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What do the bloody spiritualists say?: Exploring menstruation advocacy and feminist frictions in Sweden
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS). UCGS .ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1032-8515
2025 (English)In: The European Journal of Women's Studies, ISSN 1350-5068, E-ISSN 1461-7420, Vol. 32, no 1, p. 20-35Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

While globally menstruators are increasingly receiving support through solidarity campaigns, the menstruating body remains an ambivalent subject in Swedish politics and feminist scholarship. Menstruation activists emphasise that periods are both a local and global political issue, urging menstruators to become more aware of how their bodily cycles impact them. This article aims to explore a selection of narratives on menstruation as a political and spiritual phenomenon and investigate the still residual ambivalence in the relationship between feminism and menstrual advocacy in a Swedish context. The study is empirically anchored in a campaign for menstruation awareness combined with interviews with feminist women about menstruation as an experience and as a cultural phenomenon. The campaign, here called PeriodPride, addressed different topics, such as body literacy and menstrual solidarity. Drawing on an ethnographic study combined with a narrative approach, three narratives have been identified: (1) the menstruating body as a ‘woman’s issue’, (2) menstruators in need, remembering period poverty, and (3) the forceful cycle, reclaim the value of bodies. These narratives elucidate the discursive complexity of menstruation advocacy, underscoring its entanglement with multiple frameworks of meaning and revealing some of the productive tensions inherent within Swedish feminist traditions.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London: Sage Publications, 2025. Vol. 32, no 1, p. 20-35
Keywords [en]
Feminism, menstruation advocacy, secularity, solidarity, Sweden
National Category
Ethnology Gender Studies
Research subject
gender studies; Ethnology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-234099DOI: 10.1177/13505068241312296ISI: 001396743000001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105001805940OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-234099DiVA, id: diva2:1927533
Projects
2020-01220/Vetenskapsrådet/Det är hormonerna. Kvinnor i transition genom berättelser om hormoner.
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 2020-01220Available from: 2025-01-15 Created: 2025-01-15 Last updated: 2025-04-29Bibliographically approved

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Berg, Linda

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