Abstract
In this concluding chapter, I consider what lies outside MHM’s current discursive frames, including a link between menstrual health and reproductive justice and a privileging of local voices and local knowledges. I urge a reframe of the fundamental problem to focus more squarely on menstrual stigma and, accordingly, channel more resources to teaching menstrual literacy in what I call a 360-degree approach that engages not just the girl, as most MHM programs do, but family members, boy classmates, teachers, teacher trainers, community and religious leaders, health workers, government officials, NGOs, and product makers, as well as media, policy advisors, and funders. Quality menstrual health education, I argue, must be delivered by trained and trusted educators who teach the entire menstrual cycle as the fifth vital sign and gateway to embodied agency and decision-making across the lifespan.
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19 December 2020
The original version of the book incorrectly stated on page 304, “If the approximately 800 girls and women menstruating on any given day were body literate and empowered to make choices in their own best interests, the menstrual movement will have met triumphant success”.
Notes
- 1.
Anovulation occurs when the ovaries do not release an oocyte during a menstrual cycle. Thus, one can menstruate and be infertile. I think it is safe to say that most people do not know this. The assumption is that menstruation categorically signals fertility.
- 2.
Many menstruators themselves are keen to detach menstruation from fertility, not seeing the point of a period unless they are aiming to get pregnant, coupled with a persistent view of the body as malleable and demanding vigilant intervention. The popularity of cycle-stopping contraception is proof of this (see Mamo and Fosket 2009; Sanabria 2016; Hasson 2016).
- 3.
I know the challenge of ensuring representation of the Global South. I implicate myself here as someone who has failed to ensure the broadest possible participation. I have been involved in the planning of three international conferences for the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. We typically get many submissions from authors from Africa and Asia, but because our small, volunteer-run organization with few resources cannot afford to fund their travel, many of the authors withdraw their papers. Another example: When discussing a handbook of critical menstruation studies I am currently co-editing, Archana Patkar and I affirmed that it is essential the book not reproduce the same dynamic seen in so many publications, where the theory and methodology pieces are written by scholars of the Global North while the case studies are the only pieces written by scholars of the Global South, and a relative few at that. This bifurcation reinscribes colonial power dynamics where the thought leadership is primarily ceded to those in the Global North. We also discussed the importance of translating the book into several languages as resistance to the English language as the lingua franca of scholarly discourse.
- 4.
Full disclosure: I was one of the American presenters. No doubt, I am part of the problem.
- 5.
I reiterate a fundamental point I made on page 1: I recognize that not only girls menstruate and not all girls menstruate. The 360-degree model is intended to include all menstruators, regardless of gender identity, but because the gender-neutral term “menstruator” is not yet a part of the Global South MHM vernacular, I refer to (and graphically represent) girls in this model.
- 6.
However, these phases are altered, even interrupted altogether, with oral contraceptives (the pill) and long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) such as injections, the IUD (intrauterine device), and implants.
- 7.
The term “body literacy”—the capacity to “read” and understand the body—has fuzzy origins and likely was developed by several people unbeknownst to one another. Laura Wershler, longtime reproductive health advocate who began using the term in 2005, found that Tathapi, an Indian women’s and health resource organization, had been using the term since 2000 (Wershler 2012). Menstrual literacy is a type of body literacy.
- 8.
Interestingly, the women did not continue these traditions with their daughters once they immigrated (to Israel) (Mendlinger 2015).
- 9.
I thank Joy Lynn Alegarbes, who used this phrase during her presentation about Huru International’s impressively pathbreaking work reaching girls with disabilities (for the 6th MHM in Schools Virtual Conference). Following her presentation, Marni Sommer, conference organizer, facilitator, and global MHM expert, commented that teacher training is crucial and then remarked, “Teachers have been a little left out.”
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Bobel, C. (2019). Beyond the Managed Body: Putting Menstrual Literacy at the Center. In: The Managed Body. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89414-0_8
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