title: Citizen journalism

text: The view stated above does not mean that professional journalists are fully protected by shield laws. In the 1972 Branzburg v. Hayes case the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated the use of the First Amendment as a defense for reporters summoned to testify before a grand jury. In 2005, the reporter's privilege of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper was rejected by the appellate court.


title: Citizen journalism

text: Citizen journalism increased during the last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, associated with the creation of the internet which introduced new ways in communicating and engaging news. In 2004 Leonard Witt wrote in the National Civic Review, "the voices of a range of citizens are being heard loud and clear on the Internet, mostly through Weblogs." Due to this shift in technology, individuals were able to access more news than previously and at a much faster rate. This larger quantity also made it so there was a larger variety of sources which people were able to consume media and news.


title: Citizen journalism

text: Natalie Fenton discusses the role of citizen journalism within the digital age and has three characteristics associated with the topic: speed and space, multiplicity and poly-centrality, and interactivity and participation.


title: Citizen journalism

text: Dan Gillmor, the former technology columnist for the "San Jose Mercury News", founded a nonprofit, the Center for Citizen Media, (2005–2009) to help promote it.


title: Citizen journalism

text: Professor Charles Nesson, William F. Weld Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, chairs the Advisory Board for Jamaican citizen journalism startup On the Ground News Reports.


title: Citizen journalism

text: In March 2014, blogger and survivalist author James Wesley Rawles launched a web site that provides free press credentials for citizen journalists called the Constitution First Amendment Press Association (CFAPA). According to David Sheets of the Society for Professional Journalists, Rawles keeps no records on who gets these credentials.


title: Citizen journalism

text: Maurice Ali founded one of the first international citizen journalist associations, the International Association of Independent Journalists Inc. (IAIJ), in 2003. The association through its President (Maurice Ali) published studies and articles on citizen journalism, attended and spoken at UNESCO and United Nations events as advocates of citizen journalism worldwide.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway. He won the 1949 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Miller's "Death of a Salesman". He also won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for the 1955 film "Trial", and was a five-time Academy Award nominee.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: Kennedy was born on February 17, 1914, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Helen (née Thompson) and John Timothy "J.T." Kennedy, a dentist. He attended South High School, Worcester and Worcester Academy. He studied drama at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduating with a B.A. in 1934.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: Kennedy moved to New York City and, billed as John Kennedy, joined the Group Theatre. He then toured with a classical repertory company. In September 1937, he made his Broadway debut as Bushy in Maurice Evans' "Richard II" at the St. James Theatre. In 1939 he played Sir Richard Vernon in Evans' "Henry IV, Part 1".


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: Kennedy made his entry into films when he was discovered by James Cagney. His first film role was of Cagney's younger brother in "City for Conquest" in 1940. He appeared in many Western films and police dramas.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: During World War II, Kennedy served from 1943 to 1945 in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) making aviation training films, both as a narrator and an actor. Many of those films serve as historical records of how aviators were trained and flight equipment was operated.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: Kennedy appeared in many notable films from the early 1940s through mid-1960s, including "High Sierra", "Champion", "They Died with Their Boots On", "The Glass Menagerie", "The Desperate Hours", "Trial", "Peyton Place", "Some Came Running", "A Summer Place", "Elmer Gantry", "The Man from Laramie", "Barabbas", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Nevada Smith" and "Fantastic Voyage".


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: Of Kennedy's film work, he is perhaps best-remembered for his collaborations with director Anthony Mann and co-star James Stewart on "Bend of the River" (1952) and "The Man from Laramie" (1955), in both of which he played sympathetic villains. Kennedy also enjoyed film success in England during the 1950s, usually playing the lead role in b-movies whenever an American character was needed. He played mostly laid-back ladies' men, avuncular husband types or down-on-their—luck con men chancing it in the UK.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: He also enjoyed a distinguished stage career over the same period, receiving a Tony Award for his role of Biff Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (1949). He inaugurated three other major characters in Miller plays: Chris Keller in "All My Sons" (1947), John Proctor in "The Crucible" (1953) and Walter Franz in "The Price" (1968). In 1961 he played the title role in "Becket", opposite Laurence Olivier as Henry II.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: On February 5, 1959, Kennedy appeared on the episode "Make It Look Good" of CBS's "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre".


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: With the death of his wife in 1975, failing eyesight, alcoholism, and thyroid cancer, Kennedy was reported as having lost interest in filmmaking. After "Covert Action" (1978), his next films were "The Humanoid" (1979) and "Signs of Life" (1989).


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: In 1949, Kennedy won a Tony Award for best supporting actor as Biff in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" at the Morosco Theatre.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: His portrayal of the newspaper reporter in "Elmer Gantry" (1960) gained him a Film Daily Award and a Limelight Award.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: Kennedy married Mary Cheffey in March 1938. They had two children: actress Laurie Kennedy and Terence.


title: Arthur Kennedy

text: During the last years of his life, Kennedy had thyroid cancer and eye disease. He spent much of his later life in Savannah, Georgia, out of the public eye.


title: Bread and Roses

text: "Bread and Roses" is a political slogan as well as the name of an associated poem and song. It originated from a speech given by American women's suffrage activist Helen Todd; a line in that speech about "bread for all, and roses too" inspired the title of the poem "Bread and Roses" by James Oppenheim. The poem was first published in "The American Magazine" in December 1911, with the attribution line "Bread for all, and Roses, too'—a slogan of the women in the West." The poem has been translated into other languages and has been set to music by at least three composers.


title: Bread and Roses

text: The phrase is commonly associated with the textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, between January and March 1912, now often referred to as the "Bread and Roses strike". The slogan pairing bread and roses, appealing for both fair wages and dignified conditions, found resonance as transcending "the sometimes tedious struggles for marginal economic advances" in the "light of labor struggles as based on striving for dignity and respect", as Robert J. S. Ross wrote in 2013.


title: Bread and Roses

text: The first mention of the phrase and its meaning appears in "The American Magazine" in September 1911. In an article by Helen Todd, she describes how a group of women from the Chicago Women's Club, after listening to advice from Senator Robert La Follette, decided to initiate an automobile campaign around the state of Illinois for the right of women to vote in June 1910. The women who made up the first automobile campaign were Catherine McCulloch, a lawyer and justice of the peace; Anna Blount, a physician and surgeon; Kate Hughes, a minister; Helen Todd, a state factory inspector; and Jennie Johnson, a singer. Each of the speakers was assigned a subject in which they were an expert. McCulloch gave a record of the votes of the representatives and senators to their home constituents. Blount's subject was taxation without representation as concerns women. Hughes gave her speech on the history of the women's suffrage movement. Johnson opened up the speeches with a set of suffrage songs which was intended to focus and quiet the audience for the subsequent speeches. Helen Todd, as a factory inspector, represented the working women and discussed the need for laws concerning wages, work conditions, and hours.


title: Bread and Roses

text: It is in Helen Todd's speech on the condition of the working women that the phrase is first mentioned. A young hired girl expressed to Helen Todd, who was staying with the hired girl's family overnight during the campaign, what she had liked the most about the speeches the night before, it "was that about the women votin' so's everybody would have bread and flowers too." Helen Todd then goes on to explain how the phrase "Bread for all, and Roses too" expresses the soul of the women's movement and explains the meaning of the phrase in her speech.


title: Bread and Roses

text: Helen Todd, subsequently, became involved in the fall of 1910 with Chicago garment workers' strike, which was led by the Women's Trade Union League of Chicago. The Women's Trade Union League worked closely with the Chicago Women's Club in organizing the strike, picket lines, speeches, and worker relief activities. Helen Todd and the president of the Women's Trade Union League Margaret Robins made a number of speeches during the strike and manned with the thousands of striking garment workers the picket lines. During the strike, it was later reported that a sign was seen with the slogan "We want bread – and roses, too".


title: Bread and Roses

text: In 1911 Helen Todd went out to California to help lead the suffrage movement in the state and campaign in the state's fall election for proposition 4, which sought women's suffrage. The women's suffrage campaign proved successful, and the right for women to vote passed in the state in November 1911. During the California campaign, the suffragettes carried banners with several slogans; one was "Bread for all, and Roses, too!"—the same phrase that Helen Todd used in her speech the previous summer.


title: Bread and Roses

text: The phrase was subsequently picked up by James Oppenheim and incorporated into his poem 'Bread and Roses', which was published in "The American Magazine" in December 1911, with the attribution line "Bread for all, and Roses, too' – a slogan of the women in the West." After the poems publication in 1911, the poem was published again in July 1912 in "The Survey" with the same attribution as in December 1911. It was published again on October 4, 1912 in "The Public", a weekly led by Louis F. Post in Chicago, this time with the slogan being attributed to the "Chicago Women Trade Unionists".


title: Bread and Roses

text: The first publication of Oppenheim's poem in book form was in the 1915 labor anthology, "The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest" by Upton Sinclair. This time the poem had the new attribution and rephrased slogan: "In a parade of strikers of Lawrence, Mass., some young girls carried a banner inscribed, 'We want Bread, and Roses too!'". The Lawrence textile strike, which lasted from January to March 1912, united dozens of immigrant communities under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World, and was led to a large extent by women. The Women's Trade Union League of Boston also became partially involved in the strike, and set up a relief station, which provided food.


