“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”

—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Stigma is passed from generation to generation, teacher to student, and from parent to child. If parents are uncomfortable with the subject—if they banish it altogether or speak of it with thinly veiled disgust—children get the message that periods are repulsive and assume that people who have periods are repulsive, too.

— Anita Diamant, Period. End of Sentence

“Menopause doesn’t refer to the years after your period ends. Once those twelve period-free months have passed, you’re technically postmenopausal. It’s not a disease, nor is it the end of your life, not by a long shot. Given current longevity rates, the average postmenopausal woman can look forward to a good thirty years of life left.”

—Elissa Stein and Susan Kim, Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation