Anita Diamant, THE RED TENT and PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE: A New Chapter in the Fight for Menstrual Justice

[2:01]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Libby Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time To Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. If all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram ZibbyOwens and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Anita Diamant is the author most recently of Period End of Sentence, a New Chapter in the Fight for Menstrual Justice. She is a novelist, journalist, essayist, and the author of five guidebooks to contemporary Jewish life. She is most known well, I think her most known book is called The Red Tent, which was published in 1997, which I loved at the time. Anita was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Newark, New Jersey until she was 12 when she moved to Denver, Colorado. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in comparative literature and earned a master's in American literature from Binghamton University in Upstate New York. In 1975, she moved to Boston and began her journalism career, writing for the Boston Phoenix, the Boston Globe, and Boston Magazine before expanding out to Parenting, Parents, McCall's, and Ms. Her feature stories and columns covered a wide variety of topics from reported essays to first person essays and more. Her first book was The New Jewish Wedding published in 1985. And she wrote five other guidebooks, including The New Jewish Baby Book, Living a Jewish Life, Jewish Traditions, Customs, and Values for Today's Families, Choosing a Jewish Life, a Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and Their Family and Friends, sang Kaddish, how to comfort the dying, bury the dead and mourn as a Jew, and how to raise a Jewish child. The Red Tent came out in 1997 and was inspired by a few lines from Genesis. The novel tells the story of an obscure and overlooked character named Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob and Leah. The red tent became a word-of-mouth bestseller thanks to reader recommendations, book groups and support from independent bookstores. In 2001, the Independent Bookstore Alliance honored the Red Tent as the year's Book Sense Best Fiction. The Red Tent has been published in more than 25 countries, including Australia, England, Finland, France, Germany, and many, many more. In 2014, the novel was adapted as a two part four hour miniseries by Lifetime TV. Her second novel was called The Good Harbor. The Last Days of Dogtown was next. Then Day After Night, The Boston Girl, and that came out in 1990. Over the past few years, Anita has revised and updated three of her books about Jewish life, The Jewish Wedding Now, which is a new renamed edition of The New Jewish Wedding, and Choosing a Jewish Life, the handbook about conversion to Judaism and saying Kaddish. She is the founding president of Mayim Haim Living Waters Community Mikvah and Education Center in Newton, Mass, a reinvention of the ancient Jewish tradition of Mikvah, ritual immersion in water. And today she's going to talk about her latest book, Period End of Sentence, and many other things. Welcome, Anita. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Period End of Sentence and the Red Tent and all the amazing things that you've written and done and all of it. Thank you. Glad to be here. Okay. So your latest book, Period End of Sentence, a new chapter in the fight for menstrual justice. I know this is based on the documentary which won the Oscar, and I actually started watching a bit of it just to, you know, see what it was all about. I definitely remember when it won the Oscar. Tell me how that became this book. Well, I watched it. I watched the Oscars,

[5:54]Anita Diamant: and I remember jumping off the couch when they won. I thought, wow. And I watched the documentary the next day. It's on Netflix. I think it's now on YouTube for people who wanna watch it. And I was very impressed. I had written about menstrual justice issues a little bit as a columnist. So it's a topic I was familiar with. Then I got a phone call from my agent saying that the people who had done the film were interested in having a book done, not about the same thing exactly, but in tandem, inspired by. And so I said I'd be interested in talking about it, and I signed on, and that's what kept me busy, thank God, through all of COVID.

[6:29]Zibby Owens: Wow. Did

[6:31]Anita Diamant: you start it right? Had you already begun, or what was the timing like? I had begun, but really kind of, one of my editors said gathering string, just really trying to figure out what the scope of it was, which is gigantic. Then COVID shut everything down, so any thoughts of traveling or doing a lot of in person interviews went out the window. So this was very much an internet and on the phone research book. So but it I'm glad I had it to do. I don't know what I would have done with myself otherwise. I'm sure you would have figured something out. I don't know. Guys know many books. I

[7:06]Zibby Owens: know you started this book by saying that so many people after the red tent came out, which by the way, I read and loved at the time. So hats off to you for that project, had said to you they wish they had a red tent. They wish they had a place where they could just go and sort of honor the rhythm of of their own body and just, you know, take a time out if you will. And of course, nothing slows us down, barely even childbirth these days, honestly. You know, I'm like, does anything slow down when you have kids? Not really. You know, the emails don't stop. So tell me about the feedback you got from that and how that has dovetailed into this project. I was always a little taken aback by people saying I wish I had a red tent because I immediately thought to me that was like going back in time,

