Tina Turner didn’t sing THOSE lyrics, but what if?
Those that follow re:Cycling may recall-with a grin and a cringe–how Ingrid Berthon-Moine’s portraits of women wearing their menstrual blood as lipstick sent many Guardian and Salon Broadsheet readers to the “icky” place, where unexamined assumptions run amok.
Plenty of folks readily expressed their disgust at the idea of menstrual blood on display (ack!!!on the mouth??) but few were willing to dig into WHY this disgusted them and how that disgust hurts women and girls…..if they dared to really look first, at those blood-smeared lips, and then, at themselves.
Moine’s models, silent and unblinking, issue a challenge. When we meet their gaze and contemplate their deep red mouths, we are forced to look back at ourselves, and at each other.
Why is there a menstrual taboo, anyway? And who and what does it serve? There must be an awful lot at stake when people work so hard to keep it alive.
This week Moine is exhibiting her work in London. Placing her portraits in the context of a V-Day show makes explicit the connections between the denigration of women’s bodies and violence against women and girls.
Sexism and misogyny shape cultural attitudes about women’s bodies and women’s lives, rendering them deficient, at best, and repulsive, at worst. This sets the stage for abuse, for the “justification” of power and control over women and girls and all things feminine.
Let’s not let that connection go unnoticed while we look away from the “icky,” especially then.
The menstrual taboo is rooted in a negative and dysfunctional view of women’s bodies and experiences, an artifact of sexism, as old as sexism itself. Challenging the taboo says NO to disrespecting women and moves us one step closer to ending violence against women. That’s the power of work like Moine’s.
That’s what menstruation has to do with it. Sing it with me.
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If you are in London, check it out:
V Day London Presents an exhibition of work by female artists: Emli Bendixen, Ingrid Berthon-Moine, Alicia Clarke, Cordelia Donohoe, Maria Pia Jamie, Heather Joy Riggs and Vicky Scott.
Opening Friday the 5th of March 6.30 – 8.30 The show will run from the 5th to 20th of March At : New Player Theatre 10 The Arches
Villiers St, London WC2N 6NG
020 7930 5868
The exhibition is a response to International Women’s Day 2010. V-Day London is part of the global V-Day movement to end violence against women and girls. For more information visit https://v-daylondon.blogspot.com/ Five percent of the sale prices from the artworks will be donated to V-Day women’s charities.
I think its “icky”. Would you celebrate having feces on one’s face? Why would you
consider feces more offensive than menstrual blood? (OK, probably more bacteria but is
that why people consider it “icky”?)If you take the position that it’s a sex-specific
sign of health then why wouldn’t you also celebrate a man’s face painted with
ejaculate?
This, from a woman who at her last SFMCR meeting was sorrowing over the fact
that she didn’t have periods anymore because she’d missed the opportunity to
learn more about herself through charting.
I do not share Annie’s sentiments here. The point the exhibition addresses is symbolic not literal. Menstrual blood is symbolic of an aspect of being woman that has been denigrated, hated, shamed, and repressed — not just flesh and blood woman but all that is associated with Nature and all that is “not masculine”. The shaming around having a bowel movement is not gender specific, though it is rooted in our cultural desire to be dissociated from the Nature of our body. Men are not shamed for having ejaculate, in fact they can be proud of it. A woman using her menstrual blood as lipstick is making a political-cultural statement that protests the denigration of her body processes — it is sort of like shouting to be heard and valued, which women have be doing for millenia and are still ignored. Perhaps we all need to get past arguing about “icky” and start getting active about ending misogyny!!
Women will likely be heard and not ignored as the pictures are viewed,
but valued? I would argue that the negative impact outweighs the positive,
at least in the eyes of those whose misogynistic attitudes you want to change.