School attendance is an important part of socio-economic development. In South Africa school girls miss 25% of their education due to menstrual related issues. The menstrual cup is increasingly considered as a sustainable menstrual hygiene product for girls, and is included in programs for improving menstrual health. This study deals with menstruation in school environments focusing on a menstrual cup program in the North West province of South Africa. Twenty school girls have been interviewed about their thoughts and feelings of menstruation. Also investigated is how the menstrual cup relates to girls’ capabilities to attend school and what obstacles there are for girls’ school attendance. An intersectional phenomenological approach is used together with theories of stigmatization, capabilities and sexualization. The menstrual cup is shown as a way of avoiding the stigma as female students are teased about their menstruation when leaking due to insufficient menstrual hygiene products. Even though menstruation is considered normal, it should kept a secret, especially from boys. Girls’ capabilities improved as they were using the menstrual cup because they did not have to face the embarrassment of leakage. Economic capabilities are enhanced as the menstrual cup is distributed free of charge. Stigmatization and sexualization of menstruation and the female body is presented to affect how girls feel about their menstruation. Concludingly, the cup is not reducing the stigma but reducing the encountering of it. Social change regarding sexualization of women and stigmatization of female attributes must be done for the girls to have full human capabilities.

The thesis explores women's experiencing of menstruation and it compares the experiencing in two groups, one consisting of women who have attended women's circles, and the other of women who have not. In addition to experiencing menstruation, the thesis explores the women's circles themselves as a new social phenomenon. Data collected through interviews with ten women was analysed using grounded theory methods. Menstruation is examined on the level of personal experiencing as well as on the level of a social norm. These levels are seen to show mutual influence. To some degree, women adopt the social perception of menstruation, yet at the same time, it is their experiences and actions that form it. Therefore, women have the potential to change the social norms regarding menstruation. Women outside women's circles accept the social norm and experience menstruation passively. They consider not feeling well a natural side-effect and do not attempt to change it. Women who have attended women's circles counter the social norm and experience menstruation actively. They work with their experiences, both physical and psychological, while menstruating, and they actively adjust their surrounding conditions in order to feel better. KEYWORDS: menstruation, experience, women's circles, womanhood, taboo, gender