[7:46]Anita Diamant: the red tent time that I I mean, I invented that red tent. That's not based on historical, archaeological fact. It's possible, it's not impossible, but I invented the way it happened and what happened inside the red tent and all that. Nostalgia for the ancient past gives me the creeps, to be honest. Any time before anesthesia and literacy and antibiotics does not appeal to me, or my choices. I'm not really willing to give up any of my choices. But as I think I said in the book that after doing all of this research, I realized it wasn't so much the literal tent, although people were kind of joking about they wished they had a place they could go. But it was really about wishing there was a way, more underlying desire for a way to honor the body and to acknowledge that women's bodies, that people with uteruses have different needs and that they are ignored, not acknowledged, and we don't either acknowledge them in any way. We have no method for doing that, nor do we really have the language to do that in a way that's meaningful. So I've sort of come around to understanding what that desire means, and I don't jump on people about it anymore. Well, that's good, I guess. No. I mean, I didn't jump on them. Would just joke. I would make a joke out of it. Don't want to live in a time before I would have been dead in the red tent giving birth to my daughter when I gave birth to her. So no nostalgia for that. Nor But is there nostalgia for us in Western civilization for such a place because they're really in our cultures, and not just Western, but in some Eastern traditions as well, there was no honoring the rhythms of the body that bleeds. I was really struck in the book that you said, I think the statistic was something like eight hundred million people are menstruating

[9:37]Zibby Owens: any at any given time Mhmm. Right now. Right. And yet there is such a stigma still attached and a whole shameful element to it. And even in the documentary, you know, girls are giggling and not willing to talk about it. And, you know, it goes into much more dire issues that happen as a result of having your period and menstruating or whatever you wanna call it. Both. Both. Both. Both. So I know you tackled why it's shameful given that half the population basically has this happen. What's like the two second root of that? Like, give us the the headline of why is this such a big deal? I mean, obviously well, I shouldn't say obviously anything. Why did this become such a big deal in our culture or in the world, really? Misogyny, patriarchy.

[10:21]Anita Diamant: Those are, you know, big words that cover a lot of a lot of theories and a lot of religious traditions and a lot of distrust and ignorance, actually, of what's happening in the body. But you know, we live in a culture Menstruation is called the curse still, although not so much in polite society. But when you say the curse, you're not talking about anything except menstruation. And if you say the curse, that means the people who are bleeding, who have periods, are cursed in some way. And people who are cursed are a danger. This is very subconscious. I mean, people aren't going around, oh, she's cursed, and if I go near her, you know, my hands will wither. But that is part of our Western tradition. And actually, it's not so old and ancient. A friend of mine told me that her grandmother told her that if she took a shower while she was menstruating, she would never have a baby. It's the twentieth century in America. So it's not a global South problem. It's not a problem of over there and out there. But the way we think about how women's reproductive systems work is with disdain, ignorance, discomfort at the very least.

[11:36]Zibby Owens: And people suffer as a result of that, sometimes in ways that are manageable and sometimes in ways that are really not manageable. Especially as you mentioned the poverty project and how period poverty rather, and how it can really I mean, to not the one quote you had from a woman who said she was using a towel because they couldn't afford pads. Right. Yeah. I mean, the whole thing, I mean, it's like really it's hard to imagine the scope of it really globally when you think about it. Right. And also what we can do as sort of a more or just what we all can do individually and as a society to help out people who are still struggling with that. And there's there are efforts on every possible level from high school girls collecting products to give to their local shelter and to the local food pantry where these products are always in demand and there are never enough of them, to recently Vermont, for example, just

