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Paper $14.95 ISBN: 9781786992628 Published June 2018 For sale in North and South America only
Cloth $95.00 ISBN: 9781786992635 Published June 2018 For sale in North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand only

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It’s Only Blood

Shattering the Taboo of Menstruation

Anna Dahlqvist

It’s Only Blood

Anna Dahlqvist

Distributed for Zed Books

Translated by Alice Olsson
160 pages | 5 x 7 3/4 | © 2018
Paper $14.95 ISBN: 9781786992628 Published June 2018 For sale in North and South America only
Cloth $95.00 ISBN: 9781786992635 Published June 2018 For sale in North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand only
Every day 800,000,000 people menstruate. Yet menstruation is still seen by many as a mark of shame. We are told not to discuss it in public, that tampons and sanitary pads should be hidden away, the blood rendered invisible. In many parts of the world, poverty, culture, and religion collide, causing the taboo around menstruation to have grave consequences. Younger people who menstruate are deterred from going to school, adults from work, infections are left untreated. The shame is universal and the silence a global rule. 

In It’s Only Blood Anna Dahlqvist tells the shocking but always moving stories of why and how people from the United States to Uganda, Sweden to Bangladesh, are fighting back against the shame.
Review Quotes
Ms.
“Simple, stark, and stunning all at once.”
Foreword Reviews
“It’s Only Blood is intimate, provocative, and often funny, shattering the stigma of menstruation for people all around
the world.”
Refinery29
“Journalist Anna Dahlqvist ambitiously sets out to explore menstruation on a global level, particularly where shame intersects with poverty.”
Iowa Gazette
"A marvelous blend of individual women’s experiences, activism, and academic research. . . .  A remarkable educational text for all genders, It’s Only Blood is eye-opening read."
Kiran Gandhi, musician, activist, and free-bleeding runner at the 2015 London Marathon
“A necessary contribution to the conversation on gender liberation. Dahlqvist masterfully moves between storytelling and frameworking how stigma holds menstruators back globally, while offering tangible solutions to many of these problems. A must read.”
Chella Quint, founder of #periodpositive
“An eye-opening and necessary book that will challenge your assumptions. Thought provoking, relevant, and sensitively written. If you want to know more and do more to end menstrual taboos, read it.”
Karen Houppert, author of The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo
“A wide-ranging exploration of the enduring taboos surrounding menstruation, taking the author around the globe. What she uncovers in this provocative and insightful book will make us forever rethink our ‘first world problems’ by putting periods in a global context.”
Mandu Reid, founder of The Cup Effect
“Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand and take action against the global consequences of menstrual shame, stigma, and taboo. An insightful and inspiring read that will challenge you to think and behave differently.”
Gabby Edlin, founder of Bloody Good Period
“Brilliant. It was frustrating to realize how much there is to be done, but also inspiring to read about these groups of women all over the world working bloody hard towards the same ideal: that periods do not need to stand in the way of an education, a future, or a good life.”
Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, author of Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity
“Only when we call out the unnecessary shame and stigma that surrounds periods can we demand meaningful change. Dahlqvist’s deft, compassionate storytelling, and her critical global perspective, are a tremendous contribution to the movement for menstrual equity.”
For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://www.press.uchicago.edu
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