Menarche universally triggers shame that mothers transmit to daughters

Evidence

Her first period exposes this meaning, and feelings of shame appear. If they existed already, they are confirmed and magnified from this moment on. All the accounts agree: whether or not the child has been warned, the event always appears repugnant and humiliating. The mother very often neglected to warn her; it has been noted that mothers explain the mysteries of pregnancy, childbirth, and even sexual relations to their daughters more easily than that of menstruation; they themselves hate this feminine servitude, a hatred that reflects men’s old mystical terrors and one that they transmit to their offspring. When the girl finds suspicious stains on her underwear, she thinks she has diarrhea, a fatal hemorrhage, a venereal disease. According to a survey that Havelock Ellis cited in 1896, out of 125 American high school students 36 at the time of their first period knew absolutely nothing on the question, 39 had vague ideas; that is, more than half of the girls were unaware. And according to Helene Deutsch, things had not changed much by 1946. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 744

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Beauvoir’s broader argument about woman-as-Other and how the body becomes an alienated object — builds toward the immanence/transcendence framework. — connects to: Becoming a woman is experienced as shame compounded by remorse over that shame — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 777
• DEFINE: The menstrual moment is where the girl’s body first becomes an ‘Other’ to her — core to Beauvoir’s definition of alienation.
• SEED: The survey data (36 of 125 girls knowing nothing in 1896, unchanged by 1946) is a striking historical thread about how mother-daughter transmission of bodily knowledge failed.
• CANDY: Mothers explain sex more readily than menstruation — a compact, surprising fact for conversation.

Broader Connections

• Becoming a woman is experienced as shame compounded by remorse over that shame #expands (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 777