title: Bread and Roses

text: The Women's Trade Union League of Boston had, however, only limited involvement in the strike, since it was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which did not endorse the strike. This restraint on involvement in the strike caused a number of Boston League members to resign. One critic of the AFL's failure to endorse the strike stated: "To me, many of the people in the AFL seem to be selfish, reactionary and remote from the struggle for bread and liberty of the unskilled workers..." Although popular telling of the strike includes signs being carried by women reading "We want bread, but we want roses, too!", a number of historians are of the opinion that this account is ahistorical.


title: Bread and Roses

text: In May 1912, Merle Bosworth gave a speech in Plymouth, Indiana on women suffrage in which she repeated the discussion of taxation without representation and the meaning of the phrase "Bread and Roses" that Helen Todd and her companions gave in 1910 during their automobile campaign for the women's suffrage. A month later in June 1912 Rose Schneiderman of the Women's Trade Union League of New York discussed the phrase in a speech she gave in Cleveland in support of the Ohio women's campaign for equal suffrage. In her speech, which was partially published in the Women's Trade Union League journal "Life and Labor," she stated:


title: Bread and Roses

text: Schneiderman, subsequently, gave a number of speeches in which she repeated her quote about the worker desiring bread and roses. Due to these speeches, Schneiderman's name became intertwined with the phrase bread and roses. A year after the publication of Oppenheim's poem, the Lawrence textile strike, and Schneiderman's speech, the phrase had spread throughout the country. In July 1913, for instance, during a suffrage parade in Maryland, a float with the theme "Bread for all, and roses, too" participated. The float "bore ... a boat with three children, a boy with a basket of bread and two girls with a basket of roses."


title: Bread and Roses

text: The source of Helen Todd's inspiration for the phrase "bread and roses" is unknown. However, there is a quote by the Roman physician and philosopher Galen of Pergamon which closely parallels the sentiment and wording of the phrase. Edward Lane, in the notes of his 1838 translation of "One Thousand and One Nights", states that, according to 15th-century writer Shems-ed-Deen Moḥammad en-Nowwájee, Galen said, "He who has two cakes of bread, let him dispose of one of them for some flowers of narcissus; for bread is the food of the body, and the narcissus is the food of the soul." The sentiment that the poor were not only lacking in food for the body, but also flowers for the soul was a theme among reformers of the period. In April 1907, Mary MacArthur of the British Women's Trade Union League visited the Women's Trade Union League of Chicago and gave a speech addressing this theme. Alice Henry of the Chicago League reported that McArthur's message could be summed up by Galen's quote, which she had mentioned more than once, and that although the quote warns against the materialist nature of the industrial situation, it also points in the direction in which the reformers hopes may go. McArthur's version of Galen's quote is:


title: Bread and Roses

text: The poem 'Bread and Roses' has been set to music several times. The earliest version was set to music by Caroline Kohlsaat in 1917. The first performance of Kohlsaat's song was at the River Forest Women's Club where she was the chorus director. Kohlsaat's song eventually drifted to the picket line. By the 1930s, the song was being extensively used by women, while they fed and supported the strikers on the picket line at the manufacturing plants. The song also migrated to the college campus. At some women's colleges, the song became part of their traditional song set.


title: Bread and Roses

text: Since 1932, the song has been sung by graduating seniors at Mount Holyoke College during the Laurel Parade ceremony, part of the college's graduation tradition. It is also one of the central songs at Bryn Mawr College, traditionally sung at the College's "Step-Sings." The use of the song at Bryn Mawr College evolved out of the school's first-of-its-kind summer labor education program. In 1921, the school started the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers; each year, one hundred largely unschooled workers from factories, mills and sweatshops were brought to the school for an eight-week study in humanities and labor solidarity. The program served as a model for others in the labor education movement in the 1920s and 1930s.


title: Bread and Roses

text: The song gained a larger audience after World War II with its publication in January 1952 in "Sing Out!". In 1974 the poem was set a second time to music by Mimi Fariña. This version has been recorded by various artists, including Judy Collins, Ani DiFranco, Utah Phillips, and Josh Lucker. John Denver also set it to music in 1988, using a melody different from the more common Mimi Fariña version. It was again set to music in Germany by Renate Fresow, using a translation by the "Hannoveraner Weiberquartett", but which is sung mostly with the German translation by Peter Maiwald. Composer Christian Wolff wrote a piano piece entitled "Bread and Roses" (1976) based on the strike song. In 1989/91, Si Kahn wrote a song the refrain of which starts with the song's title: "They all sang 'Bread and Roses'".


title: Bread and Roses

text: The poem has been translated into Russian by Russian poet , set to the original Kohlsaat music, and performed by the Moscow-based political activist punk collective Arkadiy Kots (Аркадий Коц), appearing on their 2016 album "Music for the working class."


title: Bread and Roses

text: The logo for the Democratic Socialists of America, formed in 1982, was inspired by the slogan. "Bread & Roses" is also a name of a national caucus within the organization. They have 4 (out of 16) members of the DSA's National Political Committee.


title: Bread and Roses

text: A quarterly journal produced by the UK section of the Industrial Workers of the World ('Wobblies') is called "Bread and Roses".


title: Bread and Roses

text: The 2014 film "Pride" depicts the members of a Welsh mining community singing "Bread and Roses" at a National Union of Mineworkers lodge during the UK miners' strike (1984–1985).


title: Bread and Roses

text: In 2018, the song was used in a video produced by London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign to promote the #HomeToVote movement, which encouraged young Irish people living abroad to return home to vote in the Referendum on the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Irish Constitution.


title: Bread and Roses

text: In 2022 the TV series "Riverdale" depicted families of construction workers singing "Bread and Roses" to the workers to lift a spell their boss had put on them to break a strike.


title: Bread and Roses

text: Miriam Schneir included it in her anthology, "", labelling it as one of the essential works of feminism.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: Moyna Macgill (born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie; 10 December 1895 – 25 November 1975) was an Irish actress from Belfast and the mother of actress Angela Lansbury and producers Edgar and Bruce Lansbury. In 2020, she was listed at number 35 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: Born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie at 42 Eglantine Avenue in south Belfast, she was the daughter of William McIldowie and Elizabeth Jane (née Mageean). Her father was a wealthy solicitor of Scottish parentage who was a director of the Grand Opera House in Belfast, a position that sparked her interest in theatrics.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: As a teenager she was noticed riding the London Underground by director and producer George Pearson, who cast her in several of his films. In 1918, she made her stage debut in the play "Love is a Cottage" at the West End theatres Globe Theatre. Encouraged by Sir Gerald du Maurier to change her name to Moyna Macgill (which invariably was misspelt as "MacGill" or "McGill", and on at least one occasion, the film "Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven", as "Magill"), she became a leading actress of the day, appearing in light comedies, melodramas, and classics opposite Herbert Marshall, John Gielgud, and Basil Rathbone, among others.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: Twenty-six-year-old Macgill was married with a three-year-old daughter, Isolde (who later married Sir Peter Ustinov), when she became involved romantically with Edgar Lansbury, a socialist politician, who was a son of the Labour MP and Leader of the Opposition George Lansbury. Her husband, actor Reginald Denham, named Lansbury as co-respondent when he filed for divorce. A year after it was finalized, Macgill and Lansbury married and with Isolde settled into a garden flat in London's Regent's Park.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: Macgill temporarily set aside her career following the birth of daughter Angela and twin sons Edgar, Jr., and Bruce (both went on to become Broadway producers, but Bruce is better known for his work on television, such as the series "The Wild Wild West", "", and his sister's "Murder, She Wrote"), although music and dance were prevalent in their upbringing. When they moved into a larger house in suburban Mill Hill, she turned their home into a salon for actors, writers, directors, musicians, and artists, all of whom left an impression on young Angela and were instrumental in directing her interests towards acting.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: MacGill’s daughter Angela Lansbury, after having featured in a number of musicals from 1940 to the 1960s, would become a popular stage and film actress in her own right, starring in the long-running television series "Murder, She Wrote".


title: Moyna Macgill

text: In 1935, Edgar Lansbury died of stomach cancer, a year after publishing a biography of his father George. Macgill began an affair with Scotsman Leckie Forbes, a former colonel with the British Army in India. The two moved their respective families to a house in Hampstead, but Macgill soon discovered Forbes' military career had made him a staunch disciplinarian who ruled the household like a tyrant.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: When the opportunity to take her children to the U.S. presented itself just prior to The Blitz, she spirited them away under cover of night. She never spoke to Forbes again. In New York City, Macgill was unable to work in movies or on the stage, not having a work visa, and she took to presenting dramatic readings at private schools for income.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: In 1942, she was invited to join a troupe that was rehearsing Noël Coward's "Tonight at 8.30" for a touring production designed to raise funds for the Royal Canadian Air Force. She accepted, and when the company finished the run in Vancouver, she headed to Hollywood to seek work there. She soon sent for Angela, and eventually, the twins and the family settled in Laurel Canyon.


title: Moyna Macgill

text: Her career in Hollywood consisted largely of small character parts in films and on television. Among her more notable film credits are "Frenchman's Creek" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (which co-starred her daughter Angela). In later years she made guest appearances on such television series as "Studio One", "The Twilight Zone", "Dr. Kildare", "Mister Ed" and "My Favorite Martian".


