2013:  Dr. Phyllis Mansfield.  

Phyllis’s research menstrual has focused on the menopausal transition. She has been an author on a substantial number of papers about many aspects to the menopausal experience, including the staging of the menopausal transition, and older women’s sexuality and body image. In addition, she worked closely with Ann Voda to continue the work of the Tremin Research Project, an ongoing and extensive longitudinal data set on menstruation and women’s health, which began prior to 1940.

Phyllis has been a long time member of SMCR, having served on the Board for many years. In addition, she has served as a conference coordinator and also as a co-editor of several special issues of journals (e.g., Women & Health, Health Care for Women International, Women’s Health Issues), which provided wider access to the SMCR research work.

2011:  Dr. Jerilynn Prior.

Jerilynn’ s distinguished career has included documentation that disturbances of ovulation and progesterone production are common, even in regular cycles; that progesterone promotes bone formation and is needed to maintain normal bone in young women; and that perimenopause has erratic and higher, not dropping or low estrogen levels. In addition, Dr. Prior is the founder (in 2002) and scientific director of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation (CeMCOR) which focuses on ovulation and the relevance of progesterone to women’s health.  

Jerilynn has been a longstanding member of the Society. She has been on the Board of Directors for 10 years, was our conference coordinator in 2007 and served as past-president from 2007-9. (link to her books)

2009:  Dr. Diana Taylor, Ph.D., RN, FAAN.

Dr. Taylor’s lifetime of contributions to women’s health research and to women’s right of access to full reproductive health care has been outstanding. Early in her research career, she began conducting clinical trials to test health promotion strategies to manage premenstrual symptoms. This work has been widely disseminated along with her descriptive longitudinal studies of the menopause transition of Anglo American, Mexican American, African American and Filipino American midlife women. (link to her book)

2015, this award recognized Dr. Joan Chrisler and Dr. Elizabeth Kissing.  
A prolific scholar and the author of numerous published articles and books on women’s health, longtime member of SMCR, Joan Chrisler has served the Society in many ways.  She has been a Past President and conference convener and throughout her career has supported the work of many other Society members, by encouraging them to submit their work for publication.  This award recognizes not only her career contributions to SMCR but very importantly, the instrumental role she played in launching SMCR’s own journal, Women’s Reproductive Health, and serving as its inaugural editor.  Thank you, Joan.

Elizabeth Kissling’s research focus illuminates the intersection of women’s health, sexuality, embodiment and feminism, especially as these issues are represented in entertainment media.  Liz’s expertise on representational messages has benefitted the Society in that she has helped us enhance how the Society represents itself, on the web and in our print material. Liz was responsible for updating our listserv communication, creating our website, and maintaining it since its inception, and our blog. Her behind the scenes work has been invaluable to promoting our visibility in the broader public arena.  Thank you. Liz.

2015: Amy Dryden, from the Center for Health Research, University of Western Sydney, for her presentation, “Young women’s constructions of their post-cancer fertility.”

2013:  Cécile Charlap, doctoral student at the University of Strasbourg for her paper on “The last ones and the memory of them: Construction, representations, and experiences of the last periods before menopause.”

2011:  Arpan Yagnik for his presentation entitled “Construction of Menstruation in Indian Television Commercials.” This research was conducted at Bowling Green University, where Arpan was a second year doctoral candidate studying communications with an emphasis on health and development.

2009: Nicki Dunnavant, a graduate of Colorado College, for her presentation, “Restriction and renewal, pollution and power, constraint and community: The paradoxes of religious women’s experiences of menstruation.”

2015: Saniya Lee Ghanoui, a student at the University of Illinois, for her presentation, “Menstrual documentary:  Menstrual education films of the 1970s”

2013: Angela Barney for her presentation “Out of the menstrual closet: Perceptions of women who leak menstrual blood,” based on her final capstone project for her Women Studies major from SUNY Fredonia.

2011: Meghan McLean for her presentation entitled, “Coaches’ Perceptions of a Menstruating Athlete.” She conducted her research as a junior psychology major at Connecticut College program in social psychology.

2009: Clara Hendricks, a graduate of The University of Massachusetts, Boston, for her paper entitled, “Menstrual education the construction of womanhood: A study of Latina second-generation Immigrant.”

2015:  Our Bodies Ourselves. OBOS [formerly the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective] is a non-profit, public interest organization based in the US, which develops and promotes evidence-based information on girls’ and women’s reproductive health and sexuality. OBOS’ landmark publication, Our Bodies, Ourselves, has sold millions of copies around the world and has been translated into more than two dozen languages. The 9th edition published by Simon & Schuster in 2011—40 years after the book’s initial publication –received critical acclaim, including being named one of the best consumer health books of that year by Library Journal

For more than 40 years, Our Bodies, Ourselves has been committed to serving only in the public interest and remains one of the few health groups that does not accept funds from pharmaceutical companies. OBOS’s health information—in book format and online—meets international standard for health research.

Working in collaboration with US and global organizations, in more than 30 countries, OBOS vigorously advocates for women’s health by challenging institutions and systems that devalue women and prevent them from having full control over their bodies and their health.

We honor this group for these efforts and in particular, their pioneering historic work around improving menstrual product safety (through activism spearheaded by Esther Rome) and menstrual health and awareness more generally.

There is no doubt. Our Bodies Ourselves makes menstruation matter in enduringly profound ways.

2013: Our inaugural award recognized feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem, who, in 1978, penned a brilliant satire first appearing in Ms magazine and later in her collected essays  Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. In it, she blew the lid off how gender ideology (read: sexism) shapes how we “do” menstruation.

Nearly 40 years old, this piece STILL hums. Have you read it?

Where tongue meets cheek, Steinem was able to break the menstrual taboo of concealment in under 1000 words. Her bold thought experiment stimulated a conversation that we will keep having until something big shifts in the menstrual discourse.

Until then, Steinem wryly asks:

So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free.

Nearly 40 years out, this prose should be nothing more than a quaint artifact of how things USED TO BE. It should be as relevant today as powder blue leisure suits, wide belts and platform shoes. But the gendered root of the menstrual taboo endures.

Because “If Men Could Menstruate”, near and dear to menstrual cycle advocates old and new, and emblematic of Steinen’s long career of speaking up for women and girls, the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research  chose Steinem as the first recipient of the Making Menstruation Matter award.  

Timing is everything.

At the same time that “If Men Could Menstruate” was published, The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research was forming. Now more than 3 decades later, it seems most appropriate to honor the courage Gloria Steinem has shown throughout her career in articulating and calling attention to women’s realities and imagine something better. To quote Peggy Stubbs, SMCR president:

The intersection of her lifetime achievements and our Society’s interests, is no doubt, an example of how far-reaching Ms. Steinem’s work has extended. For our part, we want to let her know that her work has and continues to energize ours. And we know there are others who, like us, have been and are similarly inspired by Ms. Steinem to continue to work in their own ways to enhance the quality of girls’ and women’s lives.

Click here to hear Steinem’s remarks at the Awards Ceremony.