Confidential Chats with Girls

by William Lee Howard

So she finally had to go to the doctor, who found a frightful state of things—one ovary ruined for life. For three years she remained an invalid, and the shock she received, added to the drugs she had taken, had made her one of those many unfortunate women which fill our land.

All heavy lifting is dangerous to the womb and ovaries during the growing period; therefore all the apparatus in the gymnasiums for testing the strength of arms and back should be avoided. Many a foolish or uninstructed girl has made herself a girl of muscles, but ruined her WOMANLY POWERS in so doing. Save all your strength and force for what Nature intended a woman to DO; don’t throw it away in doing gymnasium stunts. No real youth or man likes to see a girl do these things; his applause does not come from the heart, but only from the head. Such a girl may have strong arms in which to carry a baby, but the chances are some other woman will have to give her the baby to carry. Of course every girl should exercise, but it must be such exercises as is governed with her sexual organs ever in view. As an example, dancing is good recreation and exercise, but it should not be indulged in two days BEFORE the menstrual period and not until two days AFTER.

Another thing which affects the womb—retention of urine. That is, keeping the bladder full. Many girls have been brought up in such ignorance and under such false ideas of prudery that they will suffer pain from distention of the bladder rather than allow the slightest hint to escape them that they need immediate relief. This brings about not only a weakness of the bladder, which will in later life be very annoying and really embarrassing, but the pressure of a full bladder on the surrounding parts—the womb and its attachments—is apt to displace it and irritate it. Then again, a girl may be within a few days of her flow, and here the pressure of a full and hard bladder may set up an inflammation and bring on the period before its time. All this tends to start an irregularity, and when this irregularity is fairly established, the girl’s, and later on the woman’s, life is only an existence full of misery.

In fact, I think I am justified in saying that ninety per cent. of the women suffering from nervousness, hysteria, restlessness and pain, comes from the sexual organs being out of place, twisted, early inflammations and general lack of care of them from want of knowledge.

And it is so easy for a girl to grow into complete womanhood, full of life, good health and scarcely any unnatural knowledge that she has ovaries, womb or breasts. Most women to-day only know they have a womb from the severe pains and that “bearing down” feeling about which they constantly complain.

Please understand that in this CHAT we are only considering general and common conditions which injure all growing girls and result in miserable health in after life. I am only hinting about the errors due to ignorance which produce our hysterical women and childless wives. And I want to repeat this fact, that there is absolutely no reason for all this invalidism and suffering among women and girls.

The general rules I shall give you for perfect condition and good health must be followed by all girls and young women, but I shall have to devote some time to the special needs of girls who work in shops, large stores, factories and those who are brought into close intimacy with men in offices.

Those dragging pains in the small of the back so many suffer from during the menstrual flow, and those racking headaches, are not natural. The pains mean that the womb is dragging or else pulling upon its supports; that you need to rest and keep off your feet as much as possible. If you are a schoolgirl, you MUST stay at home and rest upon your back much of the time. There is no excuse for your not doing this. To force you to go to school to take an examination or make up a certain lesson is criminal. STRIKE! It would be a good thing if you all formed a union for the protection of your future health, and demanded your sex rights. Rest you should, and must, from all mental or physical excitement if you wish to be a woman who will be a blessing to those around her instead of a burden.

Which had you rather YOUR daughter should have, a certificate of perfect health, with the knowledge that when she marries she can become a mother without danger to herself and child, that she can remain happy in the nursery instead of miserable in the hospital, or a diploma stating that she can read French poetry and write an essay upon “Woman’s Career”?

Some of these statements you girls will have to read to your mothers. Then if prudery has blinded them to the truth, take the matter into your own hands. It is upon you, in the future, that depends the decent regulating of instruction in the public schools. The girl who goes to dances or any evening entertainment lightly clothed, low neck and short sleeves, while she is menstruating, as thousands do, will certainly land in the doctor’s hands or become one of those pitiful things, a drug fiend. And the drug habit starts from taking “some harmless thing” to ease the pains or stop the flow.