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: United States Space Force rank insignia are used to indicate the rank and status of the United States Space Force officers and enlisted personnel. Equivalency between the military services is indicated by associated NATO code and pay grade.


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: On the service dress uniform metal rank is worn on the shoulder straps. On the OCP uniform, the Space Force's combat utility uniform, embroidered navy blue rank is worn on an OCP patch on the center of the chest.


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: The creation of the Space Force marked the first time since the 1947 creation of the Air Force that a new branch was created. This created an interest in the rank structure and insignia. In February 2020, it was announced that the Space Force would ask military space professionals for opinions on ranks.


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: Eighty-six graduates of the United States Air Force Academy class of 2020 commissioned directly into the USSF, becoming the service's first new officers and second lieutenants. On July 28, 2020, four general officers from the Air Force were nominated to transfer to the Space Force in their current grade of major general, and then be promoted to lieutenant general. On August 6, 2020, a number of Air Force officers were transferred to the Space Force in the ranks of major, lieutenant colonel and colonel. On September 1, 2020, the Air Force transferred 2410 active-duty airmen to the Space Force to become enlisted space professionals. The space professionals were all transferred to the Space Force in their current enlisted ranks.


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: The Space Force was set to announce its new rank structure in late August 2020 but decided to delay it temporarily, as a proposed amendment included in the United States House of Representatives's version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act would require the Space Force to adopt a rank structure based on that of the United States Navy for its officers and enlisted space professionals. The Space Force decided to wait until after the 2021 NDAA was passed, before moving forward with their permanent rank structure. While awaiting the passage of the NDAA, all members of the Space Force retained their respective grade and rank carried over from the Air Force. On November 16, 2020, the United States Senate passed the House of Representatives' version of the NDAA, but attached an amendment which would remove the clause requiring the Space Force to adopt naval ranks, and sent it back to the House for consideration. The House unanimously disagreed with the Senate's amendment and sent the amended bill back to their armed services committee on November 18, for consideration of passage. The final version of the NDAA removed any requirement for the Space Force to adopt naval ranks. The official rank structure became effective on 1 February 2021, which includes the rank of specialist being used for paygrades E-1 to E-4 for the first time since the Army discontinued its use of multiple specialist ranks in 1985. The rank of 'Sergeant' replaces 'Staff Sergeant' as used by the Air Force in the pay grade of E-5.


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: On 20 September 2021, Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, Roger A. Towberman, announced the selected insignia.


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: In May 2022, changes to the interim officer uniform were introduced. Buttons were changed from the Hap Arnold star and wings to the Space Force Delta.


title: United States Space Force rank insignia

text: On 2 March 2021, the Space Force released a survey for guardians to give feedback on four sets of enlisted rank insignia. One version of the proposed enlisted rank insignia mirrored the current Air Force design, but with the Air Corps star replaced by the Delta, Globe, and Orbit. Another version resembled Army and Marine Corps enlisted insignia, but with the Delta, Globe, and Orbit at the bottom of the design. A third inverted the Army/Marine Corps' styled chevrons. A fourth option resembled Navy and Coast Guard rank insignia.


title: SIG MCX Spear

text: The SIG MCX-SPEAR is a multi-caliber rifle developed by the American division of SIG Sauer from the SIG MCX series of carbines. The SIG MCX-SPEAR is primarily chambered in .277 SIG FURY and can be adapted to 7.62×51mm NATO and 6.5mm Creedmoor with a barrel change.


title: SIG MCX Spear

text: In January 2019, the United States military began the Next Generation Squad Weapon Program to find replacements for the M4 carbine and M249 light machine gun. In September 2019, SIG Sauer submitted their designs.


title: SIG MCX Spear

text: The XM5 was designed to fire the 6.8×51mm SIG Fury cartridge in response to concerns that improvements in body armor would diminish the effectiveness of common battlefield rounds such as the 5.56×45mm NATO (used in the M4 and M249) and 7.62×51mm NATO.


title: SIG MCX Spear

text: On April 19, 2022, the United States Army awarded a 10-year contract to Sig Sauer to produce the XM5 rifle, along with the XM250 Machine gun, to replace the M4 and M249, respectively.


title: SIG MCX Spear

text: The SIG MCX Raptor is a short-barreled rifle variant intended to serve as a carbine, featuring an barrel and a Picatinny rail tail interface for attaching either a compact buttstock or a folding PCB (pistol contour brace). It is available in .277 SIG FURY, 6.5 Creedmoor and 7.62x51mm NATO.


title: SIG MCX Spear

text: The SIG MCX-MR (Mid Range) was SIG Sauer's unsuccessful submission for the United States Army's Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System (CSASS) program. It is chambered in 7.62×51mm NATO and has selective fire capabilities. It weighs and features a 416 stainless steel barrel with a 1:10 inch twist rate, which is manufactured by Bartlein Barrels. The gas system features suppressed and unsuppressed settings. Unlike the handguard of the MCX, which slides off after pulling the front pivot pin, the MCX-MR requires removal of two screws first. It features both an M16/AR-15 type charging handle and a left side charging handle. It uses a 20-round magazine and is also compatible with SR-25 lower receivers for use of SR-25 box magazines.


title: SIG MCX Spear

text: The SIG MCX-SPEAR was Sig Sauer's submission for the United States Army Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program, as chambered in .277 FURY cartridge. Sig Sauer was chosen as the winner on April 19, 2022, designating the weapon the XM5 in U.S. military service.


title: Nile perch

text: The Nile perch (Lates niloticus), also known as the African snook, Goliath perch, African barramundi , Goliath barramundi, Giant lates or the Victoria perch, is a species of freshwater fish in family Latidae of order Perciformes. It is widespread throughout much of the Afrotropical realm, being native to the Congo, Nile, Senegal, Niger and Lake Chad, Volta, Lake Turkana, and other river basins. It also occurs in the brackish waters of Lake Maryut in Egypt. The Nile perch is a fish of substantial economic and food-security importance in East Africa. Originally described as "Labrus niloticus," among the marine wrasses, the species has also been referred to as "Centropomus niloticus". Common names include African snook, Victoria perch (a misleading trade name, as the species is not native to Lake Victoria, though they have been introduced there), and many local names in various African languages, such as the Luo name "mbuta" or "mputa". In Tanzania, it is called "sangara", "sankara", or "chenku". In Francophone African countries, it is known as "capitaine". Its name in the Hausa language is "giwan ruwa", meaning "water elephant".


title: Nile perch

text: "L. niloticus" is silver in color with a blue tinge. It has distinctive dark-black eyes, with a bright-yellow outer ring. One of the largest freshwater fishes, it reaches a maximum length of nearly , weighing up to . Mature fish typically range from , although many fish are caught before they can grow this large.


title: Nile perch

text: Adult Nile perch occupy all habitats of a lake with sufficient oxygen concentrations, while juveniles are restricted to shallow or nearshore environments. A fierce predator that dominates its surroundings, the Nile perch feeds on fish (including its own species), crustaceans, molluscs, and insects; the juveniles also feed on zooplankton. Nile perch use schooling as a mechanism to protect themselves from other predators.


title: Nile perch

text: Nile perch have been introduced to many other lakes in Africa, including Lake Victoria and the artificial Lake Nasser. The World Conservation Union's Invasive Species Specialist Group considers "L. niloticus" one of the world's 100 worst invasive species.


title: Nile perch

text: The state of Queensland in Australia levies heavy fines on anyone found in possession of a living Nile perch, since it competes directly with the native barramundi, which is similar and grows to long, while the Nile perch grows to long.


title: Nile perch

text: The species is of great commercial importance as a food fish. The Nile perch is also popular with sport anglers, as it attacks artificial fishing lures, and it is also raised in aquaculture.


title: Nile perch

text: The introduction of this species to Lake Victoria is one of the most cited examples of the negative effects alien species can have on ecosystems.


title: Nile perch

text: The Nile perch was introduced to Lake Victoria in East Africa in the 1950s, and has since been fished commercially. In 2003, Nile perch sales to the EU reached 169 million euros. Sport-fishing in the region of Uganda and Tanzania provided additional income from tourism.


title: Nile perch

text: Its introduction was ecologically disruptive and is attributed with causing the extinction or near-extinction of several hundred native species, with some populations fluctuating with commercial fishing and the actual Nile perch stocks. The Nile perch initially fed on native cichlids, but with decreasing availability of this prey, it now consumes mainly small shrimp and minnows.


title: Nile perch

text: The alteration of the native ecosystem had disruptive socioeconomic effects on local communities bordering the lake. Many local people have been displaced from their traditional occupations in the fishing trade and brought them into the cash economy, or before the establishment of export-oriented fisheries, turned them into economic refugees. At least initially, nets strong enough to hold adult Nile perch could not be manufactured locally and had to be imported for a high price.


title: Nile perch

text: The introduction of Nile perch has also had additional ecological effects on shore. Native cichlids were traditionally sun-dried, but because Nile perch have a high fat content (higher than cichlids), they need to be smoked to avoid spoiling. This has led to an increased demand for firewood in a region already hard-hit by deforestation, soil erosion, and desertification.


title: Nile perch

text: The Academy Award-nominated documentary "Darwin's Nightmare" by Hubert Sauper (a French-Austrian-Belgian production, 2004) deals with the damage that has been caused by Nile perch introduction, including the import of weapons and ammunition in cargo planes from Europe, which are then used to export Nile perch, further exacerbating conflict and misery in the surrounding regions.


