In our environment almost everything is probably contaminated with dioxin, but it might be worse for women. As Houppert calculates, five tampons a day, five days a month, for 38 menstruating years - that's 11,400 tampons in a lifetime. Despite her powerful polemic, Houppert sees red too often. She visits the Museum of Menstruation in Maryland, admittedly a pretty weird collection of period paraphernalia, but it seems merely hyperbolic to compare its owner-collector, Harry Finley, to Hannibal Lecter. And some of her statements are superficial and reductionist.
Blood is kinda like snot.
It's almost too silly to argue with. Intent on exposing the taboos, Houppert wants to pretend menstruation is like any other leak from the body. Perhaps if periods were seen to be special women would not feel the shame Houppert is lamenting. After all, periods measure time no less inexorably than does the waxing and waning moon. Such is the power of the period.