Issues of Blood

SOPHIE LAWS is Research Worker/Co-ordinator for Physical Disability Services for West Lambeth Health Authority. She has been a feminist activist for many years, with a particular interest in women's health issues, and is a founder member of the Trouble and Strife collective. She is co-author of Seeing Red: the Politics of Premenstrual Tension and Living with Sickle Cell Disease.

• Why does menstruation matter?; pollution, taboo and etiquette; "a sick joke" - male culture on menstruation; interpreting attitudes towards menstruation - is reproduction central?; menstruation and sexuality - new rules for old; gynaecology - one patriarchal mode of knowledge on menstruation; men's views of menstrual pain - a failure of empathy; mood change and the menstrual cycle - the meaning of premenstrual tension.