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The Bleeding Obvious: Menstrual Ideologies and Technologies in Australia,

1940-1970

Carla Pascoe1

Menstruation is an impolite topic: often avoided in both everyday conversation and academic

journals. This article expands the limited historiography on the subject by investigating a pivotal

moment in the Australian history of menstruation: 1940-1970. By exploring sex education texts and

menstrual product advertisements alongside oral history accounts, the paper reveals that the middle

decades of the twentieth century were a time when the ideologies and technologies of menstruation

were transformed. Australian girls were encouraged to reject older messages about incapacity at

‘that time of the month’ and embrace a full range of activities, armed with the much-lauded

protection offered by disposable, commercially-produced pads and tampons. This article engages in

transnational debates about this modernisation of menstruation, asking: have Australian women and

girls been liberated by these changes to participate more fully in the public sphere, or have they

become enslaved to a more rigorous set of hygienic expectations?

Introduction

A foreign visitor to Antipodean shores might be confused to overhear the vernacular Australian

expression ‘bleeding obvious’ or its close linguistic relative ‘bloody obvious’. What could these

colloquial phrases possibly mean? Australians use ‘bleeding obvious’ to refer to something that is

completely self-evident; so much so that it requires no explanation. Employed here to refer to the

history of menstruation in Australia, the phrase takes on multiple connotations. On the one hand, it

is immediately obvious that Australian women and girls menstruate; therefore there must be a story

to uncover about how they have viewed and managed their menstruation in the past. Yet the history

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of ‘bleeding’ in Australia is suspiciously absent from library shelves. How can we understand this

resounding silence about something so ‘bleeding obvious’?

This article seeks to remedy this omission and simultaneously to explain it, by charting aspects of the

Australian history of menstruation during the mid-twentieth century. A range of ideologies and

technologies are analysed in order to consider how menstruation affected both the minds and

bodies of Australian girls. Using sex education texts, menstrual product advertisements and oral

histories of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, I will explore the ways in which menstruation was managed

by and explained to Australian girls in this era.

Explaining the Curse: the Limited Historiography of Menstruation

Although a regular, insistent presence in the lives of post-menarcheal and pre-menopausal females,

menstruation is a topic rarely spoken about and even more rarely studied. Despite the growth in

studies of women’s history accompanying second wave feminism in the 1970s, proportionately few

historical studies of menstruation have been written.2 Those scholarly accounts that do exist have

uncovered largely negative views of menstruation across time. Historians studying the pre-industrial

western world, for example, have documented pejorative understandings across different cultures

and time periods.3 From the nineteenth century, western medical discourses constructed

menstruation as pathological; akin to a cyclical illness that enfeebled the female body.4

Whilst the menstruating woman was widely viewed as sickly and disabled in the nineteenth century,

during the twentieth century an alternative discourse slowly emerged which insisted that western

women should be active, hygienic and glamorous whilst menstruating. This changing view of the

impact of menstruation upon women was mirrored and facilitated by changing practices for dealing

with menstruation. Commercially-produced ‘sanitary products’ and ‘feminine hygiene products’

developed initially from medical strategies to deal with post-surgical bleeding. They were gradually

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adopted across the twentieth century as they became more affordable and more socially acceptable

to advertise.5 These trends have been documented in the United States,6 the United Kingdom,7

Canada8 and New Zealand.9 Broadly similar shifts could be expected in the Australian context, but

specific analysis of when changes in technologies and ideologies occurred has not yet been

conducted.

The ways in which women have thought and felt about their bleeding bodies, and the techniques

they have employed whilst bleeding, have undergone complicated shifts over time, requiring careful

attention to tease out. Why then has this complex topic received such limited attention from

historians? Some scholars argue that taboos constraining discussion of menstruation in daily

conversation have likewise inhibited scholarly analysis.10 A cultural reluctance to speak explicitly

about menstruation also circumscribes the range of historical sources that are available.

Menstruation has left few traces upon the past. Even the private spaces of diaries and letters rarely

mention the ‘m-word’ and it is near impossible to uncover how non-literate women felt about their

menstrual cycles. One approach to this dearth of written primary sources is to conduct oral history

interviews in order to study menstruation within the remembered past. For example, Suellen

Murray, the only other historian to examine the Australian history of menstruation, contrasted

women’s oral histories with expert medical discourses.11 Murray examined the period 1900 to 1960

and studied understandings of menstruation at menarche, during a woman’s reproductive years and

at menopause. Although she makes mention of other sources, her main interest is the disparity

between women’s remembered experiences of menstruation and the medical conceptualisations of

health professionals. Whilst I have discussed oral histories of menstruation more fully elsewhere,12

the approach which I adopt here is to focus upon two strands of popular culture: sex education

books read by Australian girls and the products used to manage menstruation, as reconstructed

through advertisements and patents. I have chosen to focus primarily on girls, rather than across the

female life cycle, as they were the intended audience of sex education books. Yet although Murray

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and I focus upon different time periods and primary sources, we both conclude that the overarching

message conveyed to Australian females was that menstruation should remain a carefully-hidden

secret.

From Rags to Riches: The Modernisation of Menstruation

Through examination of texts and objects, I argue that the post-Second World War years marked a

turning point in the way Australian girls experienced and thought about menstruation. The

widespread adoption of disposable menstrual products and the rejection of views of menstrual

incapacity were mutually supportive shifts in the tangible and intangible cultures of menstruation,

transforming the ways in which Australian girls related to their cyclical, bleeding bodies. Broadly

speaking, these changes could be read as indicative of the impact of modernity upon female bodies,

as traditional menstrual practices and beliefs were overturned by new principles of rationality,

hygiene and consumerism.

For some historians, this ‘modernisation’ of menstruation across the western world supported

feminist aims. Fred Schroeder argued in 1976 that increasingly efficacious menstrual products had

underpinned rising numbers of women entering the public spheres of work and higher education.13

More recently, Lara Freidenfelds has studied the ways in which the values of Progressivism came to

shape a ‘modern’ way of menstruating in the United States during the first half of the twentieth

century. Ideas originating in the white, urban, educated middle class began to permeate the rest of

society, such as a belief in efficiency, scientific rationality, technological progress and careful self-

presentation/control of the body. Friedenfelds rejects the assertions of some feminist scholars that

modern menstrual management has insidious aspects, insisting that the women and men she

interviewed wholeheartedly supported these changes in education, health and technology and

cooperated with ‘experts’ to transform the ways that the modern period was experienced.14

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Other historians have questioned the impact of these twentieth-century shifts around menstruation.

