Author Emma Barnett shares period stories from many menstruators, as well as her own experience with endometriosis. Because talking about menstruation in a messy, open and real way helps to dissolve the shame many menstruators feel. I teach a general education course called ‘humanizing science.’ It’s a social science course designed for science majors. For the last class of the semester, I assigned two readings that were trying to expose students to a justice-minded way of thinking about the world, to ethics, to understanding the history of science and medicine and the incentive structures and problems of science so they can go and produce a different way of doing science. That’s my big dream. Here are some of the questions that you, as a parent, might get asked by girls about periods, with suggestions on how to answer them: How will I know when my periods are going to start?

The future is going to be messy. The future is going to include real bodies. How are we going to manage that? We can’t just all sit in a cubicle and sip Soylent all day, as much as some tech bro in Silicon Valley might want that. Nadya tells her period story, covers the essentials about menstruation, how it is portrayed in the media and the political environment. Some of those things may actually be true. The problem is—and this is not a new argument, I was just reading a paper from the 90s, by Antoinette Burton about this—that the project of imperial feminism, of white women going in and imposing their ideas on others, is one that’s been around for over 100 years, if not far more. It deserves being interrogated, because all people can speak for themselves. And when adult women from one culture decide that they know what’s best for the adult women or people of another culture, that’s concerning. They’re not even right all the time. That’s why I’m curious when I look at this book, and how we actually cared. We fought to come up with a vaccine to stop transmission of rubella to protect pregnant people and fetuses and children. Today, we don’t have that for COVID. Most pregnant people don’t even know that every time they go out unmasked or the people around them don’t bother masking, they are exposing themselves to the risk of stillbirth, miscarriage, preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction and microcephaly. Now we’re at the last book you recommended, which is Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America by Leslie Reagan. Tell me about this book.This right here is a beautiful collection of essays about menstruation. A lot of things you might not think of are covered here. Madame Gandhi talks about how she had to stop bleeding while running the London Marathon because she was so tired. Wiley Reading talks about what it's like to be a trans man with a period in his story. Emma Straub talks about how she didn't think about a painful time for a long time. Here are a few books on periods that I would recommend if you are looking to learn more than the basics you learned 10 (or more) years ago at school. Or if you are ready to educate some other young ladies about periods. I will certainly be sharing what I’ve learned with my daughter. My hope is that the more you understand about how hormones and neurotransmitters affect our menstrual health, you’ll better understand your body and perhaps change your expectations about what you can and can’t do.” You Can Have a Better Period, 2022

Note: Wild Power doesn’t cover much about the science of the menstrual cycle and assumes a bit of prior knowledge. If you find yourself at school without a pad or tampon, ask a teacher or the school nurse for some. How long will my first period last? This book should be given to every woman who has menstruation in the whole world! She tells her own story of her first period, because the goal of this book is to make menstruation less painful. Nadya crushes it. She also wants to make sure that menstruation doesn't have a gender. Let's say people who menstruate, not women. There are only menstrual products, not "feminine hygiene products." This is a great book for young people who menstruate, but it's also great for young people who don't. "Period Power," which is written in an easy to read style and is full of interesting facts, is a book about the culture, history, and privilege that go along with this most basic of bodily functions. Chris Bobel is a professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. I’m a huge fan (as I am of everybody on this list!). Bobel has written many books about periods and has long had a really interesting scholarly approach to them. In this particular book, she does what she calls an invested critique of the menstrual hygiene management movement. In particular, the international movement where it’s mostly white Westerners, white women, going into other countries with their imperial feminist thoughts and saying, ‘We know what’s best for you. It’s more period products or more attention to sanitation conditions (or whatever).’ Actually, menstrual stigma is the exception, not the rule. All these practices that we’ve assumed were stigmatizing, like various types of menstrual seclusion practices, are actually more about ‘this is allowing us to concentrate our power’ or ‘this is giving us a break from domestic labor’ or ‘this is allowing us to go hang out with friends.’I’m a biological anthropologist, which means the foundation I’m coming from is human evolutionary biology. That is the lens through which we seek to understand people. Over the years, bioanth has really moved away from just straight up studying human evolution and questions like ‘Why did we evolve big brains?’ There’s definitely a whole line of paleoanthropology that does that. But there are now a significant number of us within bioanth whose research questions focus on trying to understand the wide range of human biological variation. Bleeding Thunder is filled with honest and moving stories, poetry and art from genderqueer menstruators, artists and writers. The Zine explores the nuanced and often misunderstood relationship between periods and the trans and non-binary communities. So Sharra Vostral has another book, Under Wraps. It’s another book I almost put on this list. It looks at menstrual technologies. Blood Magic and Chris Bobel’s work also cover the reusable rags and absorbent fabrics that people used to use. They’re not as absorbent as a disposable pad, but if you swap them out often enough, you can make do.

