Congratulations, You're a Woman Now!

Call for Submissions

A woman’s first period is a universal rite of passage. While it can be horrifying when it happens, it often becomes heartwarming or humorous when we look back at it years later. Whether our first reaction was a desire to bitch-slap an overeager well-wisher saying “Congratulations, you’re a woman now!” a desperate effort to figure out how on earth to insert a tampon, or an awkward struggle with the pretense that telling our father wouldn't really be dreadfully embarrassing, each of us has some sort of story to tell about our first period. Yet, even though we all went through it and many of us talk about it with our girlfriends late at night either in our PJs over hot cocoa or when we’re slobbering drunk, too many people still think it’s too “icky” to discuss. When will we overcome the stigma that surrounds menstruation and start looking at the humor that’s in so many of our stories?

The only books out there on menstruation are either primers offering cheesy advice and false cheer to young women, or serious scientific, anthropological, or cultural studies on women and the rag. Edited by Suzanne Reisman and Nancy Boren, Congratulations, You’re a Woman Now! will fill the gap with essays documenting women’s real life experiences. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wish you had this book when you had your first period, perhaps when you were convinced you were the only person who put her pad in her underwear sticky side up. We can’t go back and change our past, but we can look back at our experiences with humor and understanding. We can also offer support to those who are just crossing the river into the world of womanhood.

While stand-up comediennes routinely joke about their period sagas, and other women are laughing at stories on blogs, Congratulations, You’re a Woman Now! is going to take it one step further by allowing women to share their stories with the general public in print. We’re looking for humorous, heartwarming, and poignant submissions reflecting on how you felt and what happened when you got your period. We want to hear from women who suffered through it and women who celebrated it. We want to hear from those who look back on the experience with tears of laughter or just plain tears. Sharing these stories may remove some of the stigma around “the curse.” If you have a good story about your first period or any other menstrual debacle, you are invited to submit it.