Take Your Taste Buds to

DINING + HER FLAVOR

WITH HISTORY

Atlanta Restaurant Honors Pioneer Female Aviator

Have a seat with history and take your taste buds to new heights with Hazel Jane’s restaurant. Opened in late 2019, the restaurant was erected to commemorate Hazel Jane Raines. Haven’t heard of Hazel Jane? Well, that’s ok. Raines was the first woman in the state of Georgia to get her pilot’s license and one of the first women in the country to fly a military aircraft during World War II. The restaurant honors her memory as a mini museum. Aside from portraits of the pilot throughout their walls, they also display copies of handwritten letters from Raines addressed to her mother from a book written by Raines’ niece. If you haven’t heard of Hazel Jane, you will know plenty about her once you enter and leave this restaurant.

While aviation influences are the most noticeable décor aspect of the restaurant, the establishment’s owners made sure to create an atmosphere that Raines would have felt at home in by including interior decorating styles of the 1930s and ‘40s. “We based the art around her when she was alive,” Davis said. “The styling inside is very art deco.”

Located in an area once called Airline Drive, the restaurant’s owners wanted to pay homage to aviation when choosing a name. “We went down the rabbit hole of [researching] female pilots that were here in Georgia and we came across Hazel Jane,” said Melissa Davis, Hazel Jane’s general manager.

If you’re hungry, the menu will take your taste to new heights. Hazel Jane’s menu is vegetable and wine driven. Some of the foods include olives, cauliflower, salad and tomatoes. The wine menu is aviation themed. Each month there is a new destination, which means there is a new style of wine for customers to partake in. The wine menu is also aviation theme, with sections called roundtrip ticket, international and domestic to showcase different wines from around the world.

Though the restaurant’s namesake was born on April 21, 1916, and died on Sept. 4, 1956, some of her family members still remain in the area. “Her family is still around the Georgia area, so we could reach out and ask for permission for naming the restaurant after her,” Davis said.

Raines’ memory lives on through women and girls who dream to touch the sky, but Hazel Jane’s restaurant is one establishment working double duty to keep her memory alive through education and delicious food. If you are ever in the Atlanta area and looking for an enriching culinary experience, add this spot to your to-do list. + HER FLAVOR

THE EVOLUTION OF VAGINAL HEALTH

How History Led us to Trendy Jade Eggs and Vajacials

Once a label often uttered with an air of fear or disgust, today’s feminism has gone mainstream. While the movement’s current popularity has brought with it a long list of positive things, like an increase of women holding political offices and the rise of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault, it has also created a world of feminist merchandising. The vagina has become an unofficial mascot of capitalist feminism. Printed on T-shirts, tote bags and enamel pins, everyone from Etsy sellers to major corporations have hopped on the vulva design trend.

A well-known leader of this movement is Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness brand, Goop, which has spearheaded a resurgence of trendy feminine hygiene products. From jade eggs that promise re-charged sexual energy and candles that allegedly smell like Paltrow’s vagina, the brand has re-framed the practice of holding one’s nether regions to high standards as an embrace of divine feminine energy. Other companies have followed suit, marketing activated charcoal vulva masks and vaginal steaming kits as pathways toward an ideal vagina. These products may seem like a new phenomenon, but where do they originate from? And, are the practices they promote really beneficial—let alone safe? For answers, let’s take a look at the history behind the world of feminine hygiene in the U.S.

ACCEPTANCE OF GERM THEORY Before the mid-1800s, frequent bathing was seen as unsafe, removing a natural layer of oil that protected the body from unclean water and substances. It wasn’t until experiments by Louis Pastuer and Robert Koch helped lead the popularization of medically promoted cleanliness that frequent washing became a cultural norm.

With this came an increase of gendered soap advertising. Female-targeted ads often portrayed their products as helping women achieve maximum beauty and occasionally

capitalized on their fears of turning off potential husbands with unpleasant body odor. These ads, though aimed toward women specifically, did not specifically promote vaginal cleanliness, but they contained similar themes that feminine hygiene advertisements would later adopt.

These same marketing tactics were applied in the 1910s during the rise in popularity of antiperspirant deodorant. Advertorials for early deodorant brands Odorono and Mum frequently alluded to women’s body odor preventing them from finding a man.