If your child is going through or approaching puberty, we have compiled a list of the best puberty books for girls to help you choose the right one. Puberty can be a challenging time for children and parents. With hormonal shifts and other changes, your daughter might have difficulty dealing with it. They are perplexed by the abrupt changes that puberty brings, whether physical, mental, or emotional.Angelica (Jelly for short) is the queen of comedy at school. She has a personality as big as she is, and everyone loves her impressions. But Jelly isn’t as confident as she pretends to be. No one knows her deepest thoughts and feelings. She keeps those hidden away in a secret notebook. You Can Have a Better Period is an amazing resource for any menstruator dealing with hormonal imbalance, gut issues, PMS, pain or heavy bleeding. Then her mom’s new boyfriend, Lennon, arrives. He’s kind and perceptive, and he is the first person to realize that Jelly is playing a part. Jelly shares her poetry with him and he convinces her to perform one of her poemsas a song at the school talent show. Can Jelly risk letting people see the real her? What if it all goes wrong? Sophie Hartley, age ten, does not want to be a teenager. She vows she’ll never be like her older sister, Nora, who has tantrums about her hair andalmost everything else.Her older brother Thad is preoccupied with his girlfriend of the moment and doesn’t seem to like the family anymore. No, Sophie likes being who she is right now, helping out at home, doing art projects, and hanging out with her two best friends.

Ultimately, I’d love to instil within you, my wise, merry readers, a sense of period pride, perspective and some flipping normalcy around menstruation. Because unless we change the way we talk about periods, this silence and shame is here to stay.” It’s about Bloody Time, 2019 Dr Estés describes menstruation as a highly spiritual time, where “…the veil between the conscious and unconscious mind thins…” Women Who Run With The Wolves, 1993. No, it can't. When you insert a tampon, it stays in your vagina. All tampons come with a string at one end that is designed to stay outside your body. You can remove the tampon at any time using this string. Every woman who has menstruation should read this book, because it will help them. If you want to be an activist for young people but don't want to make them feel bad, Nadya Okamoto has some advice. This book tries to end the silence that has been caused by people not talking about their periods. It also tries to start a conversation about periods. Nadya tells her own story to start, and then she dispels any fears about periods. She also makes it very clear that menstruation should not be based on gender. For young people from all over the world, this book is a must-read. It is easy to get to and has a lot of information about the culture, history, and systems that go with each time period. Women stop getting their periods, and we call it a pause. Why it’s not called menostop, I’ll never understand. Anyway, Flash Count Diary gets to the real raw truth of what it feels like to go through a change from menstruator to no-longer-menstruator. You want to know what a hot flash feels like? Steinke will offer every single uncomfortable moment and all the awkwardness that goes along with it. Want to learn about menstrual cycles of killer whales? Steinke’s got the facts. With references to art, literature, and history, Steinke’s account shows how menopause activism is just as necessary as period activism.But none of them can believe Margaret doesn’t have religion, and that she isn’t going to the Y or the Jewish Community Center. What they don’t know is Margaret has her own very special relationship with God. She can talk to God about everything—family, friends, even Moose Freed, her secret crush. I had to actively go out and learn what my body was up to by reading books on periods and listening to podcasts. I don’t think I properly learned about my period until I was 28 and trying for a baby. Before that time my period was just an interruption and bloody annoying. Knowing and understanding your period can be a window into your health and your mind. You just need to get to know it. Not only that but us girls need to go about breaking this taboo, these books will inspire you to do just that. Women who run with the wolves is a beautifully written and powerful book about female sexuality, creativity, spirituality and empowerment. Author Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés is an amazing storyteller, poet, psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist.