- Article
- Article
Blood money: Taking periods out of poverty
Periods are not a wound that needs to heal, nor is the blood a sign of injury. So why are we still so repelled by them?
- Article
- Article
The law of periodicity for menstruation
Dr Edward Clarke's Law of Periodicity claimed that females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.
- Article
- Article
Thousands of years of women’s pain
Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Renaissance women and their killer cosmetics
In this extract from ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’, Jill Burke delves into a complex world of beauty products, poison and patriarchy – and reveals the impossible contradictions of femininity faced by 16th-century women.
- Article
- Article
Rag mags and monthly issues: Five period zines to stop you seeing red
Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Fraught fertility and making royal babies
Producing a male heir has been seen for centuries as a queen’s most important role. Here Estelle Paranque explores the lives of four queens whose route to royal motherhood was far from smooth.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Herbal medicines and the early modern menopause
Held responsible for their own “rebellious distempers” – or menopausal symptoms – women had no choice but to keep quiet and resort to unpalatable concoctions in the hope of relief, as Julia Nurse explains.
- Article
- Article
Blood
Discover the history, mythology and taboos around blood and menopause, and hear from some contemporary voices about their experiences of periods and the onset of menopause.
- Article
- Article
Hysteria
Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.
- Article
- Article
The blood notebooks
Novelist Rupert Thomson explores his unusual behaviour during a time of self-imposed isolation.
- Article
- Article
Bloody capitalism and the cash flow of the menstrual cycle
Once they thrived on taboos and shame. Now period-product manufacturers are finding new ways to flourish in this era of period activism – but products aren’t the end of the story.
- Article
- Article
Thalidomide, a bitter pill
Hear from some of the women who took the drug thalidomide over sixty years ago about the fear, isolation and grief that they experienced as the appalling pharmaceutical scandal unfolded around them.
- Article
- Article
Menstruation, magic and moon myths
Why do stories cloaking periods in magic and mystery persist? Pragya Agarwal argues against myth-making and for inclusive menstrual education, grounded in fact.
- Article
- Article
The meanings of hurt
In the early modern period, gruesome incidents of self-castration and other types of self-injury garnished the literature of the time. Alanna Skuse explores the messages these wounds conveyed.
- Article
- Article
The meaning of trauma is wound
Daisy Johnson recalls her difficult journey to being diagnosed with vaginismus, and why women are so good at turning bad things into a joke.
- Article
- Article
Disturbed minds and disruptive bodies
Prison officers tried to regulate women’s minds and bodies and maintain a new disciplinary routine in the second half of the 1800s.
- Article
- Article
The side effects of lithium mining
Laura Grace Simpkins attempts to untangle some uncomfortable truths about the social and environmental costs of making her medication.
- Article
- Article
Pain and the power of activism
Today, women with endometriosis have more access to better information than ever before. Jaipreet Virdi applauds the shared stories, online communities and self-help books empowering women in pain.
- Article
- Article
Heating up and drying out
Menopause doesn’t have to signify old age, but when your body feels like it’s letting you down, it’s hard not to believe that your useful life may be over.
- Article
- Article
Uncovering experiences of dementia
Focusing on three 19th-century women’s case notes, Millie van der Byl Williams explores how our definition of dementia has changed.
- Article
- Article
The pain that punished feminists
In a society that viewed getting the vote, and pursuing an education and career, as unnatural goals for women, the pain of endometriosis was viewed as nature’s retribution.
- Article
- Article
Are you still nursing?
Julia Martins might get the side-eye for breastfeeding a three-year-old in the UK but, as she explains, examples from history, as well as the cultural norms of Brazil, where she grew up, are firmly on the side of extended nursing.
- Long read
- Long read
Primodos, paternalism and the fight to be heard
Journalist Florence Wildblood examines the case of Primodos – a conveniently quick but risky hormone pregnancy test that was prescribed in the 1960s and ’70s – and profiles two women at the story’s shocking heart.
- Article
- Article
The making of ‘Quacks’
How do you create a medical comedy that’s authentic and laugh-out-loud funny?
- Article
- Article
Six personal health zines that might change your life
Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.