ORIGIN OF THE TERM FEMININE HYGIENE Believe it or not, the phrase feminine hygiene wasn’t created to have anything to do with vaginal health. After the Comstock Act of 1873 made the advertisement of contraceptives illegal, birth control products like Lysol—yes, the same Lysol you use to disinfect your kitchen counter—had to get creative when advertising their products.

“During the Great Depression, women were particularly desperate to not have children if they were unemployed and just economically could not afford them, and Lysol had been running an advertising campaign since the late 1920s [framing] Lysol as a way to prevent ‘problems in your marriage,’” said Melissa Blair, an associate professor at Auburn University who focuses on 20th century women and politics. “They use the term feminine hygiene, but they talk about it a lot in this context of strains on the marriage, so it's very clear to everyone what they're promoting Lysol for without them having to actually say it.”

As one could guess, Lysol wasn’t only an ineffective form of birth control, it was also highly unsafe if used too often. “Some women wound up using it over and over and over again or using it daily, and they wound up with chemical burns on their labia and their vagina,” Blair said.

Because of the vague wording in Lysol advertisements, the Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission didn’t do much about this problem. “They would say, ‘nothing in their advertising says that it's for birth control, so we can't do anything about it,’” Blair said. “The language around it was very carefully crafted to get around all of these laws.”

The popularity of Lysol went down at the start of World War II, when the draft of about 50 million American men ages 18 to 45 lowered the chance of pregnancy scares. But, that doesn’t mean the use of outlandish items as birth control ceased to exist. “You still even heard stories in the 1950s of teenagers using Coca Cola as a douche…just to try to prevent pregnancy,” Blair said.

MARKETING VAGINAL CLEANLINESS It wasn’t until the legalization of birth control in the 1960s that the term feminine hygiene transitioned from meaning birth control to our modern day understanding of the phrase. The term started being widely used for menstrual products, but it also referred to cleaning products like douches and washes. In the 1970s and 80s, douching advertisements capitalized on those same fears of turning off men present in early deodorant and soap advertisements. Paired with the widespread genital health scares of the HIV/AIDS crisis, these ads helped propel the sale of feminine hygiene deodorants to rise 21.3 percent in the late 1980s according to LexisNexis.

While sales in vaginal cleaning products rose, the backlash against them also grew. Feminists in the 1970s and ‘80s warned against using these products, instead advocating for more mild forms of cleaning like gently wiping with a wet

wash cloth. According to Blair, one of the most popular materials to come from this movement was the pamphlet turned book, “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” which was first published in 1970 by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, a small group of feminists who hoped to provide information on women’s health. Releasing eight revised and updated editions from its first release up to 2011, the book debunked widespread misconceptions about female bodies and vaginal health.

Since then, vaginal health products have cycled in and out of popularity. The popularity of vaginal douching began declining in the mid 1990s, with only 27 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 44 years old regularly engaging in the practice according to the National Survey of Family Growth. By 2006, only 12 percent of women in that same age group claimed to douche.

Though douching has fallen out of practice, other vaginal health practices have come and gone from the spotlight. Whether they be flavoured lubricants for oral sex or the tale of chugging pineapple juice to achieve a fruity vaginal smell and taste, the trend, though often changing in practice, has not fully gone away. + HER LESSONS

ARE TODAY’S PRODUCTS SAFE? Today’s vaginal health products market themselves as wellness tools, but are they really safe? According to Obstetrician Gynecologist Dr. Sherri Caplan, they may do more harm than good. Jade eggs, specifically, can bring some major health risks. “There is no evidence to establish safety or benefit from jade eggs,” Caplan said. “In fact, they can increase vaginal infections as they are porous and make it difficult to clean and sterilize. They can also cause pelvic floor injury as the vagina is not designed to hold continuous weight like the egg.”

Similar concerns are had about vaginal masks and vajacials (a.k.a. vulva facials). “Vajacials are not recommended due to risk of infection and risk of tissue injury increasing one’s risk of sexually transmitted infections,” Caplan said.