For Barbara Brookes and Margaret Tennant, the price of young New Zealand women embracing a

modern way to menstruate was to sever links with their mothers’ more ambivalent experiences in

order to pursue the elusive, advertised ideal of an ‘active, odourless, blood-free’ female body.15 For

Julie-Marie Strange, the English movement to reject older discourses of menstrual incapacity still

tied girls to traditional definitions of femininity and emphasised the need to maintain absolute

discretion.16 Joan Jacobs Brumberg noted that whilst mid-twentieth-century American teenagers

may have been freed from medical messages of menstrual disability, they were now exposed to

highly seductive marketing from the sanitary products industry, which promised that purchase of

modern menstrual products would free girls from anxiety and limited lifestyles.17 For some

historians, increasingly efficient menstrual products have enslaved women to ever more demanding

expectations of utterly covert monthly cycles. Sharra L. Vostral argues that changes in menstrual

products over the twentieth century have been used as ‘technologies of passing’; enabling American

women and girls to masquerade as non-menstruants and hence avoid the negative associations

which still plague this uniquely female function.18

The meaning and consequences of the modernisation of menstruation during the twentieth century

are contested. Have changing ways of managing and thinking about menstruation freed women to

engage more fully in the public sphere, unencumbered by their monthly flows? Or have these shifts

resulted in an abnegation of menstruation, with girls alienated from the messy, inconvenient,

corporeal reality of bleeding? This article will engage in these transnational historiographical debates

by considering available evidence of the Australian experience.

A Periodic Illness: Menstruation in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries

Menstruation is a normal part of every girl’s life and development, and under no circumstances

should it be regarded as a matter of shame or as a sickness. Before medical science brought to us

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clear knowledge about menstruation and what lay behind it all, many superstitions and fears were

associated with the ‘periods’.19

To understand the vehemence of this 1960s assertion, one must travel back in time to read the sex

education messages of an earlier era. Late-nineteenth century and early-twentieth century books

dealing with human physiology and reproduction were in furious agreement that menstruation

incapacitated the female sex. One late-nineteenth century author saw this as divinely sanctioned:

More or less pain, more or less prostration and general disturbances at these epochs, are universal

and inevitable. They are part of the sentence which at the outset He pronounced upon woman, when

He said unto her, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.’20

The corollary to this consensus that menstruation weakened the female body was that a range of

activities were considered inappropriate at ‘that time of the month’. These included: running,

dancing, bicycle riding, using a sewing machine and novel-reading. Instead, it was asserted that girls

going through menstruation should be encouraged to eat healthy food, get plenty of fresh air, wear

loose clothing, engage in ‘light household duties’ and ensure ample rest.21

Even into the 1930s, the view that girls were partially incapacitated by menstruation persisted.

Whilst assuring its young female readers that menstruation was not an illness, Kotex nevertheless

told girls that nervous strain must be avoided (such as strenuous games or serious study) or physical

health would suffer:

Scientific tests have shown that there is less muscular strength, less steadiness – and even less mental

efficiency. So you must not try to be as active, or do as much work during these few days as you can

perform during the rest of the month. You will have to strain your nerves and your body to do so,

whether you realise it or not; and that is not good for you.22

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We can hypothesise that part of the reason that menstruation was assumed to limit the activities of

women and girls were the cumbersome methods that were available to staunch the menstrual flow

at this time. The slow transition from home-made to mass-produced menstrual products is largely

hidden from history, but seems to have begun in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century.23 Most

Victorian women improvised with scraps of absorbent fabric to staunch their blood flow.24 In an era

in which underwear was only gradually coming into fashion,25 many women wore undergarments

solely during their monthly period, when they might wear a kind of nappy made of absorbent fabric

like birdseye, flannel, cotton or linen, which would be soaked then washed after use. Other women

preferred to construct napkins similar to later disposable varieties, which were pinned to clothes or

belts. Very little historical evidence survives of the menstrual pads which women once made

themselves, as these were objects which were made from rags and worn until they disintegrated.26

Early commercial attempts to manufacture products to manage menstruation appeared in the late-

nineteenth century and were sometimes discussed by doctors in medical journals.27 Manufactured

menstrual products failed to find a steady market amongst women and girls at this time, probably

because social conventions made them difficult to advertise and because products were expensive

relative to contemporaneous prices.28 We may hypothesise that the undoubtedly male product

designers had not quite perfected their technology either – some of these objects appear decidedly

strange to twenty-first-century eyes, having disappeared from use. Figure 1 depicts two products

that were available in Melbourne in 1882. The ‘“Hygena” Sanitary Towel and Waistband’ was a

washable precursor to the disposable pad, whilst the ‘“Hygena” Menstrual or Period Protector for

Ladies’ Use’ was a rubber device filled with disposable cotton-wool or wadding.29

The development of the first widely successful disposable pad, Kotex, was facilitated by the

development of cellucotton, a new material used in place of surgical cotton during WWI.30 By the

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late 1920s, several products had entered the Australian market, including Menex Hygienic Towels

and Kleinert’s Sanitary Lingerie. Menex was a brand of disposable menstrual pad that was

manufactured in Britain and marketed as soluble for easy disposal.31 Kleinert’s was a type of

underwear with a ‘voile top and pure rubber leg’ to protect outer clothes from stains (Figure 2).32

Early advertisements depicted wealthy, sophisticated women, and given their price it is likely that

predominantly middle- and upper-class women purchased sanitary napkins in the 1920s. Women

working outside the home and attending university were also part of the first mass-market for

commercial menstrual products after WWI.33 Although these new technologies for managing

menstruation may have facilitated women engaging in paid work,34 the Kotex booklet quoted above

suggests that even in the 1930s there were those who doubted the productivity of women and girls

whilst menstruating.35

Lifting the Curse: Shifts in Menstrual Understandings from the 1940s

But opinions as to the impact of menstruation upon female bodies and minds began to moderate in

the second half of the twentieth century, particularly after WWII. This timing was perhaps no

accident. World War Two provided many Australian women with the chance to participate more

fully in public life. They enthusiastically joined the auxiliary organisations created by the government

and established a new level of female participation in the workforce that persisted after the war

ended.36 For some women, their army service converted them to the modern convenience of

disposable napkins and permanently changed the way that they dealt with menstruation.37 During

WWII, Australian female army and Red Cross personnel were issued with disposable menstrual

products by the Department of Defence (with that quintessentially masculine branch of the

bureaucracy forced to devote many internal memos to the precise number of pads women would

require per calendar or lunar month).38 For other women who had previously used disposable

products, the war may have forced them to return to re-usable pads, as suggested by a Johnson &

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Johnson advertisement which apologised to customers unable to procure sanitary napkins due to

wartime shortages.39 Although the 1950s and early 1960s witnessed a renewed cultural emphasis

upon the traditional female roles of wife, mother and homemaker, nevertheless the female

workforce expanded more quickly than the male, with married women increasingly employed in

paid work.40

Alongside these social changes, a range of mid-century sex education texts sought to convince

Australian girls that menstruation need not drastically impede their lifestyles. The 1940s saw the

emergence of a new conviction that women could embrace roles in the public sphere despite their

menstrual cycles. This no-nonsense view was especially evident amongst the medical profession and

many sex education texts from this period consciously attacked earlier theories about the disabling

effects of menstruation. But despite strident assertions that menstruation was normal and healthy,

these texts were reluctant to reject all of the older cautionary advice.