title: Nile perch

text: Regardless of whether it is considered positive or negative, the trophic web of Lake Victoria appears to have been drastically impoverished by the introduction of this novel near-top-level predator. While the ecosystem seems to be moving towards a new equilibrium, neither its former state nor the state of fisheries on Lake Victoria can ever easily be brought back.


title: Nile perch

text: On Lake Victoria, the only (small) trawlers present belong to research institutes. Small-scale fishing boats are propelled mostly by sails, and paddles are used on the smallest boats. However, the number of boats propelled by outboard engines is on the rise, denoting a greater capital intensity of the local Nile perch fishery. One to three fishermen use a boat. The fish are caught mainly with gill nets and hand lines and sometimes (short) long lines. Those caught by gill nets are usually dead when the nets are lifted. The fish are kept in the boat without protection or ice and taken to landing sites, mostly beaches, where they are weighed and purchased by company buyers using insulated boats or vans with ice, or the fish are bought by local women.


title: Nile perch

text: The fishery also generates indirect employment for additional fish processors, transporters, factory employees, and others. All along the lakeshore, 'boom towns' have developed in response to the demands of fishing crews with money to spend from a day's fishing. These towns resemble shanties, and have little in the way of services. Of the 1,433 landing sites identified in the 2004 frame survey, just 20% had communal lavatory facilities, 4% were served by electricity, and 6% were served by a potable water supply.


title: Nile perch

text: Despite being a successful invasive species, the fish faces threats. Being a species of megafauna, the most obvious threats to the species are overfishing and the use of illegal fishing gear, as well as invasive water hyacinths. Prey depletion is also a factor, as it decreases the size of the fish and makes it vulnerable to larger predators, such as crocodiles.


title: Nile perch

text: A group of investors in Uganda has called on the Parliament to ban the sale of the species in both local and regional markets so as to protect its export to the European Union.


title: Party All the Time

text: "Party All the Time" is a song by comedian and actor Eddie Murphy, written and produced by Rick James. It was the lead single from Murphy's 1985 debut album "How Could It Be". It reached number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 for three weeks, behind "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie.


title: Party All the Time

text: Murphy stated that the song was made in response to a $100,000 bet made between himself and actor/comedian Richard Pryor, wagering on whether Murphy had singing talent or not. The single was recorded at Rick James's home studio in Buffalo, New York. In addition to his duties as the song's writer and producer, James also provided backup vocals.


title: Party All the Time

text: A reader in the "Los Angeles Times", Barbara Bryson, criticized the song, characterizing it as "Gumby goes disco" (referring to the character parodied by Murphy on "Saturday Night Live"). The publication also placed the song at number one on "The Video Bottom 10" list. Meanwhile, critic Scott Benarde in the Ft. Lauderdale "Sun-Sentinel" awarded the song his worst single for 1985, calling it a "catchy uptempo dance number" but asserting that "Murphy adds nothing but his ego to it. His voice is paper thin and buried in the mix. Anyone could have sung that tune the way it was produced. Murphy should stick to imitating Gumby."


title: Party All the Time

text: The song's music video won best urban contemporary video award at the American Video Awards in November 1985.


title: Party All the Time

text: In 2006, house DJ and producer Sharam Tayebi of Deep Dish released a remix of the song, known simply as "PATT" (an acronym for "Party All the Time"), which peaked at No. 8 on the UK Singles Chart on December 30, 2006. The song also peaked at number 87 on the Australian ARIA Charts.


title: Party All the Time

text: Finnish band Children of Bodom covered the song in 2011, as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of their album "Relentless Reckless Forever".


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: Jerk is a style of cooking native to Jamaica, in which meat is dry-rubbed or wet marinated with a hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: The art of jerking (or cooking with jerk spice) originated with Amerindians in Jamaica from the Arawak and Taíno tribes who intermingled with the Maroons.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: The smoky taste of jerked meat is achieved using various cooking methods, including modern wood-burning ovens. The meat is normally chicken or pork, and the main ingredients of the spicy jerk marinade sauce are allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers. Jerk cooking is popular in Caribbean and West Indian diaspora communities throughout North America and Western Europe.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: The word "jerk" is said to come from "charqui", a Spanish term of Quechua origin for jerked or dried meat, which eventually became the word "jerky" in English.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: The term "jerk spice" (also commonly known as Jamaican jerk spice) refers to a spice rub. The word "jerk" refers to the spice rub, wet marinade, and to the particular cooking technique. Jerk cooking has developed a global following, most notably in American, Canadian and Western European cosmopolitan urban centres.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: Historians have evidence that jerked meat was first cooked by the indigenous Taíno. During the invasion of Jamaica in 1655, the Spanish colonists freed their enslaved Africans who fled into the Jamaican countryside, intermingling with the remaining Taínos and becoming some of the first Jamaican Maroons. It appears that these runaway slaves learned this practice from the Taíno. The technique of cooking in underground pits is believed to have been used in order to avoid creating smoke which would have given away their location. It is speculated that the Taíno developed the style of cooking and seasoning. While all racial groups hunted the wild hog in the Jamaican interior, and used the practice of jerk to cook it in the seventeenth century, by the end of the eighteenth century most groups had switched to imported pork products. Only the Maroons continued the practice of hunting wild hogs and jerking the pork.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: Jamaican jerk sauce primarily developed from these Maroons, seasoning and slow cooking wild hogs over pimento wood, which was native to Jamaica at the time and is the most important ingredient in the taste; over the centuries it has been modified as various cultures added their influence.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: From the start, the Maroons found themselves in new surroundings on the interior of Jamaica and were forced to use what was available to them. As a result, they adapted to their surroundings and used herbs and spices available to them on the island such as Scotch bonnet pepper, which is largely responsible for the heat found in Caribbean jerks.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: Jerk cooking and seasoning has followed the Caribbean diaspora all over the world, and forms of jerk can now be found at restaurants almost anywhere a significant population of Caribbean descent exists, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, or the United States. "Poulet boucané" (or 'smoked chicken'), a dish found in French Caribbean countries such as Martinique and Guadeloupe, is quite similar to traditional Jamaican jerk chicken.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: The cooking technique of jerking, as well as the results it produces, has evolved over time from using pit fires to old oil barrel halves as the containing vessel of choice. Around the 1960s, Caribbean entrepreneurs seeking to recreate the smoked pit flavor by an easier, more portable method came up with a solution to cut oil barrels lengthwise and attach hinges, drilling several ventilation holes for the smoke. These barrels are fired with charcoal, which enhances the spicy, smoky taste. Alternatively, when these cooking methods are unavailable, other methods of meat smoking, including wood-burning ovens, can be used to jerk meat. However, oil barrels are arguably one of the most popular cooking methods for making jerk in Jamaica. Most jerk in Jamaica is no longer cooked in the traditional method and is grilled over hardwood charcoal in a steel drum "jerk pan".


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: Street-side "jerk stands" or "jerk centres" are frequently found in Jamaica and the nearby Cayman Islands, as well as throughout the Caribbean diaspora and beyond. Jerked meat, usually chicken or pork, can be purchased along with hard dough bread, deep fried "cassava bammy" (flatbread, usually with fish), Jamaican fried dumplings (known as "Johnnycake" or "journey cakes"), and festival, a variation of sweet flavored fried dumplings made with sugar and served as a side.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: Jerk seasoning principally consists of allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers. Other ingredients may include cloves, cinnamon, scallions, nutmeg, thyme, garlic, brown sugar, ginger, soy sauce, and salt.


title: Jerk (cooking)

text: Jerk seasoning was originally used on chicken and pork, but in modern recipes it is used with other ingredients including fish, shrimp, shellfish, beef, sausage, lamb, goat, tofu, and vegetables.


title: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

text: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir (born 6 May 1989) is an Icelandic musician. Nanna originally performed solo, performing by the name Songbird. She is the lead vocalist and guitarist, along with Ragnar "Raggi" Þórhallsson, of the Icelandic indie folk band Of Monsters and Men.


title: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

text: Nanna was raised in Garður, a town in southwestern Iceland. She has two sisters, one is a make up artist and the other a teacher. As a child, Nanna attended music school. Before Of Monsters and Men had become established, Nanna had a solo musical project called "Songbird." She wrote and performed music on open mic nights around Reykjavik and was a video store clerk.


title: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

text: Since expanding her Songbird phase, Nanna recruited five musicians, that eventually became Of Monsters and Men in 2010 – Brynjar Leifsson, Ragnar Þórhallsson, Arnar Rósenkranz Hilmarsson, Árni Guðjónsson (now, ex-member), and Kristján Páll Kristjánsson. After a week of working together, they won the annual music competition Músíktilraunir.


title: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

text: They soon released their debut studio album "My Head Is an Animal" in late 2011. The album charted in multiple regions and the band gained popularity worldwide. After the Seattle radio station KEXP broadcast a performance from Ragnar's living room, the band went viral. The album reached No.1 in Australia, Iceland and Ireland and No.1 on the U.S. Rock and Alternative charts. The band was tapped to write a song for the film "" and then a single Dirty Paws that was used in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" 18 months after its release. The song "I of the Storm" was included in the USA television series "Falling Water".