[12:29]Anita Diamant: in the last week got rid of the sales tax on period products. And it's often called the tampon tax, but that's really a misnomer. It's every state, in many cities, charge sales tax, and they decide what they're going to charge it on. And in a lot of states, Viagra is not taxed. In some states, in Louisiana, Mardi Gras beads are not taxed, but tampons and pads are taxed. So they are taxed as luxuries, it's not necessities. So we have to stop thinking about period products as optional. It's not something you just are on a whim. Oh, I think I'll buy some, you know, some tampons today. I haven't I haven't bought any in a while. The cupboard is there. You you only buy them if you need them, so it's a necessity, and they should be in every single bathroom wherever you go. And if people who are listening, whenever you go into the bathroom in your library or your supermarket or your art museum or your best friend's bathroom, you should be looking for period products to see if they're there. And once you start putting that on your radar screen, you realize they're not there. There's toilet paper. Right? We're not walking around with toilet paper or paper towels to dry our hands, but this is not this is considered your problem, you know, your, you know, your issue. And if you run out, it's your problem. So And you stuff yeah. For people who feel inspired to help solve this problem, what would you recommend they do? Well, lots of things. One of them actually, when I started working on this, I went to the went to a local art museum and there were in the ladies room, there were baskets, one with pads and a little tampons, and I thought, wow. And then I realized I didn't have any on the on the vanity in my bathroom when when I have guests. And while I have very few people who visit me, who use my bathroom, who need them, the idea of putting them out there, I hope inspires other people to do that as well so that we normalize. This is on a very micro level, that we normalize the fact that half of the world at some point in their lives is going to have a period and they're going to need stuff, and we should be supplying them just as we supply toilet paper. So that's one thing you can do. Another thing you can do is support programs in your own city that supply products to people in need. You can support legislative efforts, which are happening everywhere, to get rid of sales tax on these products. And also, in the Massachusetts I mean, the Boston area. So the Massachusetts legislature is considering law to make sure that there are period products in all the schools, right, in every public school. And I think you can mandate them in private schools as well. And that means that a kid who needs a product and finds herself without something in the bathroom doesn't have to stuff toilet paper down her pants and panic. Nor does that person have to ask for a pass to go to the nurse, which sort of medicalizes this problem. And also what if the nurse doesn't have any? Because you know what? If the nurse has them, she bought them because it's not on the budget in school. So there are lots of things we can do as individuals, as citizens. We can support programs like the PADD Project, which is working to provide products and also education and also legislative change all over the world, including in The United States. So there's lots we can do as individuals and as groups of mothers and just groups of people as well. And once you get sensitized to it, you know, you're going to find it in the newspaper all the time. You're gonna you're gonna hear stories about this all the time. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[18:31]Zibby Owens: So how did you become a writer? Because you've written about so many you know, you've written a memoir. You've written which is like a collection of essays. You've written books like this. You've written historical fiction even even though you made it up. I guess it's still historical fiction. It's a story. No. No. It's historical all historical fiction is made up. I know. Okay. Based on a time I know. Yes. That was a stupid thing to say. I think it's back. I deleted it. I was just thinking, you know, you were saying how you had totally made up the red tent. So does that still count? But, yes. Yes. It counts. It counts. It counts. It

[19:01]Anita Diamant: says a novel on the front. You know? It's like, this is not fiction. This is not history. Right. Yes.

[19:06]Zibby Owens: Of course. And other novels as well. I have the Boston girl, and I had read what was the one about the girls the girls come home? Because day after night, there's last days of dog town Yes. And good harbor. They're five novels. It was day after night. Day after night. Yes. And, of course, all these Jewish books. And I have had now two Jewish weddings. In fact, my husband my second husband converted to Judaism. So I was really interested in your mikveh, the mikveh organization you started because I went to his mikveh, by the way, in New City. So I just wanted to know how you kind of got started, how you used your sort of Jewish identity to write a bunch of Jewish themed books and just writing in general? That's a big question. But, you know, take it where you want.

[19:45]Anita Diamant: Let's see. I was an English major, right, comp lit lit and English. Anyway, when I moved to Boston after graduate school, I kind of fell into journalism. It wasn't a goal. I had never taken a journalism class. I'd never taken creative writing class. I wrote a lot of papers. I learned to do journalism on the job, and I wrote a lot of long form journalism, which are sort of storytellings about a topic. And I really loved it. I loved writing for the public. I loved having an audience. I wanted to be an actress when I grew up, so I needed an audience. So this is my audience. My first book was The New Jewish Wedding, actually, because when I was getting married, I couldn't find a book that answered my questions. The books that existed were by Orthodox rabbis or by etiquette ladies, you know, how to match the tablecloth with matchbooks. Remember when there were matchbooks? Yes. Maybe you're too young to remember when there were matchbooks? I remember very well. Yes. Matchbooks. No more matchbooks. So what I was learning about Jewish traditions that people were kind of reclaiming from the past and making them contemporary were really beautiful and inspiring. So that was my first book. It was a nonfiction guide for contemporary people like me and my friends who didn't necessarily know a whole lot about their Jewish background, their Jewish tradition. And actually most of us don't know anything about life cycle events until it's our turn, right? So that was my first book. And then I wrote a second book because I had a baby girl, and there were really no books about how to celebrate the arrival of a Jewish daughter with the same kind of tradition and intention as given a boy. And my friends who were having boys and were having braces, but I didn't understand why or how could they make this meaningful. So and then I said, no more Jewish books. I don't wanna be typecast. But then I wrote Living a Jewish Life and Choosing a Jewish Life, which is about conversion, how to raise a Jewish child, and saying Kaddish, which is about death and mourning practice. Now I'm done. I'm done. Finished. There's nothing else in that department.

[21:36]Zibby Owens: Although I've updated them. They've had to I've updated the wedding book twice. I feel like you didn't you should have done a book on bar mitzvahs.