Florence Grylls (1888-1962) was a nurse who served in WWI, founded the Victorian Branch of the

Save the Children Fund and worked in social welfare, particularly with children, throughout her

career.41 In 1941 she published Life and Growth: Hygiene for Girls, a Practical Answer to Many

Questions Asked by Girls about Sex Development and Hygiene of Menstruation. As the title suggests,

this text approached menstruation chiefly from a perspective of practical hygiene management.

Despite warning girls that symptoms of menstruation can include headaches, constipation, pain or

emotional instability, Grylls was adamant that ‘menstruation is a natural process, and not in any

sense an illness; ailments are frequently due to faulty health habits of living and thinking’. Grylls

therefore spent the rest of her text advising lifestyle habits such as rest, drinking water, ‘regular

evacuation’, cleanliness, wearing breathable clothing, adopting good posture, reducing eye strain,

consuming healthy meals, exercise, ‘desirable and helpful’ habits, regular medical examination, and

keeping one’s feet warm and dry.42

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Another member of the Australian medical profession, Dr Norman Haire (1892—1952), took a

similarly pragmatic tone to Grylls’. Haire was a gynaecologist and sex reformer whose books and

articles on sex education were considered controversial yet widely read. Under the pseudonym

Wykeham Terriss, he published Sex Talks in Sydney in 1946. Like Grylls, Haire was at pains to

emphasise that menstruation is not an illness. He explained that ‘the duration and amount of

[menstrual] flow… vary’ so that it was only in cases of extreme variation that the family doctor

should be consulted. This advice explicitly contradicted older publications which implied that

menstrual discharges were very consistent across the female population and that any deviation from

the norm was a reason to seek medical advice. Haire stated that ‘the monthly cycle of changes in the

female is not to be regarded as an illness, but as a healthy, normal manifestation’, bemoaning the

fact that ‘the words in common use convey exactly the opposite impression’. With a derision

common for his rational, scientific era, Haire related that ‘all sort of old-fashioned ideas exist about

the peculiar dangers of exertion, bathing, and so on at such times’, but that these are ‘nonsense’.

Yet despite seeming to overturn older notions about the necessity for women and girls to drastically

curtain normal activities during menstruation, Haire still retained a modicum of caution: he advised

that bathing should be done only in water of a moderate temperature and he viewed exercise as

beneficial only in moderation.43

In these mid-twentieth century texts a new frankness can be discerned, drawing upon medical

language to communicate greater detail about sex education. For example, M.A. Horn’s The Digest

of Hygiene for Mother and Daughter (29th edition published 1947) provided physiological

terminology and an accurate drawing of the female reproductive organs.44 Horn attempted to

employ a relatively recent scientific discovery – the role of sex hormones – to explain culturally

observed phenomena, such as the ‘nervous irritation’ that often precedes menstruation and the

‘peculiar odour which emanates from the mouths of many women during menstruation’.45 This

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progressive book was unusually candid for its time, including several topics completely ignored in

contemporaneous texts, such as pubic hair, the clitoris and its role in sexual excitement, the penis

and its insertion into the vagina during intercourse, and the fact that not all virgins have an intact

hymen.46

Horn explained menstruation in scientific terms, before employing a metaphor of domestic duties

assumed to be relevant to the daily lives of girls in the 1940s:

Menstruation is a similar process to that of a tree shedding its leaves. Everything is prepared by

nature for impregnation of the ovum and when such impregnation does not take place, she cleans

house, getting rid of all the material and starting anew at the next period of ovulation.

Horn went on to explain that ‘practically every warm-blooded animal’ menstruates and then

outlined variation in menstrual cycles, imparting a sense that there was nothing unusual about the

function and no one normative way to menstruate. Most strikingly, no prescriptive lifestyle advice

was offered to the menstruating woman.47

Other sex education books were being published in the post-war years that took a very different

approach; shying away from details of sexual reproduction. In the 1950s, Adult Educational

Publications released a highly moralising text, A Treatise on You and Your Sex Life: An Illustrated

Guide Book for Women. Possibly a desire to coax Australian females back to their private sphere

occupations as wives and mothers motivated this book’s message that human physiology underpins

traditional gender roles. The title of both book and publisher imply that adult women were the

intended audience, rather than girls. Nevertheless, the text took a paternalistic tone in assuring the

reader that:

You are a creature dominated by your sex. To a far greater extent than the male, the female’s whole

life is wrapped up in her vital role as a wife and a mother. And if you would achieve complete

happiness on this earth, make sure that you fulfil these all-important functions. To do otherwise can

only lead to bitterness and frustration in later life.

12

Pictures of the ‘typical female’ and the ‘typical male’ (with genitalia censored despite this being a sex

education text) catalogued a range of characteristics which putatively demonstrated that ‘every

typical feminine characteristic exists to fulfil the female role in nature’ (Figure 3). A relatively

scientific description of the menstrual cycle, including the action of hormones, was entitled ‘How

Your Body is Prepared for Motherhood’ rather than using a less valenced title such as

‘menstruation’. 48

Mid-twentieth-century sex education books maintained a strong sense of what sociologist Sophie

Laws terms ‘menstrual etiquette’: an unspoken understanding that women will do everything in

their power to avoid drawing attention to their menstruation.49 For members of the medical

profession like Grylls and Haire, this was justified with reference to hygiene. Grylls went into great

practical detail regarding the ‘hygiene of menstruation’, detailing the use of both re-usable and

disposable pads. She advised that pads should be changed at least five times per day, particularly

before meals and ‘before entering a room where others are gathered’. Several of Grylls’

recommendations implied that menstruation was dirty and/or shameful. For example, she warns

‘the heat of the body may make them [menstrual pads] given off an odour, unpleasant to others,

though not noticeable to the wearer’. In addition, ‘sanitary articles’ should be washed in the ‘wash

house’ (usually outside) rather than the bathroom, and paper bags or pieces of newspaper should be

used to disguise the disposal of a ‘soiled article’.50 Haire similarly maintained a stringent emphasis on

hygiene, spending two pages justifying and detailing the practice of daily douching for women.