title: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

text: They released three singles called "Little Talks", "Mountain Sound", and "King and Lionheart" and music videos for each. The videos received several million views on YouTube, the one for "Little Talks" having the most views (316 Million views as of September 2021).


title: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

text: The band went on to release the album "Beneath the Skin" in 2015, along with three music videos and thirteen lyric videos. Their latest album, "Fever Dream", was released in May 2019. They performed the songs “Alligator”, “Wild Roses”, and “Wars" on Jimmy Kimmel and Ellen and released music videos for each.


title: Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

text: Nanna cites some of her favorite musicians/influences as Gayngs, Lianne La Havas, Arcade Fire, Feist, and Justin Vernon, of the alt-folk band Bon Iver.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: There are many cultural aspects surrounding how societies view menstruation. Different cultures view menstruation in different ways. The basis of many conduct norms and communication about menstruation in western industrial societies is the belief that menstruation should remain hidden. By contrast, in some hunter-gatherer societies, menstrual observances are viewed in a positive light, without any connotation of uncleanness.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: A menstrual taboo is any social taboo concerned with menstruation. In some societies it involves menstruation being perceived as unclean or embarrassing, inhibiting even the mention of menstruation whether in public (in the media and advertising) or in private (among friends, in the household, or with men). Many traditional religions consider menstruation ritually unclean, although anthropologists say that the concepts 'sacred' and 'unclean' may be intimately connected.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The terms "menstruation" and "menses" are derived from the Latin "mensis" (month), which in turn relates to the Greek "mene" (moon) and to the roots of the English words "month" and "moon".


title: Culture and menstruation

text: According to anthropologists Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb, cross-cultural study shows that, while taboos about menstruation are nearly universal, and while many of these involve notions of uncleanliness (ritual impurity), numerous menstrual traditions "bespeak quite different, even opposite, purposes and meanings." In some traditional societies, menstrual rituals are experienced by women as protective and empowering, offering women a space set apart from the male gaze and from unwanted sexual or domestic pressures and demands. In other words, the idea of the seclusion of the menstruation hut may be perceived as banishment of the woman seen to be impure and taboo, or as a welcome space and time free of the usual daily chores: isolation versus retreat.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: An instructive example is provided by the anthropologist Wynne Maggi, who spent years living in the peasant society of the Kalash people of the Chitral District in northwestern Pakistan. She describes the communal "bashali" (large menstrual house) as the village's 'most holy place', respected by men, and serving as women's all-female organizing centre for establishing and maintaining gender solidarity and power. According to one body of cultural evolutionary scholarship, the idea that menstrual blood marks the body as periodically sacred was initially established by female coalitions in their own interests, although later, with the rise of cattle-ownership and patriarchal power, these same beliefs and taboos were harnessed by religious patriarchs to intensify women's oppression.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Metaformic Theory, as proposed by cultural theorist Judy Grahn and others, places menstruation as a central organizing idea in the creation of culture and the formation of humans' earliest rituals.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstruation in synchrony with the moon is widely assumed in myths and traditions as a ritual ideal. The idea that menstruation is—or ideally ought to be—in harmony with wider cosmic rhythms is one of the most tenacious ideas central to the myths and rituals of traditional communities across the world. One of the most thoroughgoing analyses of primitive mythology ever undertaken was that of the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who concluded that, taken together, the indigenous myths of North and South America expressed men's worry that, unless women's periods were carefully monitored and synchronised, the universe might descend into chaos.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Aboriginal Australia, the supernatural being known as the 'Rainbow Snake' has been interpreted as, among other things, an indigenous way of conceptualising the ideal of synchronised tidal, lunar, menstrual and seasonal periodicities whose overall harmony (it is believed) confers spiritual power and fertility.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: To many, such cultural associations appear persuasive in view of the fact that in humans, the menstrual cycle quite closely approximates the moon's 29.5-day synodic cycle, unlike in chimpanzees (~36 days) or bonobos (~40 days). Statistical information from hunter gatherers is lacking, but where large-scale western studies focus on women's peak reproductive years—removing outlier values—the cycle length gravitates around 29.1–29.5 days, while the figure for women in their thirties shortens toward 28 days. In no current human population has statistically significant lunar phase-locking been demonstrated.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In some historic cultures, a menstruating woman was considered sacred and powerful, with increased psychic abilities, and strong enough to heal the sick. According to the Cherokee, menstrual blood was a source of feminine strength and had the power to destroy enemies. In Ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote that a menstruating woman who uncovers her body can scare away hailstorms, whirlwinds and lightning. If she strips naked and walks around the field, caterpillars, worms and beetles fall off the ears of corn. Menstrual blood is viewed as especially dangerous to men's power. In Africa, menstrual blood is used in the most powerful magic charms in order to both purify and destroy.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Mayan mythology explains the origin of menstruation as a punishment for violating the social rules governing marital alliance. The menstrual blood turns into snakes and insects used in black sorcery, before the Maya moon goddess is reborn from it.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Where women's blood is considered sacred, the belief is that it should be ritually set apart. According to this logic, it is when sacred blood comes into contact with profane things that it becomes experienced as ritually dangerous or 'unclean'.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The sociological theorist Emile Durkheim argued that human religion in its entirety emerged originally in connection with menstruation. His argument was that a certain kind of action—collective ritual action—could establish simultaneously totemism, law, exogamy and kinship in addition to distinctively human language and thought. Everything began, according to Durkheim, when a flow of blood periodically ruptured relations between the sexes. 'All blood is terrible', he observed, 'and all sorts of taboos are instituted to prevent contact with it'. During menstruation, females would exercise a 'type of repulsing action which keeps the other sex far from them'. This same blood was thought to run through the veins of women and animals alike, suggesting the blood's ultimate origin in 'totemic'—part-human, part-animal—ancestral beings. Once menstrual blood had been linked with the blood of the hunt, it became logically possible for a hunter to respect certain animals as if they were his kin, this being the essence of 'totemism'. Within the group's shared blood resided its 'god' or 'totem', 'from which it follows that the blood is a divine thing. When it runs out, the god is spilling over'.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Judaism, a woman during menstruation is called "niddah" and may be banned from certain actions. For example, the Jewish Torah prohibits sexual intercourse with a menstruating woman. The ritual exclusion of "niddah" applies to a woman while menstruating and for about a week thereafter, until she immerses herself in a mikvah (ritual bath) which is basically intended only for married women. During this time, a married couple must avoid sexual intercourse and physical intimacy. Orthodox Judaism forbids women and men from even touching or passing things to each other during this period. While Orthodox Jews follow this exclusion, many Jews in other branches of the religion do not.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In the Torah (Leviticus 15:19-30), a menstruating female is considered ritually unclean: "anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening" (New International Version). Touching a menstruating female, touching an object she had sat on or lain on, or having intercourse with her also makes a person ritually unclean. The extent to which these rules are observed in modern Judaism varies depending on the degree of conservatism/orthodoxy.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Genesis 31:34-35, menstruation is referenced in a story, where Rachel was, or pretended to be in her menstrual period:Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, and put them in the saddle of the camel, and sat upon them. And Laban felt about all the tent, but found them not. And she said to her father: 'Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise up before thee; for the manner of women is upon me.' And he searched, but found not the teraphim.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Most Christian denominations do not follow any specific rituals or rules related to menstruation. Other denominations, such as those of Oriental Orthodox Christianity, follow the rules similar to those laid out in the Holiness Code section of Leviticus, somewhat similar to the Jewish ritual of Niddah. Pope Dionysius of Alexandria held with regard to menstruating women that "not even they themselves, being faithful and pious, would dare when in this state either to approach the Holy Table or to touch the body and blood of Christ." As such, Oriental Orthodox Christian women, such as those belonging to the Coptic Orthodox Church, do not attend church while they are menstruating.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Some Church Fathers defended the exclusion of women from ministry based on a notion of uncleanness. Others held that purity laws should be discarded as part of the Old Covenant. The 4th century text "Apostolic Constitutions" says:For neither lawful mixture, nor child-bearing, nor the menstrual purgation, nor nocturnal pollution, can defile the nature of a man, or separate the Holy Spirit from him. Nothing but impiety and unlawful practice can do that. (italics supplied)Some Christian churches, including many authorities of the Eastern Orthodox Church and some parts of the Oriental Orthodox Church advise women not to receive communion during their menstrual period, not because menstruation is considered to be sinful, but for more intense preparation to approach Christ and due to the physical difficulties faced by women. This is a fairly common practice throughout Greece and Russia and other historically Orthodox Christian countries, as well as by Orthodox Christians in countries where they are in the minority, including Egypt, Kerala and Syria.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In 735 the Latin Church decided that women must be allowed to attend liturgies and receive Holy Communion during their menstruation.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: During menstrual periods, women are excused from performing prayers. Sets of rules are advised for women to follow while during menstruation. They should not fast and left over fasts of Ramadan are to be completed during other days. During menses pilgrimages are allowed; and circumambulation of the Kaaba is also permitted. They are permitted to enter the praying place of the mosque but are excused from prayer and are encouraged to be present at Muslim gatherings and festivals (Eids). After the period, a bath (Ghusl), which is also required of both partners after sex, is also required before prayer may continue.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The traditional Islamic interpretation of the Qur'an forbids intercourse during a woman's menstrual period, but allows for physical intimacy and other sexual acts that are not intercourse. If a man is engaged in sexual intercourse with his wife and discovers that her period has started, he must immediately withdraw.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Buddhism (Theravada or Hinayana) menstruation is viewed as "a natural physical excretion that women have to go through on a monthly basis, nothing more or less". However, in certain branches of Japanese Buddhism, menstruating women are banned from attending temples.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Nichiren Buddhism (Japan) menstruation is not considered a spiritual obstacle to religious practice, although a menstruating woman may choose not to bow, for comfort. During menstruation, women should not enter temples or shrines, being seen as polluted. In Sri Lankan Buddhism, this is also true for their husbands and other men, who have been in a home with menstruating women.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Hinduism's views on menstruation are diverse. Menstruation is seen as a period of purification, and women are often separated from place of worship or any object pertaining to it, for the length of their period. This forms the basis of most of the cultural practices and restrictions around menstruation in Hinduism.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstruation does not lead to women being considered impure in Sikhism, and women's behavior is not restricted during the time when she is menstruating.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In "The Feminine Principle in the Sikh vision of the Transcendent", Nikky Guninder Kaur-Singh writes:The denigration of the female body "expressed in many cultural and religious taboos surrounding menstruation and child-Birth" is absent in the Sikh worldview. Guru Nanak openly chides those who attribute pollution to women because of menstruation.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baháʼí Faith, in the "Kitáb-i-Aqdas" abolished all forms of ritual impurity of people and things and stressed the importance of cleanliness and spiritual purity. Menstruating women are encouraged to pray and are not required to fast; they have the (voluntary) alternative of reciting a verse instead.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Jainism, the bleeding that occurs in menstruation is thought to kill micro-organisms in the body, making the female body exhausted, causing cramps, and producing stress. Hence, women are expected to rest and not perform any religious duties for a duration of four days. In this time, the man of the house may take up the duties of the woman.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Japan, the religion of Shinto did and still does play a part in their society. The Kami, the spirits they worshiped, would not grant wishes to those who had traces of blood, dirt, or death on them. While menstruation is not entirely blood, the ancient Japanese did not know that. As a result, women who were menstruating were not allowed to visit any of the Kami shrines for the duration of their menstrual period. Even today, women are not allowed to enter Shinto shrines and temples during menstruation, and in some instances, women are completely banned from climbing the tops of sacred mountains due to their 'impurity'. Furthermore, the tradition is kept somewhat alive in the belief that the shedding of the endometrial lining is a kind of death. The tradition relates to the thought that any death in the family brings impurity and those experiencing this must wait a certain amount of time before being able to return to shrines and other holy areas.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Chinese belief systems, women are not supposed to touch sacred statues, make offerings, or pray to sacred statues on their menstrual cycle. Before the revolution some temples only permitted men, and women who were very old or very young, to attend. Chinese views of menstruation are still deeply influenced by Confucianism values of virtue and chastity. Many women feel empowered and feminine in their early years of starting their menstrual cycles.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstruation is mentioned in some Wiccan and pagan texts. There are collected books and material on Witchcraft and menstruation at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In the 2010s public Wiccan and pagan practitioners began sharing rituals, spells and histories of menstruation in these belief systems. Pagan rituals and histories of menstruation is also discussed in books such as Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove's "The Wise Wound: Menstruation and Everywoman."