The major purpose of the study was to examine mood fluctuations associated with phases of the menstrual cycle. To assess the relative impact of the menstrual cycle on moods, other cycles hypothesized to influence moods also were assessed. Mood fluctuations in women and men were studied both prospectively and retrospectively to determine whether cyclic changes occur with the phases of the menstrual cycle, lunar cycle, and/or days of the week. Each participant (15 women using oral contraceptives, 12 normally cycling women, and 15 men) recorded their moods daily for 70 days (prospective data). A daily mean score was obtained for both pleasantness and arousal (each on a 9-point positive to negative scale). Mood stability/variability was recorded daily on a 4-point scale. At the end of the study, participants recalled (retrospective data) their mood over the previous 2 months for each day of the week and the phases of their menstrual cycle (women only). The focus on menstrual cycles was sucessfully camouflaged. Prospectively, there were no group differences and no menstrually-related mood fluctuations. The retrospective reports, however, indicated systematic bias. Women recalled more positive moods in the follicular phase and more negative moods in the premenstrual and menstrual phases than they had reported prospectively. All groups reported weekday mood changes — Monday lows and Friday/Saturday highs. Recollections of weekday mood fluctuations were similar to but more exaggerated than prospective reports. Prospective reports revealed no mood fluctuations over the lunar cycle. Together, these results indicate that stereotypes (both well- and ill-founded) influence recollections of mood, and are consistent with schematic processing theories. The importance for menstrual cycle research of obtaining information about positive as well as negative experiences, camouflaging the purpose of the study, collecting prospective data, and assessing results in the contexts of other cycles also is discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Orientadores: Ilza Maria Urbano Monteiro, Maria Yolanda Makuch / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-28T02:22:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Montalti_CamilaStein_M.pdf: 1208610 bytes, checksum: f81cceda9a4fdf6f5d2f94dfa9b3583b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: INTRODUÇÃO: Sangramento menstrual abundante (SMA) é uma queixa comum entre as mulheres e pode comprometer a qualidade de vida (QV), além de levar à diminuição da concentração sérica de hemoglobina (Hb), causando anemia e fadiga. OBJETIVO: Verificar a prevalência de anemia, taxas baixas de ferro e ferritina entre as mulheres com e sem SMA, e comparar a QV e fadiga em mulheres anêmicas e não anêmicas com SMA confirmada. MÉTODOS: Foram realizados dois cortes transversais em mulheres com queixa de SMA, entre 18 e 55 anos, atendidas no Ambulatório de Hemorragia Uterina da UNICAMP. No primeiro estudo, foi realizada uma revisão de prontuários das mulheres atendidas entre 2011 e 2014 e extraídos os dados sobre os sintomas e hemograma. As mulheres foram divididas em três grupos: SMA (n=160), sem SMA (n=45), confirmados pelo Pictorial Blood Loss Assessment Chart (PBAC), e SMA subjetivo (n=160) sem confirmação do PBAC. No segundo estudo, entre 2013 e 2014, as mulheres com SMA confirmado pelo PBAC responderam a uma ficha de avaliação, ao questionário SF-36, à escala de fadiga FACIT-F e realizaram hemograma. Foram formados dois grupos: com anemia (GCA) apresentando níveis de Hb sérica menor que 12 g/dL (n=24) e sem anemia (GSA) com níveis de Hb sérica maior ou igual a 12 g/dL (n=51). RESULTADOS: No primeiro estudo os níveis médios de Hb e ferro séricos estiveram em torno do normal e semelhantes nos três grupos, enquanto os níveis de ferritina sérica foram mais baixos no grupo SMA. As frequências de anemia foram 33,1%, 28,9% e 40% nos grupos SMA, sem SMA e SMA subjetivo, respectivamente, sem diferenças significativas. Da mesma forma, não houve diferença significativa nos percentuais de mulheres com níveis de ferro e ferritina séricos baixos. No segundo estudo, as médias de Hb, ferro e ferritina séricos foram significativamente menores no GCA. Apesar do resultado médio de ferro e ferritina séricos nos dois grupos estarem dentro da normalidade, a frequência de mulheres com ferro e ferritina séricos baixos foi maior no GCA. No questionário SF-36 não houve diferença significativa entre os grupos, com variação de escore entre 20 e 63 nos oito domínios. O escore da escala de fadiga FACIT-F também não teve diferença significativa entre os grupos (26,3 no GCA e 30,6 no GSA), mas no GCA o escore foi abaixo de 30, ou seja, apresentou fadiga grave. CONCLUSÃO: Estes resultados reforçam a hipótese de que a queixa de SMA deve ser valorizada, independentemente da anemia, uma vez que apenas um terço das mulheres com SMA apresenta Hb abaixo do normal. Como o SMA torna-se uma condição crônica em muitas mulheres, a anemia não chega a comprometer a qualidade de vida e fadiga, uma vez que esta já estava afetada pelo próprio sangramento excessivo / Abstract: BACKGROUND: Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) is a common complaint among women and may compromise the quality of life (QoL). It can lead to decreased serum hemoglobin (Hb) level, resulting to anemia and fatigue. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence of anemia and iron deficiency in women with and without confirmed HMB and to compare QoL and fatigue in anemic and non-anemic women with HMB. METHODS: Two cross-sectional studies were conducted with women with HMB complaint between 18 and 55 years old at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medical Sciences, UNICAMP. In the first study, we reviewed medical charts between 2011 and 2014 and data on symptoms and blood counts were extracted. Women were separated into three groups: HMB (n=160), Non-HMB (n=45), both confirmed by the Pictorial Blood Loss Assessment Chart (PBAC), and subjective HMB (Subj-HMB) (n=160) without PBAC confirmation. In the second study, between 2013 and 2014, women with HMB confirmed by PBAC completed an evaluation form, the SF-36 health survey questionnaire, the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F) scale and were evaluated by the blood count. They were divided into two groups: anemic (hemoglobin <12 g/dl; n=24) and non-anemic (hemoglobin ?12 g/dl; n=51). RESULTS: In the first study, mean serum hemoglobin and iron levels were similar in all three groups, while serum ferritin levels were lower in the HMB group. Frequencies of anemia were 33.1%, 28.9% and 40% in the HMB, non-HMB and subj-HMB groups, respectively, with no statistically significant differences. Likewise, there were no significant differences in the percentages of women with low serum iron levels or low serum ferritin levels. In the second study, mean serum hemoglobin, iron and ferritin levels were significantly lower in the anemic group. Although mean serum iron and ferritin levels were within the normal limits in both groups, there were more women with low serum iron and ferritin levels in the anemic group. The SF-36 questionnaire scores ranged from 20 to 63, with no significant difference between the groups. The FACIT-F score was also similar for both groups, 26.3 in the anemic group and 30.6 in the non-anemic group, however in the anemic group the score was below 30, ie, severe fatigue. CONCLUSION: These results give strength to the hypothesis that the complaint of HMB must be valorized irrespective of its association with anemia, since only 30% of women with HMB show low hemoglobin levels. HMB has become a chronic condition in many women, so anemia does not influence QoL and fatigue because the excess bleeding itself already affects these women¿s conditions / Mestrado / Fisiopatologia Ginecológica / Mestra em Ciências da Saúde