The menstrual products industry was also producing educational booklets for girls in the post-WWII

era.51 In 1947 Australian Cellucotton Products (the manufacturers of Kotex pads) published As One

Girl to Another. This booklet contained similar themes to the contemporaneous texts described

above, but its emphasis upon the maintenance of menstrual etiquette was more insistent.

Unsurprisingly, the use of Kotex pads was depicted as the surest way to avoid any embarrassment or

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discomfort whilst menstruating. The company assured girls that they need not worry because,

‘Actually, menstruation is such a completely natural function it causes most girls no trouble at all!

There’s no denying it’s a bit of a nuisance at times… but nothing like what it used to be, before Kotex

was invented!’52

Like the medical authors of the time, Australian Cellucotton Products was adamant that variation in

menstrual experiences was common, and that generally ‘menstruation brings no discomfort of any

kind’. The 1947 booklet encouraged girls to keep track of when they menstruate on a calendar

(provided at the back of the book) so that they knew whether they could plan strenuous sport and

would not ‘get caught unprepared’. Contradictory messages were communicated about menstrual

incapacity, for whilst girls should not ‘sit at home and mope’, there was a range of proscribed

activities that should not be attempted, including skipping, horse-riding, hiking, strenuous sports or

diving into cold water.

In line with its commercial imperatives, Australian Cellucotton Products presented menstruation in

rational, hygienic terms and insisted that modern sanitary protection had freed women from the

disabling aspects of menstruation. But despite this emphasis on treating menstruation as a normal

part of a girl’s everyday life, menstruation was simultaneously depicted as requiring secrecy,

obsessive cleanliness and restricted behaviour. Girls were told that Kotex was designed to ‘never

make tell-tale outlines… never give your secret away’. To best keep menstruation secret and ‘make

sure you don’t offend’, girls were encouraged to be vigilant about ‘personal daintiness’. Bathing

often, changing pads regularly and sprinkling Kotex deodorant powder on pads was the best way to

ensure that ‘not even your worst enemy can make catty remarks about you’. The pamphlet ended

with a mysterious, unexplained warning that tampons are not appropriate internal protection for

younger girls, and besides, most girls ‘find Kotex sanitary napkins perfectly suited to their needs’ and

‘have no reason to try anything else’. 53

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Booklets produced by the sanitary products industry at this time sought to achieve a fine balancing

act in convincing their young readership that without their products, menstruation would be

incapacitating, but that thankfully modern women could be freed from the disabling aspects of

menstruation by purchasing the correct sanitary protection.54 Despite their differing emphases, sex

education booklets produced in the 1940s and 1950s had a similar message. Rational language was

used to assure the reader that, by contrast with earlier texts, menstruation was not an illness that

required careful monitoring. Yet remnants of previous fears lingered in warnings against cold water,

or vague cautions not to pursue activities too vigorously. Hygienic imperatives were strongly

emphasised, particularly by the sanitary products industry, which used the reputed cleanliness of

their products as a selling point.

From ‘On the Rags’ to ‘Riding the Cotton Pony’: The Transformation of Menstrual Management55

It is difficult to precisely measure the gradual transition in usage patterns from home-made, re-

usable products to disposable, commercial products, but the weight of historical evidence suggests

that these mid-century years constituted a turning point. Given the limited documentary sources

available on the experiences of Australian girls during this time, the historian is forced to piece

together a jigsaw based upon information from oral history interviews and contemporaneous

sources from culturally comparable countries. In one 1948 New Zealand survey, less than a quarter

of high school girls purchased disposable pads whilst nearly three-quarters used home-made pads

(seven per cent used both).56 A 1949 English survey of school girls found that poorer girls still relied

upon re-useable pads. Commercially-produced pads were gaining in popularity but their use was

limited by a lack of disposal facilities in schools.57

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Oral history interviews tell a similar story of these mid-century years constituting a turning point in

the use of menstrual technologies. Jean grew up in Rockhampton and began menstruating in the late

1930s, using handmade belts and pads at night but purchasing disposable pads for school.58 Linda

reached menarche in 1943 and was introduced to re-usable menstrual pads made from bulky

towelling, recalling that wartime austerity limited the availability of commercially-produced products

in Melbourne. She switched to disposable pads in the early 1950s when she entered university.59 By

the late 1940s when Ella started menstruating, the manufacture of disposable pads had recovered

from wartime restrictions and she was taught to purchase manufactured pads to manage her

periods.60

Whilst the increasing number of product advertisements implies that many Australian girls and

women were using mass-produced, disposable menstrual technologies by the mid-twentieth

century, a sizeable minority still relied upon domestic technologies to manage menstruation. Former

Powerhouse Museum curator Megan Hicks suggests that ‘as recently as the 1960s, thriftiness and

perhaps concern about hygiene meant that many chose to continue using home-made washable

napkins rather than spend their housekeeping money on a disposable product’.61 The Powerhouse

Museum collection contains a pad fabricated from old towelling material sometime between 1940

and 1960 (Figure 4). Such pads were used by the donor from 1922 until 1960. She learnt the method

of construction from her mother and taught it to her daughter. Her daughter began menstruating in

1958, when commercial pads were readily available, but bowed to her mother’s insistence that she

make her own, her only concession to changing times being the purchase of a commercially-

manufactured sanitary belt.62

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However, usage of menstrual products was beginning to shift. From the 1960s, more and more

women and girls were using mass-produced menstrual devices such as pads (attached to a belt) or

tampons. Other menstrual technologies also existed: Australian-produced Vincent’s Sani-Panties

were a form of waterproof underwear advertised at this time.63 Oral history interviews conducted

with Australian women who entered puberty in the 1960s found that the majority of these girls were

introduced to disposable pads when their ‘periods’ began. Sarah’s menstrual cycles commenced in

1964 and she was introduced to commercially-produced pads and belts by her eldest sister. She was

not aware of any other girls at her Ballarat boarding school using handmade pads.64 Sophia also grew

up in rural Victoria and remembers using disposable pads attached to belts when she reached

menarche in 1967.65 Both switched to tampons in their late teens, but recall that a stigma was still

attached to the use of ‘internal protection’ at that time.