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Across the continent of Africa, a wide variety of menstruation-related customs have been recorded. In 2014 UNESCO reported that an estimated 10% of girls in Sub-Saharan Africa do not go to school while menstruating. This is likely due to a lack of resources rather than cultural customs of exclusion.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Religious taboos and social stigma concerning menstruation contribute to a lack of access to school for girls in Ghana. In rural areas of the country 95% of girls have reported missing school during their periods. The World Bank estimates that 11.5 million women in Ghana do not have access to adequate hygiene and sanitation.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: A cloth torn from the traditional wrap ("chitenge") is worn, part tied around the waist and part looped under the crotch, to catch menstrual fluid. Menarche (the first menstrual cycle at puberty) is traditionally treated as a sign that the girl is probably ready for sex and marriage, as well as for adult duties in the household. Initiation rites on menarche include instruction on sex and marital relations as well as on menstrual management. This is conducted by older women. It is taboo to talk about menstruation with men, or to learn from one's own mother.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In some portions of South Asia, there is a menstrual taboo, with it frequently being considered impure. Restrictions on movement, behaviour and eating are frequently placed. According to a 2018 study, more than one-third of girls across South Asia do not go to school during menstruation.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: A small study in a rural area in Laos (Savannakhet) found that menstruation is considered taboo and shameful. This makes it difficult for sharing knowledge in schools and in homes. Also, there is a low level of menstrual hygiene management. This has a negative effect on the female's social opportunities in achieving good health, to move around freely and to go to school. Some menstruating women (16%) wear double-layer skirts (sinhs) while in the private sphere, compared to 54% who wear disposable pads.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In most part of India, menarche is celebrated as a positive aspect of a girl's life. For a name, in Andhra Pradesh, girls who experience their menstrual period for the first time are given presents and celebrations to mark the occasion.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In some traditional homes in India, girls and women face restrictive taboos relative to menstruation, such as being denied entry to the kitchen. In areas around the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, the belief is that "menstruation is a disease and not a normal biological process", and therefore women who are menstruating are not allowed to sleep on beds, enter kitchens, touch male members of their family or eat spicy foods.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In a 2014 study conducted in India, the researchers found that as many as 42% of women who participated in the study did not know about sanitary pads or the anatomical origin of their menstruation. The researchers noted that women reused old rags to deal with their menstrual discharge, and that "Most of them were scared or worried on first menstruation." 88% of menstruating women in rural India use alternatives to sanitary pads such as old fabric, rags, sand, ash, wood shavings, newspapers and hay.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Keddaso (also transliterated Keddasa, and also known as Bhumi Puje, and in Tulu as keḍḍasa ಕೆಡ್ಡಸ ), is popularly known as the "festival of worshipping Mother Earth" in the Tulu Nadu region of Karnataka in South India. It is believed that on this day, Bhoomi Devi undergoes menstruation and the day is celebrated holistically in Tulu Nadu. This is an important four-day festival celebrated in the closing days of Tulu month Ponny (Gregorian month of February).


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Sabarimala Temple is situated at the place of that name in Pathanamthitta District, Kerala. Women of reproductive age were not permitted to worship here, this ban being said to be out of respect to the celibate nature of the deity to whom it is dedicated, Shasta, an underage teenage male. A Kerala high-court judgement had legalized this interpretation, and forbade women from entering the temple since 1991. In September 2018, a judgement of the Supreme Court of India ruled that all Hindu pilgrims regardless of gender can enter. The Constitution bench of the Supreme Court held that "any exception placed on women because of biological differences violates the Constitution" - that the ban violates the right to equality under Article 14. This verdict led to protests, demonstrations and violence by millions of Ayyappa devotees (both male and female) supported by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and opposed by the LDF led state government. About ten women attempted to enter Sabarimala, despite threats of physical assault, but failed to reach the "sanctum sanctorum". Defying such protests, two women activists belonging to the previously barred age group associated with the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) finally entered the temple through the rear gate, on the early hours of 2 January 2019, with the help of police and local administration. When this alleged action was brought to the notice of the temple priests and authorities, the temple was closed for ritual purification. Controversy regarding the implementation of this verdict continues.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Assamese and Bengali Hindus adhering to Shaktism celebrate the menstruation of the goddess Kamakhya during the Ambubachi Mela (অম্বুবাচী), an annual fertility festival held in June, in Kamakhya Temple, Guwahati, Assam, India. The temple stays closed for three days and then reopens to receive pilgrims and worshippers. It is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in India, attracting millions of visitors each year, particularly for Ambubachi Mela which draws upwards of 100,000 pilgrims per day during the four-day festival. Before the temple is closed for Ambubachi, a white cloth is placed over the yoni (vulva) shaped stone in which the goddess Kamakhya is worshipped in the temple. At the end of Ambubachi, when the temple is reopened and Ambubachi Mela is held, the assembled devotees are provided with fragments of that cloth, now reddened to signify menstrual blood. This cloth known as Raktobostro (रक्तवस्त्र) is considered especially holy by Hindus since it has been stained by the 'menstrual blood' of Kamakhya, the Mother of the Universe.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Bali, a woman is not allowed to enter the kitchen to perform her usual duties, nor is she allowed to have sex with her husband while menstruating. She is to sleep apart from the family and has to keep her clothes that she wears while menstruating away from any clothes that she could wear to the temple. One of the most important regulations is that a woman is not allowed to attend temple while menstruating.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In Sumba, women keep their cycles secret, which makes men see them as deceitful. Women from Sumba believe that because of their secrecy, they will always have control of the men. "Men will never know how much we really can do to control these things. We have all kinds of secrets, and they should always believe that we can control even more than we really can".