Tidigare forskning visar att menstruation påverkar kvinnors och flickors fysiska förmåga där undervisningen i idrott och hälsa inte är ett undantag. Problemen som lyfts är exempelvis att lärare har en negativ syn på menstruation vilket resulterar i att det inte berörs i undervisningen. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka lärare i idrott och hälsas konstruktion av menstruation och menstruerande flickor, hur ämnet påverkar menstruerande flickors deltagande samt vilka anpassningar lärare gör för att inkludera menstruerande flickor i undervisningen. Sex semi-strukturerade intervjuer med lärare som undervisar på högstadiet genomförs där arbetserfarenheten varierar lärarna emellan. Intervjuerna transkriberas, tematiseras samt analyseras utifrån Berger och Luckmanns tresidiga modell samt Hirdmans genusteoretiska begrepp: genussystem samt genuskontrakt. Studiens resultat visar att lärarna ser på menstruation som en naturlig process samt att de har en förståelse för hur och på vilket sätt menstruationsrelaterade besvär kan påverka flickornas deltagande i undervisningen. Resultatet visar även att lärarna upplever att menstruation används som en undanflykt av flickorna för att undvika deltagande. Slutsatsen är att trots lärarnas förståelse för hur menstruationsrelaterade besvär påverkar flickornas deltagande, upplever de att menstruerande flickor använder sin menstruation som maktmedel för att kringgå deltagande i undervisningen.

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The Sanitary Dignity Framework (2019) is a policy that aims to preserve and maintain indigent girls' and women's dignity during menstruation. In South Africa, the term “sanitary dignity”, can be equated to what the rest of the world recognizes as menstrual hygiene management (MHM). Sanitary dignity or MHM is centred around the provision of menstrual health hygiene products (MHPs) such as tampons and sanitary pads to anyone who menstruates and cannot afford to purchase MHPs for themselves. Limited of access to MHPs, water and sanitation facilities, and privacy make it impossible for vulnerable menstruators to achieve sanitary dignity. This policy excludes street-based homeless menstruators as it only makes provisions for those who have access to state-funded institutions such as; quintile 1, 2, and 3 schools, mental institutions, hostels, places of care, and prisons. Street-based homeless menstruators are marginalized twofold; they reside on the streets and they menstruate. This dissertation discusses how the social exclusion of street-based homeless menstruators within the Sanitary Dignity Framework strips them of their fundamental right to dignity by denying them access to the sanitary dignity they are entitled to.

