Introduction
1. Encountering Third-Wave Feminism: A Critical
Introduction
2. "Listening to Her Bloody Speech": Feminist Engagement with
Menstruation
3. The Emergence of Menstrual Activism, 1971-1992
4. Feminist-Spiritualists: Enduring on the Margins
5. Radical Menstruation: "Taking It Back from the Corporate Creeps"
6. Making Sense of Movement Participation: The Politics of
Respectability Meets the Politics of Transgression
7. When Women Become "Menstruators": Transinclusion, Queering
Menstruation, and the Frontier of Feminist Politics
Conclusion
Appendix A. Methods
Appendix B. Interview Protocol
Appendix C. Demographics of Interviewees
Appendix D. Selected Menstrual Activist Resources
Subtitle: Third-Wave
Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation Author:
Chris Bobel
Foreword by Foreword by Judith Lorber Subject:Gender Studies, Medical Sociology Paper ISBN: 978-0-8135-4754-1 Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4753-4 Pages:
256 pages Publication Date: May 2010
Praise:
"Chris Bobel is a careful ethnographer,
respectful of research participants, and while she clearly takes a
stand on menstrual activism, she handily defends her proposition that
feminism is 'finding its balance between reliving its past and creating
its future.' Bobel's work, which includes incisive analysis of
how third-wave activists incorporate and update tactics and strategies
of the second wave, will be a welcome addition to the scholarship of
feminism."
—Elizabeth Kissling, Capitalizing
on the Curse: The Business of Menstruation
'"New Blood is at heart an exploration of third-wave feminism and its deeply complex relationship to its predecessors. Framed by an astute analysis of the tensions
between the 'waves'—and a generous commitment to pointing out the overlooked commonalities among them— New Blood delves into the history of menstrual activism, defines and describes its two contemporary wings, and concludes with an assessment of what these divergent approaches say about the contemporary women's movement and where it's headed."
—Women's Review of Books
Description:
New Blood
offers a fresh interdisciplinary look at feminism-in-flux. For over
three decades, menstrual activists have questioned the safety and
necessity of feminine care products while contesting menstruation as a
deeply entrenched taboo. Chris Bobel shows how a little-known yet
enduring force in the feminist health, environmental, and consumer
rights movements lays bare tensions between second- and third-wave
feminisms and reveals a complicated story of continuity and change
within the women’s movement.
Through her critical ethnographic lens, Bobel focuses on debates
central to feminist thought (including the utility of the category
“gender”) and challenges to building an inclusive feminist movement.
Filled with personal narratives, playful visuals, and original humor, New Blood reveals middle-aged
progressives communing in Red Tents, urban punks and artists “culture
jamming” commercial menstrual products in their zines and sketch
comedy, queer anarchists practicing DIY health care, African American
health educators espousing “holistic womb health,” and hopeful mothers
refusing to pass on the shame to their pubescent daughters. With verve
and conviction, Bobel illuminates today’s
feminism-on-the-ground—indisputably vibrant, contentious, and
ever-dynamic.
About the Author:
Chris Bobel is an
associate professor and chair of women’s studies at the University of
Massachusetts, Boston, and the author of The Paradox of Natural
Mothering.