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Women are supposed to avoid intercourse while menstruating. It is believed that sexually transmitted diseases are the results of women deceiving men and having intercourse while they are menstruating. Gonorrhea translates as "disease you get from women" in Sumba; it has become a social problem. When a man would get this disease, the only way they believed he could rid himself of painful sores was to pass it to a woman. The reasoning was that a woman's body can absorb infection and purge it during a cycle.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Hindus in Nepal traditionally keep women isolated during menstruation, when women who are menstruating are not allowed in the household for a period of three nights. This practise was banned by the Nepalese Supreme Court in 2005 but still continues. Community and organizational actions exist to combat the practice. In January 2019, local authorities demanded the destruction of chhaupadi huts in Bajura, the municipality in which a woman and her two young sons died in a hut. This resulted in the removal of 60 sheds, and the deployment of law enforcement to patrol for further removal.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: According to a 2018 study, two-thirds of girls in Sri Lanka received no information about menstruation before reaching puberty. The lack of education leads to many girls getting sick due to being ill-informed about their bodies and menstrual cycles. Not only this but also, at least one-third of girls missed school during their periods, due to a lack of toilets or pads being accessible to them.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Along with this, there is a ritual surrounding young girls, which starts with their first menstruation and ends with them receiving soft sex education. Throughout this ritual the girl can not be left alone, always having another girl with her, and if that girl must be away she leaves with the girl an iron axe to prevent spirits from trying to influence the girl in the ritual. This part of the process continues for three months after the completion of most part of the ritual, meaning the girl is potentially a woman before she receives any education on sex.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Traditionally, the Yurok in North America practiced menstrual seclusion. Yurok women used a small hut near the main house.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: A survey conducted in 1981 showed that a substantial majority of U.S. adults and adolescents believed that it is socially unacceptable to discuss menstruation, especially in mixed company. Many believed that it is unacceptable to discuss menstruation even within the family. Studies in the early 1980s showed that nearly all girls in the United States believed that girls should not talk about menstruation with boys, while more than one-third of girls did not believe it appropriate to discuss menstruation with their father.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: A 2018 survey of 1,500 women in the US showed that 60% of women feel embarrassed when they menstruate.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In 2017, Scottish MSP Monica Lennon began work to present an 'Ending Period Poverty' bill to government. In 2019 it was officially lodged and debated in Holyrood. It was approved in November 2020 and made Scotland the first country in the world to make it a legal requirement for period products to be available for free to anyone who needs them.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In 2019, the Government Equalities Office launched a Period Poverty Taskforce to research and end the problem of people who cannot afford menstrual products.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstruation education is frequently taught in combination with sex education in the US, although one study suggests that girls would prefer their mothers to be the primary source of information about menstruation and puberty. A Nigerian study showed the following breakdown in menstruation education: "parents of 56%, friends of 53%, books of 46%, teachers of 44%, internet of 45%, and health centers of 54" held the most influence in terms of menstruation education. Information about menstruation is often shared among friends and peers, which may promote a more positive outlook on puberty.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The quality of menstrual education in a society determines the accuracy of people's understanding of the process. This is in part due to the segregation of male and female peers during educational sessions. Failure to teach an accurate understanding of menstruation to students of all genders has social implications for gendered relationships and the objectification of women's bodies. Discomfort arises when students do not have access to the same information, reinforcing the belief "that menstruation is gross and should be kept hidden". Girls are encouraged to conceal the fact that they may be menstruating in order to be considered desirable. Sexual harassment and teasing about menstruation cause girls anxiety as they must struggle to ensure that they give no sign of menstruation.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Effective educational programs are essential to providing children and adolescents with clear and accurate information about menstruation. Several education and sexual health experts have studied the key features necessary for such programs. Some experts maintain that schools are an appropriate place for menstrual education to take place because they are an institution that young people attend consistently. Schools are intended to expand students' knowledge and thus serve as an appropriate site for conveying menstrual education.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Other experts argue that programs led by peers or third-party agencies are more effective than those taught in the school classroom. This may be due to the use of small group interactions, the ability of these programs to target specific populations, or the possibility that many teenagers choose to participate voluntarily in these programs, rather than being mandated to attend school programs.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstrual product advertising began in the early twentieth century. Early ads included print magazine campaigns from Tambrands Inc (Tampax), Kimberly-Clark (Kotex) and brands that have since been discontinued. Advertising for menstrual products outside the US began somewhat later, with SABA in Norway starting after the Second World War.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Historically, menstrual product advertising has had to balance frankness and information with taboos and censorship laws against discussing or showing menstrual themes. Educational pamphlets and school outreach has been an important way of marketing to young consumers during the twentieth century


title: Culture and menstruation

text: One common way that sanitary-product advertising avoids depicting menstruation is by pouring a blue, rather than red, liquid on the sanitary product to demonstrate its absorptivity. Historically, this has been due to strict censorship rules regarding menstrual product advertising.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In 2010, the "Always" tampon brand created the first feminine hygiene ad to ever feature a tiny red spot, representing blood. The ad was created by intern and artist William Chyr who was working at Always' advertising agency, Leo Burnett. Originally the ad was created for the intern's personal portfolio, but then it caught the attention of the chief creative officer at Leo Burnett, and was subsequently published as an actual ad. There was some controversy when the ad was first released. In June 2016 the presence of red blood in a UK Bodyform commercial was greeted with approval in social media for its attempt to challenge the stereotypical menstruation ad, by showing women who struggle despite bleeding from cuts, blows and bruises they receive while playing various sports. Later, Bodyform's owner's Essity launched campaigns featuring blood-like liquid in the campaign Blood Normal.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstrual art engages with menstrual themes, including blood, pain, menopause and menstrual stigma. Although not new in the twentieth century, a noted increase in artistic engagement began in the late 1960s, at the time of second-wave feminism, with artists including Shigeko Kubota, Carolee Schneemann, Judy Clark, Judy Chicago, Catherine Elwes, Marina Abramović, Gina Pane, Ana Mendieta, and later Orlan. Since the 1960s, artists have continued to take an interest in menstrual art. Menstrual art highlights different issues regarding menstrual joy, taboos and pain.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In 2015, artist Rupi Kaur was censored by Instagram for posting menstrual art series "Period." Kaur critiqued Instagram's position, writing: "Thank you Instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique... I will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be okay with a small leak, when your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women ... are objectified, pornified, and treated [as] less than human". Instagram later reversed their decision, and menstrual art has since flourished on this platform.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Art history has recently begun to explore this theme in art, drawing on a longer historiography of gender and the body in modern and contemporary art explored by feminist art historians, for example Ruth Green-Cole, Camilla Mørk Røstvik, Kathy Battista, and Bee Hughes.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The 2015 conference of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research sponsored a group exhibition, curated by artist Jen Lewis, which resulted in a catalogue. In 2020, Norwegian Museum Telemark Kunstsenter held an exhibition about menstruation named SYKLUS.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Movies and television also reflect the taboo nature of menstruation. Typically menstruation as a topic is avoided, except for scenes involving menarche, a girl's first period. For example, as Elizabeth Arveda Kissling explains in her article, "On the Rag on Screen: Menarche in Film and Television", the 1991 film "My Girl" contains a scene where the main character, Vada, experiences her first period. The explanation given to her by a female role model of what is happening to her is done off-camera and the subject is never mentioned again, save when Vada pushes Thomas across the porch telling him, "Don't come back for five to seven days."


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In the 1976 movie "Carrie", the title character has her first period in high school, and becomes hysterical in the gym shower believing she is dying. The other girls tease her by throwing tampons and sanitary pads at her. The gym teacher tries to calm Carrie down, and eventually must explain the concept of menstruation to Carrie (because Carrie's mother had never done so). When Carrie returns home announcing she's a woman and inquiring why she was never told about periods, her fanatically religious mother yells at her and locks her into a closet fearing that menstruation will bring men and the sin of sex. Later in the movie, her classmates mock her ignorance of menarche again by pouring pig's blood on her at the prom.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The 1979 novel "Endless Love" by Scott Spencer has a 20 page love scene in which menstrual blood is no barrier to the obsessive union of the couple.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In the 1991 Japanese animated film "Only Yesterday", one of the girls is found to be going through menstruation and is later teased about it, especially when a group of boys tell the others not to touch a ball she had touched by saying, "You'll catch her period".


title: Culture and menstruation

text: "Clueless", the 1995 cult-classic best known for its iconic fashion and memorable one-liners, contains one of the most cited period lines of all time. Protagonist Cher, when receiving a second tardy for being late to class, uses the excuse of 'riding the crimson wave' as her reason for receiving her second tardy.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In the 2007 movie "Superbad", Seth discovers menstrual blood on his jeans after dancing with a woman. He reacts with disgust, as do other men in the scene. The scene has been described by critics as “[encapsulating] the attitudes of disgust and shame associated with periods.”


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Netflix's "Big Mouth" features Jessi Glaser, played by Jessi Klein, getting her period for the first time on a school trip to the Statue of Liberty in season one episode two. As Jessi frets in the bathroom her male friend, Andrew Glouberman, played by comedian John Mulaney, finds her a menstrual product.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The 2018 Bollywood comedy-drama "Pad Man" was inspired by the life of social activist Arunachalam Muruganantham. As a newly wed man, he wishes to help his wife get better access to sanitary products after finding out that she has to live in separate quarters during her period. He works hard in order to create a low-cost pad accessible to every woman in India. His journey was chronicled by Twinkle Khanna in her fictional story "The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad".


