. Therefore, the development of femcare products accompanied historic political change for women.

It wasn’t just the lack of tampons that was a challenge before femcare products were invented, it was also the lack of underwear. Until the twentieth century, underwear such as petticoats and shifts weren’t worn for hygiene reasons but rather for warmth. Some women from wealthy families were afforded the luxury of wearing rubber-lined aprons and bloomers to stop their period from tarnishing their dresses, but most women had to resort to moss, rags, leaves and sheepskin.

Femcare ads perpetuate the ancient belief that menstruation is a shameful phenomenon.

Thanks to television, magazine and billboard advertisements for femcare products, periods have stepped out of the shadows and become more visible than ever. But the spotlight shone on periods has only helped to serve the outdated viewpoint that menstruation is shameful and needs to be hidden.

The collective consensus on menstruation was built on successful marketing campaigns led by the two-billion-dollar femcare industry.

Many women lack basic knowledge about menstrual cycles and pregnancy.

We’re all aware of the implied meaning behind the words “I’m late,” either having heard it on a TV drama or from a good friend. What many people, including women, don’t know is that a late period isn’t necessarily indicative of pregnancy. It could indicate very different things like stress, perimenopause or even that you’re still ovulating.

The absence of information surrounding menstrual cycles and pregnancy is a result of the collective shame manufactured and exploited by American culture when it comes to anything period-related.

The bleeding that women experience while on the pill isn’t actually a period.

Did you know that over 100 million women from all over the world use the birth control pill? Surprisingly, most of them aren’t aware that the bleeding they experience while on the pill isn’t their period. It just goes to show how many women don’t know enough about menstruation.

Let’s begin at the top. What is a period?

Pharmaceutical companies try to profit from our negative view of menstruation and menopause.

Have you ever tried to imagine life without periods or the side effects of menopause? Seems pretty great, right? But if you think about it a little more deeply, does it sound like it’s a good idea to have these bodily processes eliminated for good?

To get right to the point, it’s a sales pitch from drug companies. Remember the birth control placebo pills mentioned in the previous blink? They were originally included in birth control pill packages because drug companies feared that women wouldn’t buy something that suppressed a natural bodily function.

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Best quote from Flow

So little is actually known about menstruation that its hard to predict what the unintended effects of widespread suppression might be.

—Elissa Stein and Susan Kim

About the Author

Susan Kim is the writer of the stage adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. She has received five Emmy Awards nominations for her work screenwriting children’s programs and a documentary.

Elissa Stein is an author whose published work includes subjects such as kids hanging out in New York City, a visual history of pop culture and interactive notes expressing gratitude.

Who should read Flow?

Those interested in the history and cultural significance of menstruation
Women who are afraid to ask their friends and family about periods and sexual health
Women experiencing puberty or menopause

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