Reviews

Period: The Real Story of Menstruation by Kate Clancy

pandact's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

I wish every book had this much intersectional feminism! It must be fun to talk to anthropologists and menstrual priming researchers because there's all kinds of queer disabled justice... I'm glad the Vox podcast Unexplainable mentioned Kate Clancy

batesbarb's review

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challenging informative fast-paced

4.5

smithmd's review

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hopeful informative medium-paced

4.75

eviemm's review

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

deyph's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative medium-paced

3.75

hammock_and_read's review against another edition

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5.0

When an anthropologist writes a book about something I’m interested in I read it but when it's someone I already follow I dive in! This one is one of those that will blow your mind at the same time you are cursing why things haven’t changed/been studied. She does it with care - science that talks about so many things that menstruating people never learn about.
I highly recommend this for everyone but especially with anyone that has a uterus. We have so few books on this topic and we need so many more! She also does a great job narrating the audiobook. PIck it up!

ninette's review against another edition

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3.0

My hopes for this book might have been a bit high, because I loved the Period Podcast and have been waiting for it to come out for years. But I should have known by now, that the research into these kinds of topics is still very sparse and still not getting funded as it should. I can only hope that all the books calling out this sorry state of affairs in the past couple of years are a sign of change. We can dream.

There is just one significant error I would like to call out, because it plays into unfortunate misconceptions that so many people already have. The period Clancy repeatedly calls the "early medieval period" is actually the the early modern period - the transition from the middle ages into the modern period. The sources she cites in this section do reference the late medieval and early modern period, so I do not know how such a significant error slipped through into the final book, but I guess that just goes to show how poorly informed and prejudiced most people are about the middle ages.

The description of the developments is actually fine enough. It's just the wrong label. Unfortunately, you see this all the time. People labeling all kinds of things medieval, when they're actually early modern. So while this section does make me cringe, I keep in mind that Clancy is not a historian and this is just an honest mistake. If you would like to learn more about attitudes towards women in the medieval period you should check out historians like Eleanor Janega [The Once and Future Sex] and Kate Lister [A Curious History of Sex].

madhamster's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

mitskacir's review against another edition

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DNF. Still interested in reading this, but the audiobook wasn't doing it for me. Maybe some day I'll get a paper copy and try again.

eamcmahon3's review against another edition

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5.0

Must read book. It covers a lot of topics related to periods, and it's extremely well researched and written