Can you talk more about menstruation, mikveh and Mayyim Hayyim? Reclaiming the mikveh experience sounds like a step in the right direction. Mayyim Hayyim, the mikveh I helped found 17 years ago, can be seen as an example of using the past as a source of positive period thinking. But I decided to characterize it as a place of rest, community and sisterhood.

Most of what I found back then suggested that menstrual sequestration was a kind of punishment. I knew there were menstrual huts and tents in pre-modern cultures, but that was about all I knew at the time. The red tent of my novel was my creation.

Was the “red tent” of your novel purely imaginary or are there any ancient Jewish traditions that we can look to as we try to move toward a more period-positive culture? A big part of the problem is internalized shame - expressed in invisibility and silence - which seems to confirm that menstruation is a curse and that you are cursed. Imagine trying to concentrate in middle school when you’re worrying about staining your pants. For poor families who must choose between food and rent, period products are a luxury. where menstrual injustice is blatant and terrifying, like the adolescent girl who was being held at the southern border, who bled through her clothes and had to wait an unconscionable amount of time to take care of her basic needs.įor menstruators who are incarcerated, guards have exacted money and sex in exchange for tampons and pads. There are parts of the world where menstruation is seen as pollution and you have to wait it out in separate, often dangerous, conditions. When we talk about menstrual injustice, what are some issues that come to mind? Of course, they asked me because I wrote a best-selling novel that centered on women’s lives, where they considered menstruation a positive, normal part of life - a source of life. End of Sentence.” asked if I was interested in writing a book inspired by the film. I am not sure it’s a “natural progression.” I wrote the book because the creators of the Oscar-winning documentary “Period. What was the inspiration behind this book? It seems like a natural progression that you would come to write Period. The Red Tent is such a symbol of female empowerment. This interview has been condensed and lightly edited. I talked to Diamant about menstrual injustice, celebrating first periods, and how destigmatizing menstruation is a Jewish issue in more ways than one.

Diamant the red tent