1800s
menstrual slapping
During the 19th century, a custom in many Jewish, Slavic, and Lithuanian families was The Menstrual Slap. A girl's first period (officially called the "menarche") was marked by an immediate slap to her face by her mother.
The slap was meant to usher the girl into womanhood, and possibly to "slap some sense" into this newly fertile girl so she wouldn't become pregnant before she was married. So basically, the menstrual slap was the original form of abstinence-only sex education.
One of the gURL staff members received a slap when she first told her mother she had her period. "She slapped me on the face!" the staffer recalls. "My mom said 'That is so you remember that it hurts to be a woman!' I was like, well yeah, it hurts to be a woman if you MAKE it hurt by slapping me!"