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The 2020 film "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" features a scene that uses humor and irony to subvert taboos surrounding menstruation. In the scene, Borat and his daughter Tutar do a “fertility dance” at a debutante ball, and the audience is enthusiastic about the dance until Tutar lifts her dress to reveal she is menstruating, which prompts disgust and walkouts amongst the crowds. The scene was praised by writers for its satirization of common menstruation stigmas. As said by Lindsay Wolf of Scary Mommy, since society has “been conditioned…to basically pretend that periods don’t exist, putting them in the spotlight like [the film] did forces us to confront that 1) they happen, and 2) we need to get over it and stop treating girls like dainty little prizes who secretly have them.”


title: Culture and menstruation

text: More realistic and accurate representations of periods onscreen have increased with the number of women in production roles in TV and film, with notable examples including films "The Runaways" and "Turning Red", and the TV series "Broad City", "Orange is the New Black", "I May Destroy You", and "Yellowjackets". "Yellowjackets", a series which involves a group of female characters who must learn to survive while stranded in the wilderness, received praise for not ignoring the subject of periods in comparison to other survival dramas. In the fifth episode of season one, the series addresses the issue of the girls’ periods and how they must improvise in the wild with makeshift pads.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Though "Turning Red" does not explicitly address menstruation, it is used as a metaphor for a girl’s coming-of-age. The film sparked controversy amongst critics who thought the topic of menstruation was inappropriate to reference in a movie for kids, while others disagreed and emphasized the importance of normalizing a process that’s a part of growing up for girls.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: With the recent FDA approval of menstrual suppression medications, researchers have begun to shift their focus to the attitudes of American women toward their periods. One study in particular found that 59% of the women they surveyed reported an interest in not menstruating every month. Of these, 1/3 said they were interested in not menstruating at all anymore.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Anthropologists Lock and Nguyen (2010), have noted that the heavy medicalization of the reproductive life-stages of women in the West, mimic power structures that are deemed, in other cultural practices, to function as a form of "social control". Medicalization of the stages of women's lives, such as birth and menstruation, has enlivened a feminist perspective that investigates the social implications of biomedicine's practice. "[C]ultural analysis of reproduction... attempts to show how women... exhibit resistance and create dominant alternative meanings about the body and reproduction to those dominant among the medical profession."


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstrual activism (otherwise known as radical menstruation, menstrual anarchy, or menarchy) is a movement that addresses menstrual taboos. Overcoming this taboo is a point of contention amongst feminists. The primary argument behind this movement is that if menstruation is normal, there is no reason why the topic should be avoided: "After a while it becomes psychologically disorienting for women to look out at a world where their reality doesn't exist."


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The prominent rise of menstrual activism began with the rise of feminist spiritualist menstrual activists in the late 1960s. In 1973, a "Bleed In" was held by Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton, and Emily Toth, who believed that their shared menstruation experience merited discussion. The rise of early menstrual activism was prompted by rising cases of toxic shock syndrome due to unhygienic menstrual practices, which prompted responses feminists and menstrual activists alike. As such, a group of women gathered in Boston in the spring of 1969, calling themselves the Boston Women's Health Book Collective (BWHBC). The creation of this group allowed for an honest criticism of the way that women's health is discussed. This accumulated in the publishing of a manual called "Women & Their Bodies", which has been adapted and currently sells today under the title of "Our Bodies, Ourselves". Though the manual itself rarely discussed menstruation, it opened the floodgates for an honest criticism of the way women's health is discussed. In the following decades, women's liberationists called for pushback against the status quo. A primary vehicle for these messages were through art; in 1971, Judy Chicago created "Red Flag", a photolithograph, and a year later, an interactive art installation called "Womanhouse". Artistic expression transcended into national recognition, as evidenced by figures like Emily Culpepper. Culpepper released a short film in 1972 that featured menstruation images that detailed realities of having one's period. The fame generated from this piece made Culpepper the figure of knowledge surrounding menstruation for laypeople, and initiated her nationwide involvement with the BWHBC.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The height of second-wave feminism led to landmark changes during this period, including the establishment of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and literature that more directly addressed the existence of menstrual stigma.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstruation can be conceptualized as a stigmatized condition that both reflects and reinforces women's perceived lower status in relation to men. Feminist scholars extend this theory to explain negative attitudes towards women's bodily functions. Such stigmatization occurs when menstrual blood is viewed as one of the "abominations" of the body and reflects a gendered identity among women, which leads to consequences for women's psychological and sexual well-being.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Feminists such as Chella Quint have spoken against the use of shaming in advertising for feminine hygiene products. She created a zine, Adventures in Menstruating, to "help alter the visibility of menstruation, so that it's at least normal to talk about it. Because, right now, it's not". Other menstrual activists include Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, who published "My Little Red Book"; filmmaker and academic Giovanna Chesler, who created the documentary "Period: The End of Menstruation"; and artist Ingrid Berthon-Moine, who exhibited a video and series of photographs at the Venice Biennale.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstruation activism also starts to emerge in China in recent years. Starting from the breakout of COVID-19 in China, the grassroots movement provided free sanitary pads to diverse groups of women in China and aimed to remove the stigma of menstruation. Starting from donating menstrual products to Wuhan female frontline health workers in February 2021, the activism features the wider discussion brought by the Weibo (Chinese Twitter-like social media platform) hashtag package-free sanitary pads" in September 2021 and reveals the unspeakable pain of period poverty to the public. Following the campaign by the advocacy group Stand By Her on social media, university students set up "Sanitary pad help boxes" and provide free sanitary pads for potential female users over 250 campuses in China.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: At 16 years old, Nadya Okamoto founded the organization PERIOD, and wrote the book "Period Power: a Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement".


title: Culture and menstruation

text: New York Congresswoman Grace Meng has been a longstanding advocate for menstrual equity, and proposed the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2021 to Congress. Many women's rights organizations have endorsed this bill, including the Alliance for Period Supplies, Plan, Girls Inc., Human Rights Watch, and I Support the Girls in addition to their various campaigns that fight for destigmatization, free menstrual products, and more.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Activism roles have also been taken on by young Black women like the Brown sisters, who founded the organization 601 For Period Equity in response to the "white-washed" nature of many other organizations.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Blood from female menstruation has been used in medicines. In Chinese Daoist alchemy, menstrual blood from females who had not had sexual intercourse was used to make a substance to prolong an individual's life, called red lead (). The substance was taken by the Ming dynasty Jiajing Emperor and the abuses inflicted on the palace women to ensure the blood's purity led to the Renyin palace rebellion.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstrual synchrony is an alleged process whereby women who begin living together in close proximity experience their menstrual cycle onsets (the onset of menstruation or menses) becoming more synchronized together in time than when previously living apart. A 2013 review concluded that menstrual synchrony likely does not exist.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstrual products are part of menstrual culture, as they are prominent in shops, through advertising and through disposal methods (such as sanitary bins and bags). Throughout the twentieth-century applicator tampons like Tampax (Always) and pads such as Kotex were increasingly popular in the Global North.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: There are environmental costs of using menstruation products containing plastic and chemicals. As an alternative, companies are manufacturing reusable period panties, cloth menstrual pads, menstrual cups, biodegradable sanitary napkins and other eco-friendly products. Not all cultures use menstrual products, opting instead for natural materials or homemade options.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The term menstrual inequity refers to the disparities in affordability, accessibility, destigmatization, and safety of menstrual products. Furthermore, calls for menstrual equity expand into demands for reproductive justice, which includes the subtopics of education, support systems, and healthcare. Menstruation is a highly stigmatized biological process, to the extent that most women feel uncomfortable discussing their experiences. In the CBSN documentary "Period", New York Congresswoman Grace Meng discussed the complex feelings of shame that come with menstruation and how it contributes to gender inequality.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Beyond the perpetuation of gender inequality, the inclination to hide menstruation experiences contributes to the phenomenon of period poverty. Period poverty is defined as "a lack of access to menstrual products, education, hygiene facilities, waste management, or a combination of these", according to Medical News Today. In fact, 25% of women cannot purchase period products due to income limitations. Furthermore, period products cannot be purchased with government subsidies like food stamps, health spending allowances, Medicaid, or health insurance.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Menstruating is an expensive process, and thus difficulty in accessing period products disproportionately impacts low-income people. Especially with laws like the tampon tax and the lack of free menstrual products in most bathrooms, many are forced to miss school or work due to lack of access. One in five low-income women have reported missing work, school or similar events due to lack of access to period supplies.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: With regards to mental health, 68.1% of women experiencing monthly period poverty expressed that they were experiencing moderate or severe depression compared to 43.4% of women who experienced no period poverty.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In 2021, 51% of female students wore period products for longer than recommended. Overtime use of period products may lead to the onset of toxic shock syndrome, in addition to the chances of used pads and tampons having the ability to carry STIs. In a different study with low-income women, 64% of participants explained that they could not afford menstrual products in the previous year. Of these women, around one-third expressed that they resorted to other products like rags, toilet paper, and children's diapers.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these concerns, in a time when unemployment and financial insecurity has risen. In March, the CARES Act allowed for money from health savings and flexible spending accounts to be used for the purchasing of menstrual products.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice promised to grant every woman incarcerated in a federal prison menstrual products free of charge. Yet countless women are not housed in a federal prison, and go without access to period products keeping them safe and hygienic. 54% of women in prisons do not have access to sufficient period supplies, as they are forced to spend their 75 cent per hour wages at commissaries that charge up to 5 dollars for pads and tampons.


title: Culture and menstruation

text: Like many other health-related concerns, women's experiences are influenced by their race. Medical racism extends to discussions of period pain as well.