So, what’s the best way to maintain a healthy vagina? According to Caplan, the best way is to wash regularly with water and practice safe sex. “Our bodies are designed to naturally cleanse the vagina with our cycles,” Caplan said. “[Outside] chemicals, natural or otherwise, can eliminate normal and necessary bacteria, causing infection.”

Broadway Actress CAROLYN MIGNINI Shines Light on the Importance of Positivity

BY MELISSA LAWRENCE

Inspiration can strike at any time in many different ways, shapes and forms. Those who are able to embrace inspirational moments are simply inspirations themselves. Actress and former Broadway star Carolyn Mignini hopes to embody this as an actress through her persisting career and friendly personality, which she has been told is inspiring to others. As a willing mentor, the 72-year-old prides herself on being eager and willing to share her knowledge with those who hope to one day enter the realm of show business. If you’re looking for longevity, this woman may have the secrets! When her father introduced her as a 4-year-old to a remake of the “My Fair Lady” tape, Mignini developed a passionate love for the performing arts. At the age of 17, she won the title of Miss Teenage America, which she said gave her just the confidence that she needed to promote her image and showcase her talents. “…It was a game changer in a lot of ways,” Mignini said.

After a year of promoting her win, the actress received a scholarship to attend both the Boston Conservatory and the NYU School of the Arts, where she perfected her singing and acting skills with the help of instructors such as Olympia Dukakis and Alan Miller. “Acting is an exciting, interesting possibility for personal growth, because you learn about these characters and you just do your work,” Mignini said. “I mean, I came in [to school] with a pretty strong work ethic anyway from my family and life in school. But I [also] had some amazing teachers [such as] Alan Miller [and] Lloyd Richards. Olympia Dukakis was [also] one of my teachers [at] NYU. Yeah, and they [came] in and they kind of [burst] my world open, [and] kept [me] learning new things.”

Having learned about the world of theatre from some of the most prominent names in the field, Mignini was given the opportunity to make her Broadway debut as one of the daughters in “Fiddler on the Roof.” From there, she began making special appearances in shows and movies such as “Days of Our Lives” and “21 Jump Street.” She has even ventured into the millennial wonderland of YouTube, where videos are available of her singing at various venues.

“I have come to love film and TV because TV, the TV that I've done, is very much film,” she explained. “It's like film, you know it is shot so beautifully for HBO or Showtime. [I enjoy] the layering that you do as the camera gets closer to be subtler in the work and the expression of the emotion or whatever, because it's new for me to learn. Now, granted, I do a lot of it. LA and I have this feeling that even with drama—even with heavy drama—you always look for the places that have humor or irony or humanity, where it's not just the slam. And that really interests me.”

The Drama Desk nominee recently found herself on stage again in the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ “The Rose Tattoo” alongside Melissa Tomei. She also appeared in “What is Life Worth,” which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. “It's like a calling,” she said. “I mean, it sort of chooses you, almost, and then you just commit to it. Right?” She promised that her secret to career longevity, besides talent and the ability to call on old acquaintances in the industry, was a positive attitude and the ability to make a workspace optimistic. She credits some of her success to the positive reinforcement she receives from other women in the industry that encourage her to persevere in the face of “noise”.

“I'm a mature woman,” Mignini stated. “So, [I will] hear a lot about there [not being] enough roles. I think right now is a great time for women in the arts, and I have just shut out the noise of the culture telling me that I might be half my prime [and that] I might not be viable. I know it’s funny. I think my best work is [ahead of me]. I think I still haven’t done the best thing [there is] to do. Yeah, it’s really something. You can take that one to the bank.”

“I think right now is a great time for women in the arts.”

Mignini sees herself as an optimistic person, so she feels hopefuly about the future of her career. Her positive attitude—a behavior that many of us should adopt—is actually what has been feeding her progressive career. “Of course, [every new year] we are always going to [ask ourselves], ‘Now what's coming? What's next?’” she said. “It feels really positive. I just feel like good things are coming in 2020. I mean, I tend to be optimistic anyway, but this is gonna be a good year.”

The singer/actress encouraged people in all walks of life to “find that thing that you see with joy and do it…on steroids. Just find that thing. Do it and, you know…find that way to be happy—to be alive.”