[21:42]Anita Diamant: Well, that needs a you don't need a whole book. There's a book on there's stuff on that. Okay. All right. Fine. I think that's up to individuals kind of in a way how they celebrate that. It's complicated. But I mentioned it in How to Raise a Jewish Child and Living a Life as well. So it's part of the life cycle. It's part of the life cycle. And then how did you get into fiction? Let's see. And I was doing journalism. I was writing for the Boston Phoenix and other national magazines. And I needed a challenge, so I thought I would try fiction. Nobody was asking me to write a novel. And I had just turned 40 and I really needed a challenge, so I thought okay. And I stole a story from the Bible like so many hundreds of other people before me. And because I write about untold stories, largely women's lives, I knew it would be something about women. So I started out thinking I would write a novel about Rachel and Leah and the conflict between the two first wives of Jacob and, you know, sort of what was really going on in that family. But I didn't have a plot, so I kept reading on until I found story Dina, is kind of a mystery because she doesn't say anything totally silent. To me that was kind of a doorway into it. So what was it like from her point of view? So I wrote this novel from her perspective, a very minor character in Genesis. And I spent about two, three years while I was working on Choosing a Jewish Life actually, and writing for local newspapers and working on this novel. It wasn't that easy finding an agent because historical fiction wasn't selling at the time, but it found its audience and it found a wonderful publisher. Women's reading groups and independent bookstores made it a bestseller, and I'm forever grateful for that. Support your independent bookstore and keep reading and buying books that your friends tell you are great.

[23:29]Zibby Owens: Have you ever done an event or had a conversation with Sumant Kidd? Because her book, The Book of Longing, is also based in the bible, but from a different perspective with sort of meeting. I don't know. I feel like the two of you would have a very interesting conversation. You know, I wrote that book so long ago. Yeah. It's it's very much in the rearview mirror for me. So I still get emails from people saying, you know, will you write another novel based on another woman in the Bible? And I certainly considered it, but, you know, it's

[23:57]Anita Diamant: a long time ago. So it's not present in my life the way it is in readers' lives. And I still get lovely emails from a lot from young people, high school students, who continue to find it. And and this is just remarkable, I'm humbled. It makes them feel affirmed in in their women's bodies as they grow up and in their agency as as female human beings. So that's always a terrific male to get. Oh, sorry to keep bringing it up. No, no, no. I really don't mind. I really, you know, the reason they called me to write this book, to write the period book, was because of the red tent, because the people of the PAD project knew the red tent, loved the red tent, and were moved by the fact that women who were menstruating were not ashamed that they were celebrating with one another. That sort of speaks to the goal of the movement for menstrual justice, that have to get rid of shame and we have to get rid of stigma and ignorance if we are going to fully come into our own as human beings. So what are you excited about now? What are you working on next? We'll see what happens next. I mean, I've spent the last few months talking to people about the book, which has been great. And there's always a fallow period in between, so I really couldn't tell you right now. I'm trying not to put any pressure on myself just yet. I'm having the summer. The post COVID on the beach, talking to people in person. I had dinner with two friends last night in a restaurant. You know, I'm living my life for a few months. Good for you. I love it. I love that. Okay. Last question. What advice would you give to aspiring authors? I think all writers give pretty much the same advice, which is read. Read deeply, broadly. Read from different traditions. Read from different periods in history. Read books in translation. Challenge yourself to read things that are hard. I get inspiration from other art forms as well. I want to say the theater is a big source of information, dance and just all forms of storytelling, theater and film in particular, they're sources of inspiration. So that's kind of it. I also think if you're writing and you're stuck, you should probably consider taking a class, not so much in part to learn technique and things like that, but also it's very lonely. Writing is lonesome, and it's very easy to talk yourself out of it. So it's really good to have colleagues and teachers and support and people who are kind as you work along your way. So I think that finding a communitywriting is so lonely and solitary that, I mean, some people are fine with that, but for a lot of us, it's really helpful to have kind of a cheerleading squad of some kind. And it's not fair to ask your spouse. Know,

[26:34]Zibby Owens: I I ask my spouse about all the things I write about. Well, do too,

[26:38]Anita Diamant: but it's like you can't feel bad. I know, it's like, how many times can you ask someone to read a draft, right? It's like, I try to wait. I wait until very late in the process to ask Jim to take a look at it.

[26:50]Zibby Owens: Awesome. Okay, well thank you so much Anita. Thanks for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. What a great title by the way. Can we your patience on that? Oh thanks, thanks. Appreciate it. Well, a great day, and thanks for all your contributions, though. Well, you. Thanks for having me on. You have a good day, too. Bye Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.