‘Bright and Shining Every Day of the Month’: Sex Education in the 1960s66

Meanwhile, sex education booklets published in the 1960s continued – like texts from the 1940s and

1950 – to attack the pathologisation of menstruation. But now there was a stronger emphasis on

consumerism and the normalcy of menstruation. Not only was menstruation not an illness, but for

females to act in any way differently whilst menstruating was depicted as self-indulgent. Some

authors – such as the Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia – were adamant that attitudes

of shame surrounding menstruation could be eradicated if parents properly educated their

daughters. The Father and Son Welfare Movement (which became the Family Life Movement and

later Interrelate) published sex education books underpinned by a Christian moral framework. The

Movement (not to be confused with B. A. Santamaria's right-wing Catholic lobbying group) began in

1926 in New South Wales and expanded into other states in the 1950s.67 Between 1954 and 1956

the Movement published a series of nine sex education books. These books and subsequent editions

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were widely circulated, providing the primary sex education of many young Australians in the post-

war decades.68

By the 1960s these books had gone through several editions, presenting sex education in scientific

language with moral undertones. In Tell Your Child the Truth, the author stressed that failing to warn

girls about menstruation resulted in ‘deep and lasting fears’ and negative associations.69 Stated

explicitly was the imperative that underpinned menstrual discourses for the rest of the twentieth

century:

A girl should be encouraged to regard her monthly cycle as a perfectly normal function. It is not

something of which to be ashamed, but a characteristic of growing up to be accepted. Menstruation

is not a ‘woman’s curse’ but a ‘badge of womanhood.’ It will be extremely difficult for a girl to develop

a healthy attitude to menstruation if its approach has been accompanied by secrecy, furtiveness and

shame.

This assertion of the normality of menstruation is the polar opposite of the message conveyed by

late nineteenth century menstrual discourses. In this mid-twentieth century text, the concept that

menstruation is a sickness was strongly rejected, with the advice that ‘a girl should be advised to go

to bed or forgo her normal routine only if severe pain or other unusual symptoms are present’.70

Similarly, the Movement’s The Guide through Girlhood (seventh edition, 1961) attempted to

overcome the anxiety-provoking negativity of earlier menstrual discourses, by assuring girls that ‘it is

very important not to worry about this as it is quite normal and happens to all other girls like

yourself’. Intended for an audience of girls aged 8-11 years, menstruation was described very simply

as ‘certain fluid, stained with blood… discharged from her body through the front passage’. A

hygienic emphasis was discernible in statements such as ‘Keeping yourself fresh and clean is doubly

important during the days of your “periods”’ and ‘Mother will have a talk with you and will tell you

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how by using clean pads or special cloths you can prevent this fluid from staining and soiling your

clothes’.71

The Guide to Womanhood was published by the Movement in 1961 for girls of 15 years and older.

Unlike The Guide Through Girlhood, this text contained diagrams of female and male reproductive

organs, and a biological description of physiological changes accompanying puberty. Much of this

booklet was devoted to practical, rather than scientific, menstrual information. The writer advised

that sanitary napkins should be changed frequently to ‘avoid any unpleasant odours which come

from “stale napkins”’. Tampons or ‘internal pads’ were referred to as appropriate for older

adolescents or women without any explanation of why younger girls should not use them. Personal

cleanliness was highlighted with the hint that some ‘young women find that the use of a deodorant

powder gives them a little added assurance of maintaining their freshness at this time’.72

Like the other publications released by the Movement, The Guide through Womanhood argued that

menstruation should not be referred to as ‘the curse’ and that attitudes of ‘shame and secrecy’ were

the result of mothers failing to discuss menstruation with their daughters. Whilst oral histories

reveal that silences and furtive behaviour were still common at this time, written sources from the

mid-twentieth century vehemently asserted that modern medicine had revealed menstruation to be

a normal bodily function that should not be seen as incapacitating women.73 These texts stridently

rejected the kinds of traditional knowledge communicated between generations of women as ‘old

wives’ tales’ or ‘superstitions’. Girls were invited to dismiss the negative menstrual messages of their

mothers and embrace a modern way of thinking about and managing menstruation.74

Whilst social movements were publishing sex education booklets in the 1960s, manufacturers of

sanitary products were continuing to generate pamphlets underpinned by their commercial

imperative to attract new consumers. As Brumberg has documented in an American context, by the

19

mid-twentieth century the cultural meaning of puberty had shifted into the realm of consumerism.75

Lesley Johnson has traced the ways that the Australian teenage girl of the 1950s and 1960s was

initiated into a set of trainings in how to mould her external appearance to fit the dominant

feminine ideal, continually conscious of the male gaze.76 Girls were reassured that their changing

bodies and burgeoning femininity could be controlled and enhanced through the purchase of

modern products, including make-up, high heels, bras and menstrual pads. Johnson & Johnson

enthused in the booklet Growing Up that adolescence is ‘the time in your life when you first know

the thrill of buying your own clothes, wear make-up and nail polish for the first time, going [sic] to

parties and dances and have your very first “date.”’ A number of beauty tips were included

concerning diet, posture, exercise, make-up, cleanliness and sleep, urging girls to look ‘bright and

shining every day of the month’.77

As in other sex education texts, the maternal role of females was emphasised by Johnson & Johnson.

The reader was told that ‘one of the main purposes in the life of every human being… is to create,

produce and bring up and educate the next generation’. Menstruation was simply preparation for

the ‘role of motherhood’ and ‘there’s no need to be excited or upset’. In fact, girls were explicitly

warned against expecting any special treatment whilst menstruating:

You can be attractive and charming about it – or you can fuss and fume and carry on, to the

irritation of all those with whom you come into contact. And they’ll have very little sympathy

for you, because - if they’re women and girls - they have it too!

A number of menstrual symptoms were listed, but dismissed with admonitions like ‘don’t brood

about it’ and ‘your woeful feelings are only temporary’. With modern, scientific disdain, the booklet

told girls to ‘laugh off those “old wives’ tales”!’

Similarly, The Guide to Womanhood dismissed ‘extravagant statements … about the harmful effects

of hair washing during the periods’, thereby rejecting the received wisdom of previous generations

20

of women. Mixed messages were conveyed by stressing that ‘a girl ought to continue her usual

routine during menstruation’ but ‘avoid over-strenuous activities at this time’ and restrain from

swimming in particularly cold water. But the author encouraged women not to make too much of

any ‘disagreeable features’:

A girl who finds herself getting downhearted, moody or cross during her menstrual periods, should

take careful stock of herself, so that she does not get into a regular habit of having menstrual

disturbances and getting out-of-sorts with herself, her relatives and companions.78

Here we see that by the mid-twentieth century, the discourse of menstrual disability was so

determinedly contested that the opposite message had emerged. This rising new discourse insisted

that girls should overcome any emotional or physical discomfort they might feel and continue as on

any non-menstruating day.