Despite being a physiological phenomenon that impacts billions of womxn worldwide, menstruation has long been understudied. In this dissertation, we first explore the menstrual characteristics of nearly 380,000 womxn, as collected via a self-tracking mobile health (mHealth) app, Clue. We examine how variation in menstrual cycle length is related to volatility in other experienced symptoms, helping to debunk the idea that menstrual cycles should be 'regular.' We then develop predictive models for menstruation utilizing this dataset, demonstrating first how a fully generative model that explicitly accounts for the possibility that self-tracked data may be flawed in terms of reliability can both outperform baselines and aid in the detection of self-tracking artifacts (i.e., instances where a user supposedly did not experience a period event, but in reality forgot or otherwise neglected to track it). Finally, we explore a hierarchical, deep generative model for symptom tracking, where we utilize a deep neural network to learn per-user parameters for tracking and retain a mechanism for modeling per-user likelihood of adherence. We find that leveraging symptom data at the time series level allows us to predict occurrence of next bleeding and non-bleeding tracking events with high accuracy. This work demonstrates the great potential that large-scale mHealth data holds to better understanding menstruation as a whole, as well as the importance of treating such data carefully.

Syfte och frågeställningar Studiens syfte är att kartlägga kvinnors självupplevda motivation- och träningsprestation i relation till menstruationscykeln tre faser: tidig follikelfas (fas 1), sen follikel-ägglossningsfas (fas 2) och lutealfas (fas 3). Frågeställningarna är:  - Finns det några skillnader mellan menstruationscykelns tre faser för motivation före och under träning? - Finns det några skillnader mellan menstruationscykelns tre faser för prestation under träning? Metod Metoden som användes är en kvantitativ forskningsmetod där studiedesignen är en longitudinell kohortstudie. Kohortstudiens datainsamlingstillfällen grundade sig i menstruationscykelns tre faser: tidig follikelfas (fas 1), sen follikel-ägglossningsfas (fas 2) och lutealfas (fas 3). Urvalet baserades på fysiskt aktiva kvinnor med en naturlig regelbunden menstruationscykel som inte använde några hormonella preventivmedel. För framtagning av resultatet användes statistiska tester för att leta efter skillnader i faserna.  Resultat Resultatet i denna studie visar att kvinnor upplever en signifikant skillnad i sin träningsprestation i relation till menstruationscykelns olika faser, där upplevd prestation skattades högre i follikel-ägglossningsfas (fas 2) än i lutealfas (fas 3). Det fanns även indikationer på att kvinnors motivation under träningspass varierade över faserna, men statistisk signifikans kunde inte säkerställas. Slutsats Denna studie kan bidra till den kunskapslucka som finns inom självupplevd prestation i relation till menstruationscykeln. Träningsplanering kan utformas genom att kvinnor planerar sin träning utifrån när prestationen och motivationen upplevs som högst.

This thesis aims to understand the use of political messages as part of a branding strategy through a discourse analysis. The empirical material consists of two campaigns advertising female sanitary products; Always #LikeAGirl (2014) and Libresse Blood Normal (2017), with a purpose to understand the incorporation and the adaptation of activist and feminist discourse in these commercial campaigns. What happens to feminism as a political project and struggle when its key ideas and discourses are co-opted by market forces, and how this kind of advertising is used in the process of building brands.The theoretical framework consists of critical perspectives on Postfeminism, Counterculture in relation to consumer culture and Transmedia storytelling. The campaigns are understood in a Swedish context. In the analysis two nodal points are identified; Active/healthy femininity and Responsibility, where the subject positions within the campaigns and the understanding of the subject positions of the campaigns in a marketing context are explored. By formulating different (political) problems in their marketing, Libresse and Always has the discursive power to position themselves as part of the solution to the problem of girls and women’s low self-esteem. On one hand, the solution includes consuming female sanitary products or interact with the brand on social media. On the other hand this means that the brands position themselves as political actors, advocating women’s rights.