I had my period. And when I read her chapter on the tampon-dioxin connection, Houppert had me so alarmed that I ran to the bathroom and yanked out my o.b. tampon, probably forever. Dioxin, a byproduct of the chlorine bleaching process at paper and wood-pulp mills, is found in most commercial tampons, such as Playtex, o.b., Kotex, Tampax. Menstruation, she says, is our last, unmentionable taboo. Society is still embarrassed by it.
Women continue to hide the fact that they're bleeding.
Just the mention of the word can make people uncomfortable. When I told people I was doing a story on menstruation, I got a lot of wrinkled noses and raised eyebrows from both men and women. She insists that the fact that it's not talked about seriously, or not talked about at all, is disturbing. Menstrual etiquette matters because women are being manipulated. The consequences are significant.