The central message underpinning Growing Up was that menstruation meant girls and women had

to be eternally vigilant about hiding the reality of their bleeding bodies. Girls were urged to keep

track of their periods on a calendar so that they were not caught unprepared, a tip we saw in earlier

commercial booklets. The last few pages were devoted to buying, using, and changing Modess

napkins for ‘so many of the bugaboos about menstruation can come from using the wrong kind of

protection’. Using Modess was imperative because ‘physical comfort and peace of mind… can make

the difference between the girl who is awkward and self-conscious, and the girl who goes right

ahead and has a swell time’.79

Conclusion: The Disappearance of the ‘Monthlies’?

This article has uncovered aspects of the neglected history of menstruation in Australia, by charting

the ways in which girls learnt about and dealt with their menstrual cycles during the 1940s, 1950s

and 1960s. I have argued that these mid-twentieth-century decades constituted a turning point in

the ideologies and technologies surrounding menstruation. Rejecting the message that female

21

bodies were regularly weakened by their menstrual cycles, sex education booklets assured girls that

they could carry on normal activities every day of the month. Meanwhile, advertisements for

menstrual products were adamant that the purchase of disposable pads and tampons would liberate

girls from having to moderate their behaviour whilst bleeding. These dual shifts meant that by the

1970s, a new generation of Australian girls was introduced to a different experience of menarche.

In the latter decades of the twentieth century, Australian girls were much more likely to be informed

about their menstrual cycles prior to menarche and to be given positive, empowering messages

about the impact of menstruation upon their daily life. Girls were encouraged to choose between a

wide assortment of disposable, mass-produced ‘feminine hygiene products’ depending upon their

volume of menses, choice of underwear, daily activities and aesthetic preferences.80 With the

introduction of the birth control pill in 1961, the ultimate ‘technology of passing’ was born. From the

1990s, more and more girls adopted the contraceptive pill in order to create predictable rhythms of

bleeding or to alleviate menstrual discomfort: most of them unaware that in doing so they had

ceased to have genuine menstrual cycles.81 Indeed, some hormonal contraceptives now market

themselves as removing the need for any bleeding whatsoever; a seductive promise to young girls

acutely sensitive to the social mortification associated with menstruation.82 The logical progression

of modernising menstruation was, firstly, to regularise and routinise bleeding and, ultimately, to

erase it completely.

From our vantage point in the twenty-first century, we can now appreciate that far from removing

the silence around menstruation, the new discourses and technologies that emerged in the mid-

twentieth century combined to produce a message that it was now easier than ever to hide the fact

of menstruation. Girls were assured that improvements in menstrual products meant that they need

not moderate their lifestyle or betray when they were menstruating. Menstruation in the late-

22

twentieth and early-twenty-first century remained a closely-guarded secret in the lives of Australian

girls despite being just as ‘bleeding obvious’ as ever.

Carla Pascoe

University of Melbourne

1 I wish to acknowledge Professor Joy Damousi of the University of Melbourne for her guidance during the

initial stages of this research. Thank you also to the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their constructive

feedback and to the copyright holders who gave permission for illustrations to be published.

2 These include Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton and Emily Toth, The Curse: A Cultural History of

Menstruation (New York : Dutton, 1976); Laura Fingerson, Girls in Power: Gender, Body, and Menstruation in

Adolescence (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2006); Sharon Golub, Lifting the Curse of

Menstruation: A Feminist Appraisal of the Influence of Menstruation on Women's Lives (New York: Harrington

Park Press, 1985); Sharon Golub, Periods: From Menarche to Menopause (Newbury Park: Sage Publications,

1992); Andrew Shail and Gillian Howie (eds), Menstruation: A Cultural History (Basingstoke, Hampshire:

Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove, The Wise Wound: Menstruation and

Everywoman (London : V. Gollancz, 1978); Paula Weideger, Menstruation & Menopause: The Physiology and

Psychology, the Myth & the Reality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), Paula Weideger, Female Cycles (London:

Women's Press, 1978).

3 See, for example: Patricia Crawford, ‘Attitudes to Menstruation in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past and

Present, 91 (1981): 47-73; Alexandra Lord, ‘“The Great Arcana of the Deity”: Menstruation and Menstrual

Disorders in Eighteenth-Century British Medical Thought’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 73, no. 1 (1999):

38-63; Etienne van de Walle, ‘Flowers and Fruits: Two Thousand Years of Menstrual Regulation’, Journal of

Interdisciplinary History, 28, no. 2 (1997): 183-204.

4 Historians of countries such as the United States, England and France have all documented broadly similar

menstrual discourses in the nineteenth century: Vern Bullough and Martha Voght, ‘Women, Menstruation,

and Nineteenth-Century Medicine’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 47 (1973): 66-83; Erna Olafson

Hellerstein, ‘Women, Social Order, and the City: Rules for French Ladies 1830-1870’ (PhD thesis, University of

California, 1980); Lawrence D. Longo, ‘The Rise and Fall of Battey's Operation: A Fashion in Surgery’, Bulletin of

23

the History of Medicine, 53, no. 2 (1979): 244-67; Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of

Reproduction (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987); Elaine Showalter and English Showalter, ‘Victorian Women and

Menstruation’, in Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age, ed. Martha Vicinus (Bloomington & London:

Indiana University Press, 1972), 38-44; Sally Shuttleworth, ‘Female Circulation: Medical Discourse and Popular

Advertising in the Mid-Victorian Era’, in Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science, ed. Mary Jacobus,

Evelyn Fox Keller and Sally Shuttleworth (New York & London: Routledge, 1990), 47-68; Mary Lynn Stewart, For

Health and Beauty: Physical Culture for Frenchwomen, 1880s-1930s (Baltimore & London: The John Hopkins

University Press, 2001); Julie-Marie Strange, ‘Menstrual Fictions: Languages of Medicine and Menstruation

c.1850-1930’, Women's History Review, 9, no. 3 (2000): 607-28; Patricia Vertinsky, ‘Exercise, Physical

Capability, and the Eternally Wounded Woman in Late Nineteenth Century North America’, Journal of Sport

History, 14, no. 1 (1987): 7-27.

5 Alia Al-Khalidi, 'Emergent Technologies in Menstrual Paraphernalia in Mid-Nineteenth Century Britain',

Journal of Design History, 14, no. 4 (2001): 257-73; Jane Farrell-Beck and Laura Klosterman Kidd, 'The Roles of

Health Professionals in the Development and Dissemination of Women's Sanitary Products, 1880-1940',

Journal of the History of Medicine, 51 (1996): 325-52; Laura Klosterman Kidd, 'Menstrual Technology in the

United States: 1854 to 1921' (PhD thesis, Iowa State University, 1994); Laura K. Kidd and Jane Farrell-Beck,

'Menstrual Products Patented in the United States', Dress, 24 (1997): 27-42; Sharra Louise Vostral,

‘Conspicuous Menstruation: The History of Menstruation and Menstrual Hygiene Products in America, 1870-

1960’ (PhD thesis, Washington University, 2000).

