Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation

ProQuest, 2021

This dissertation identifies “the myth of menstrual danger” and its development in Western thought, and how this myth continues to contribute to internalized menstrual shame. In the West, female bodies, and particularly their menstrual bleeding, have long been sites of fearful patriarchal fantasies. Evidence suggests, however, that menstrual blood was revered as part of a Great Goddess tradition in Neolithic Old Europe. Yet in the West religious paradigms tabooed menstrual blood, constructing it as an existential threat to cosmic order and human civilization. At the same time, medical paradigms have and continue to pathologize menstruation. Even today, medical paradigms often present menstruation as a symbolic and sometimes literal threat to human, animal, and plant life, and purport that it may even be harmful for women’s or other menstruators’ health. Even more problematic, however, are modern menstrual discourses that convey to women and other menstruators that no longer menstruating is a liberation from their own body. Thus, the dehumanizing depictions of “the myth of menstrual danger” have been used to control women’s bodies, devalue women’s place in society, and contribute to women’s menstrual shame through a process termed “internalized sexism.” This dissertation concludes with a remythologization of the Mesopotamian story, “The Descent of Inanna,” and offers a new menstrual myth that more holistically embraces embodied experiences of menstruation and that allows us to celebrate our menstruating bodies.

In Nancy Napler, Renée Hoogland, Maithree Wickramasinghe and Angela Wong (eds), Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 2016

Anthropological literature reveals a widespread occurrence of ritual practices related to women’s cyclical bloodshedding, or menstruation, in cultures and religions throughout the world. Foremost among these are menarche (first menstruation) rituals; regular instances of ritual seclusion of menstruating women in special shelters, called “menstrual huts”; and ritual prohibitions and rules regarding food preparation, bathing, sexual contact with men, entrance to sacred places, etc., known as “menstrual taboos”. In order to convey the diversity of these rituals, this entry provides a few examples of each type of practice from a variety of cultures, including rituals in traditional settings, those prescribed by monotheistic religions and practices from New Age or Neopagan movements. Adopting a gender-sensitive approach, it highlights evolving interpretations of these rituals in terms of female subordination, power, agency, and creativity.

This reflection seeks to untangle the stigmatic ways we culturally frame menstruation. It explores the reasons why the FemCare industry and our contemporary culture position menstruation as abject and as embarrassment. It also offers contemporary strategies that can serve as activist modes of reframing the act and connotations associated with menstruation.

A discussion of the historical and ethnographic representation of menstruation and what theoretical issues affected and continue to affect how its is presented

'You don't like this blood? Well, too bad!' Alternative cultures of menstruation and the performativity of disgust, 2024

This article explores the 'performativity of disgust' as a feminist strategy that takes place in various instances of menstrual activism. The analysis is based on an ethnographic study in Spain, which focused on alternative politics and cultures of menstruation that question the negative hegemonic Western vision of menstruation. By analysing the debates around gender, feminism, and corporality that arise in this field, the article highlights alternative corporal and menstrual imaginaries. The article contributes to and extends critical menstruation studies by exploring how feminist activists who engage in menstrual politics produce an aesthetic of disgust by reappropriating the abject, and in so doing, question the politics of menstrual disgust and gender inequalities. Paying special attention to collective initiatives that take place in public space, viewed as a place of social transformation, the article sheds light on how challenging the notion that 'menstruation is disgusting' can help us question gender and social inequalities, and promote social transformation.

Renaissance, 2019

“Menstruation Across Cultures: A Historical Perspective” by Nithin Sridhar is an important book for several reasons, but I will mention only a few in this review. Instead of giving a chapter-by-chapter look at the key ideas from the book, my purpose and focus in this review is somewhat different. I wish to point out why I think this book must be read by all those interested in gender studies, and especially Indian women. While speaking of some important points covered in the book, my main purpose is to highlight what I think are some of the main contributions of this book, in two key areas: a) menstruation related discourse in India, and b) connection between culturally grounded understanding of menstruation and a woman’s sense of identity and self-worth.

The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies, 2020

Why do so many communities surround the process of menstruation with taboos? And, are all menstrual taboos created equal? I open this chapter with an anthropological approach to the nature of “taboo” itself. From there, the chapter explores the wide variety of ways that the Hebrew Bible in particular, as well as several other religious traditions, have shaped menstrual taboos (including, but going well beyond, the notion of a “curse”). Such taboos have operated in diverse ways and diverse places, hence this chapter explores how both individual women and whole communities may experience them differently, including offering less negative interpretations. As such, the chapter introduces readers to a striking diversity of menstrual experiences. Moreover, people and communities in both the Global North and the Global South increasingly challenge taboos with creative activism. The chapter concludes with a brief survey of what has become a menstrual movement.

Walking the Worlds: A Biannual Journal of Polytheism and Spiritwork, 2019

oved by an incident in 2015 involving women's entry into the Sabarimala Temple, author Nithin Sridhar found the issue of women and by extension menstruation to be at the forefront of religious controversy in India. In response, Sridhar pointed out, first in an article and now in this meticulously researched book, how this issue cuts to the heart of religion and religious piety. It is a theological question, one that involves issues of purity and taboo, foreign influence, discrimination, and the integrity of religious traditions, like Hinduism, under fire from an unsympathetic, largely secular, and very hostile media, both within India and in the West.

Ethnology, 2002

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

2006

Menstruation is often perceived by individuals of different cultural and religious backgrounds as dirty or impure, and therefore has become a demeaning feature of womanhood. The dialectical concepts of purity and impurity are integral parts of Islamic religion, thought and practice as they draw lines between those things sacred and those profane. Women's religious education, in particular, is critical in establishing positive reinforcement for their perceptions of their physical selves and their role in society. However, education in this manner cannot be limited to schools and religious institutions; family and culture are integral parts of a women's education about subjects relating to her menstruation. Through an investigation of Islamic approaches to menstruation, this paper attempts to asses the relationship between the realms of formal religion as presented through texts and educators on menstruation and societal cultural perceptions of the subject in Morocco. Rituals of purity become a critical indication, manifestation and tool of the discourse that are both followed and redefined by different women.