6 Joan Jacobs Brumberg, ‘“Something Happens to Girls”: Menarche and the Emergence of the Modern

American Hygienic Imperative’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 4, no.1 (1993): 99-127; Joan Jacobs

Brumbeg, The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (New York: Random House, 1997); Karen

Houppert, The Curse: Confronting the Last Taboo, Menstruation (New York: Farrar, Straus and Girous, 1999).

7 Julie-Marie Strange, ‘The Assault on Ignorance: Teaching Menstrual Etiquette in England, c. 1920s to 1960s’,

Social History of Medicine, 14, no. 2 (2001): 247-265.

8 Elizabeth Armeni, ‘Menstruation Goes Public: Aspects of Women’s Menstrual Experience in Montreal, 1920-

1975’ (MA thesis, McGill University, 1996).

24

9 Barbara Brookes and Margaret Tennant, ‘Making Girls Modern: Pakeha Women and Menstruation in New

Zealand, 1930-70’, Women’s History Review, 7, no.4 (1998): 565-81

10 See, for example, Crawford, ‘Attitudes to Menstruation’.

11 Suellen Murray, ‘A History of Menstruation, 1900-1960’ (PhD thesis, University of Western Australia, 1996);

Suellen Murray, ‘“Being Unwell”: Menstruation in Early Twentieth-Century Australia’, in Forging Identities:

Bodies, Gender and Feminist History, ed. Jane Long, Jan Gothard and Helen Brash (Nedlands: University of

Western Australia Press, 1997), 136-60; Suellen Murray, ‘“Keeping Their Secret Safe”: Menstrual Etiquette in

Australia, 1900-1960’, Hecate, 24, no.1 (1998): 62-80.

12 Carla Pascoe, ‘Silence and the History of Menstruation’, Oral History Association of Australia Journal, 29

(2007): 28-33.

13 Fred E.H. Schroeder, 'Feminine Hygiene, Fashion and the Emancipation of the American Woman', American

Studies, 17, no. 2 (1976):101-10.

14 Lara Freidenfelds, The Modern Period: Menstruation in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: John Hopkins

University Press, 2009).

15 Brookes and Tennant, ‘Making Girls Modern’.

16 Strange, ‘Assault on Ignorance’.

17 Brumberg, ‘”Something Happens to Girls”’.

18 Sharra L. Vostral, Under Wraps: A History of Menstrual Hygiene Technology (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,

2008).

19 Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia, The Guide to Womanhood, 2nd ed. (Sydney: Father and Son

Welfare Movement of Australia, 1961).

20 George H. Napheys, The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother (Philadelphia: David

McKay, 1896). This text was extremely popular in the United States. It went through multiple editions after

initial publication in 1869 and was consistently mentioned as a source of sex education in American surveys of

college women around the turn of the century: Brumberg, ‘“Something Happens to Girls”’, 111. Given that The

Physical Life of Woman is held in a number of Australian library collections, it is probable that the book was

equally popular amongst Australians.

25

21

F.C. Richards and Eulalia S. Richards, Ladies Handbook of Home Treatment (Melbourne: Signs Publishing Co.,

1905). The book went into numerous re-printings up until at least 1959. It was published by Signs, a Seventh

Day Adventist publishing company based in Warburton which still operates today.

22 Kotex Australia Ltd, Preparing for Womanhood (Sydney: R.T. Kelly Ltd, 1930-35). Most of the booklet is

available through the Museum of Menstruation website at: http://www.mum.org/PrepWoman1.htm

23 Al-Khalidi, ‘Emergent Technologies’; Kidd and Farrell-Beck, 'Menstrual Products', Kidd, 'Menstrual

Technology'.

24 Several scholars describe traditional, home-made menstrual devices in broad terms. See Brumberg, '

"Something Happens to Girls"', 112; Rosemary Hawthorne, 'From Rags to Riches', Journal of the Association of

Chartered Physiotherapists in Women's Health, 104 (2009): 34-47; Schroeder, 'Feminine Hygiene', 106-07;

Showalter and Showalter, 'Victorian Women', 41.

25 For further discussion of the history of underwear, refer to Alison Carter, Underwear: The Fashion History

(London: B.T. Batsford Ltd, 1992), Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the

Victorian Era to the Jazz Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

26 One example of a home-made menstrual pad from the mid-twentieth century is held in the Powerhouse

Museum collection and is discussed below.

27 See, for example: Australian Medical Journal, 15 August 1882, 348.

28 As a general yardstick, when Kotex was introduced in the US, each pad cost the equivalent of a loaf of bread:

Anne M. Spurgeon, 'Marketing the Unmentionable: Wallace Meyer and the Introduction of Kotex', The

Maryland Historian, 19, no.1 (1988): 17-30, 26.

29 Information taken from Steward Warren, The Wife’s Guide and Friend, 4

th ed. (Melbourne: J. Saunders & Co.,

1897), 86-89.

30 Carol I. Keeley, David E. Salamie, and Lisa Whipple, 'Kimberly-Clark Corporation', International Directory of

Company Histories, 43 (2002): 256-60, 256.

31 'Face the Day with Confidence', The Australian Woman's Mirror, 2 April 1929, 36.

32 'My Dear! --- of Course You Can Go!', The Australian Woman's Mirror, 14 May 1929, 31.

33 Brumberg, '"Something Happens to Girls"', 121.

34 Schroeder, ‘Feminine Hygiene’.

26

35

Late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century debates about whether menstruation rendered females unfit

for work or study were conspicuously silent on the topic of working-class women, who were clearly working in

factories, fields and domestic residences despite their monthly cycles.

36 Patricia Grimshaw, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath and Marian Quartly, Creating a Nation (Ringwood, Vic.:

McPhee Gribble, 1994), 256-62; Kay Saunders and Geoffrey Bolton, 'Girdled for War: Women's Mobilisations

in World War Two', in Gender Relations in Australia: Domination and Negotiation, ed. Kay Saunders and

Raymond Evans (Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), 376-95, 376-95.

37 Personal communication to the author by a woman who served in the Australian Army’s radar division

during the Second World War, 27 September 2004.

38 In the Department of Defence file concerning the matter, we see evidence that at least for working women,

such disposable sanitary napkins were considered a necessity. After many earnest minute papers and logistical

calculations between high-level male defence personnel the issue was finally approved, but then reports

returned suggesting that the packages be issued by the lunar, not calendar month, and that servicewomen

actually required 15, not 12, pads per month: National Archives of Australia (NAA): MP742/1, 220/4/427; NAA:

MP742/1, 220/4/85.

39 'Surgical Dressings in Wartime', The Australian Woman's Mirror, 20 July 1943, 17.

40 Grimshaw et al., Creating a Nation, 266-72. Married women accounted for 15.3 per cent of women in paid

employment in 1947; jumping to 38.3 per cent in 1961: Lesley Johnson, The Modern Girl: Girlhood and

Growing Up (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1993), 162-3.

41 The Age, 27 April 1962, 5.

42 Florence Grylls, Life and Growth: Hygiene for Girls (Melbourne: Southland Press, 1941).

43 Wykeham Terriss, Sex Talks (Sydney: Vanguard Publications, 1946).

44 Such a level of accurate detail was rare for its time. By contrast, Erchull et al criticise sex education texts

published by the sanitary products industry for using colloquial terminology and providing inaccurate drawings

which are not to scale: Mindy J. Erchull, Joan C. Chrisler, Jennifer A. Gorman and Ingrid Johnston-Robledo,

‘Education and Advertising: A Content Analysis of Commercially Produced Booklets About Menstruation’,

Journal of Early Adolescence, 22, no. 4 (2002): 455-74, 466-67.

27

45

The functioning of the menstrual cycle was not properly understood until the 1920s and 1930s with the

discovery of sex hormones: Nelly Oudshoorn, Beyond the Natural Body: An Archaeology of Sex Hormones

(London & New York: Routledge, 1994).

46 M.A. Horn, The Digest of Hygiene for Mother and Daughter, 29th ed. (Sydney: Hallmark Publications, 1947).

47 Horn, 'Digest of Hygiene', 18-29.

48 Editorial Staff, A Treatise on You and Your Sex Life: An Illustrated Guide Book for Women (Sydney: Adult

Educational Publications, 195-?).

49 Sophie Laws, ‘Male Power and the Menstrual Etiquette’, in The Sexual Politics of Reproduction, ed. Hilary

Homans (Aldershot, Hants: Gower, 1985); Sophie Laws, Issues of Blood: The Politics of Menstruation (London:

Macmillan, 1990).

50 One oral history participant who grew up in Victoria in the 1960s and 1970s vividly recalls her mother’s stern

admonition to ensure pads were wrapped sufficiently to disguise them in the bin – but to avoid too many

layers of newspapers which would look suspicious. Interview with Maria by the author on 7 October 2005.

(Pseudonyms have been used for all interviewees and all interviews are in the possession of the author.)

51 This started at least as early as 1930 with the publication of Kotex Australia Ltd, Preparing for Womanhood

(Sydney: RT Kelly Ltd, 1930-35).

52 Australian Cellucotton Products, As One Girl to Another (Sydney: Peerless Press, 1947).

53 Ibid., 1-19.

54 In a detailed analysis of 28 booklets produced by the sanitary products industry from 1932 to 1997, Erchull

and others found broadly consistent messages over this time span. All of the texts emphasised secrecy and

hygiene. They all contained detailed behavioural prescriptions whilst inconsistently insisting that menstruation

was only a minor inconvenience: Erchull et al, ‘Education and Advertising’.

55 These terms are colloquial expressions for the use of washable pads and disposable tampons, respectively.

56 Brookes and Tennant, 'Making Girls Modern', 573.

57 Strange, 'Assault on Ignorance', 258-59.

58 Interview with Jean by the author on 22 May 2005.

59 Interview with Linda by the author on 18 October 2005.

60 Interview with Ella by the author on 17 October 2005.

28

61

Megan Hicks, 'Uncollectables: Modess Sanitary Towels', Pharmacy History Australia, 19 (2003): 13.

62 Powerhouse Museum Collection 96/189/1. Information relating to this artifact is taken from file notes at the

museum and online at: Megan Hicks, 'The Rags: Paraphernalia of Menstruation: Homemade Napkins' (2005),

Powerhouse Museum, http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/rags/homemade_napkins.asp.

63 'Only a Woman Can Understand How Embarrassing It Is', Australian Women's Weekly, 5 July 1961, 33.

64 Interview with Sarah by the author on 15 May 2005.

65 Interview with Sophia by the author on 20 April 2005.

66 This expression is taken from a sex education booklet analysed below: Johnson & Johnson, Growing Up

(Sydney: Johnson & Johnson, 196-?).

67 Further information on the contemporary organisation can be found at http://www.interrelate.org.au.

68 For example, in 1969 the Movement’s sales of sex education books exceeded 1.5 million copies: Peter

Spearritt and David Walker (eds), Australian Popular Culture (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1979) cited online

at: http://about.nsw.gov.au/collections/doc/962753-booklet-a-guide-to-womanhood-a-reliable-sex-education-

bookle/#

69 Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia, Tell Your Child the Truth, 6th ed. (Sydney: Father and Son

Welfare Movement of Australia, 1962).

70 Ibid., 5, 30-31.

71 Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia, The Guide through Girlhood, 7th ed. (Sydney: Father and

Son Welfare Movement of Australia, 1961).

72 Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia, The Guide to Womanhood.

73 See, for example: Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia, The Guide to Womanhood, 8-17.

74 Similar shifts have been traced in New Zealand and the United Kingdom: Brookes and Tennant, ‘Making Girls

Modern’; Strange, ‘Assault on Ignorance’.

75 Brumberg, '"Something Happens to Girls"', 126-27.

76 Johnson, Modern Girl, 117-133.

77 Johnson & Johnson, Growing Up.

78 Father and Son Welfare Movement of Australia, The Guide to Womanhood.

79 Johnson & Johnson, Growing Up, 1-21.

29

80

The push amongst menstrual activists from the 1990s to return to re-usable products is outside the scope of

this article, but for more information on this movement see Chris Bobel, ‘From Convenience to Hazard: A Short

History of the Emergence of the Menstrual Activism Movement, 1971–1992’, Health Care for Women

International, 29 (2008), 738-754; Chris Bobel, New Blood: Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of

Menstruation (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010).

81 Interview with Jane and Kate by the author on 10 November 2005.

82 The movement in favour of ‘cycle-stopping conception’ reached its nadir with the publication of the

argument that it was in women’s health interests to suppress menstruation completely: Elsimar M. Coutinho

and Sheldon J. Segal, Is Menstruation Obsolete? (New York: Oxford, 1999). The Society for Menstrual Cycle

Research has roundly condemned the lack of independent research on the long-term health risks associated

with menstrual suppression: ‘Menstruation is Not a Disease’, Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (2007),

archived at

http://web.archive.org/web/20071012033353/http://menstruationresearch.org/position/menstrual-

suppression-new-2007