<p>Uppsatsen utgår från syftet att ringa in diskurser kring mens, och att utifrån poststrukturalistisk diskursteori granska hur dessa kan ses som performativt könande av den menstruerande kroppen.</p><p>Mensdiskurser ska förstås som tal om samt praktik kring mens. Dessa diskurser har jag försökt fånga genom att analysera vad som här kallar mensrådgivningslitteratur. Därutöver har fyra unga tjejer som fått mens intervjuats om hur de förhåller sig till och talar om menstruation och (sitt) menstruerande. Utifrån tre teman har därefter poststrukturalistiska teorier om diskursivt könande praktiker applicerats. Dessa har huvudsakligen hämtats från Bronwyn Davies (2003) resonemang om könade kroppar, samt barn som medkönande agenter. De teman som återkommer är ”Mens som utvecklingsberättelse”, ”Mens som förenande av kvinnor och uteslutande av män”, samt ”Att vara sist”.</p>

Uppsatsen utgår från syftet att ringa in diskurser kring mens, och att utifrån poststrukturalistisk diskursteori granska hur dessa kan ses som performativt könande av den menstruerande kroppen. Mensdiskurser ska förstås som tal om samt praktik kring mens. Dessa diskurser har jag försökt fånga genom att analysera vad som här kallar mensrådgivningslitteratur. Därutöver har fyra unga tjejer som fått mens intervjuats om hur de förhåller sig till och talar om menstruation och (sitt) menstruerande. Utifrån tre teman har därefter poststrukturalistiska teorier om diskursivt könande praktiker applicerats. Dessa har huvudsakligen hämtats från Bronwyn Davies (2003) resonemang om könade kroppar, samt barn som medkönande agenter. De teman som återkommer är ”Mens som utvecklingsberättelse”, ”Mens som förenande av kvinnor och uteslutande av män”, samt ”Att vara sist”.

The aim of this master thesis is to contribute to a deeper understanding of women’s experiences in regard to menstrually related suffering. These particular experiences are examined in relation to notions of normality and authenticity. The study designed for this purpose is based on the life world of women in order to explore these ideas. The visceral signs originating from within the body are generally understood to be undetectable when working properly. Such is not the case for many women who menstruate. The cyclical change in physical and mental states associated with the menstrual cycle provide an opportunity to study how going in and out of different ways of being in the world influence human experience. Thematic interviews were conducted asking ten women living in Sweden to share their experiences of suffering related to the menstrual cycle. A phenomenological approach with focus on the body was used to study how changing ways of being in the world contribute to the construction of illness and health. Beginning with discussions about their experiences of suffering revealed that women thought in terms of when they felt like themselves and when they did not. Organization of time was interrelated with how women understood their experiences. Emphasizing recurring negative experiences lead to contemplation about causes of suffering and comparison of different states of being. The lack of ‘one’s selfness’ due to what is commonly referred to as PMS represents the dilemma these women describe. The need to have control over the outward representation of one’s self is discussed in light of different medical technologies like SSRI antidepressant use and hormonal therapies which revealed that women saw the origins of their suffering to be a product of society but tightly connected to their identity as women and were not willing to be without a menstrual cycle. Phenomenological ideas about embodiment were used to understand how suffering was seen both as a sign of health and as a part of the self.

Background: Past studies suggest that inadequate energy intake (EI) is directly related to menstrual dysfunction (MD) in active females. Inadequate EI causes activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, disrupting the normal hormonal signaling of reproductive cycling and resulting in MD. However, studies have also demonstrated similar EI in athletes, but with different menstrual function. Traditionally, energy balance has been evaluated in 24-hour time periods. Recent research suggests there is benefit to analyzing energy balance at smaller intervals to better address physiologic response in real time. It is possible that women who meet their daily EI needs could still, therefore, experience MD if the majority of the day is spent in energy deficit. Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine whether within-day energy balance is a factor in menstrual status in active adult females. Methods: Twenty active females tracked hourly EI and energy expenditure over three days. A two-page survey was utilized to obtain information on training, health, and menstrual status. Participants were also asked to respond to several questions regarding eating habits and attitude towards food. Within-day energy balance was calculated and evaluated using NutriTimingTM software. Collected energy balance data were analyzed for associations with menstrual status. Results: Participants spent more hours in a catabolic state (energy balance less than zero) than in an anabolic state (20.5 hrs vs 3.5 hrs) and averaged a caloric deficit of -504 kcal over 24-hours. Nine subjects (45%) had experienced loss of menses for greater than 3 months (LoM>3mos), indicative of amenorrhea. Hours spent in energy surplus >400 kcal was inversely correlated with LoM>3mos (r = -0.463; P = 0.04). The impact of number of miles run per week and menstrual dysfunction, based on a quartile stratification of miles run, were analyzed using an ANOVA with Tamhane non-parametric post hoc test. Significant differences were found between the upper two quartiles of distance run per week and LoM>3mos (P = 0.048). There was no relationship between end-of-day energy balance and Lom>3mos. Conclusion: Researchers and healthcare professionals would do well to examine energy balance in an hour-by-hour manner as it is has implications for MD. This would help to clarify whether within-day energy balance is a factor in MD, and allow for the development of appropriate intervention strategies to improve health and athletic outcomes for active women.

Menstruation is a biological process, but it is also laden with cultrual meanings that produce society's understandings of both the body and "womanhood." The experiences of those who menstruate both reveal and inform the ways that culture mediates the relationships between biology, the body, sex, and gender. This study examines the ways that students at Scripps College, a women's college in Claremont, CA, understand and experience menstruation as part of living in an environment where the majority of students identify as female. Through ethnographic interviews, I demonstrate the ways that students use menstruation to re-envision distinctions between public and private spheres, to evaluate their relationships with other people, to gain knowledge about the body, and to question what it means to claim a female identity. The discourses of menstruation at Scripps reveal that although there is a dominant construction of the women's college as an "ideal women's space," in practice students continue to adhere to sociocultural restrictions placed on the menstruating female body, even as they attempt to create a more positive discourse.

In Western culture menstruation is considered to be a curse, an illness, or at least an aspect of feminine “nature” best suppressed. In this thesis I argue that the menstrual taboo has been oppressive to women. Through a closely reading of Sigmund Freud’s writing on femininity, I argue that Freud depicts a monstrous aspect of femininity, connected with the mother and female castration, which he believes must remain repressed. I propose that he is unable to detect a direct connection between female castration and menstruation, because he is himself unconscious of the operations of the menstrual taboo. / I draw on Freudian theorist Claude Dagmar Daly who critiques Freud’s negligence regarding the menstrual taboo, and pinpoints a “menstrual complex” at the heart of Freud’s Oedipus complex. In fleshing out the monstrous menstruating mother at the heart of the Oedipus complex I work with French feminist theorists Julia Kristeva, LuceIrigaray, and Hélène Cixous and trace this figure to the hysteric. Drawing on French feminist Catherine Clément’s writing on the hysteric, I reveal a marginalised space of feminine Nature that opens up in the splitting of the hysteric from the sorceress. I argue that the figure of the sorceress presides over an extremely important aspect of feminine Nature associated with women’s “blood magic.” / I use the term “blood magic” to describe a periodic magical power that is an aspect of feminine Nature, which has been repressed in Western culture. The roots of the term “blood magic” are in anthropological accounts of menstrual rituals. My use of the term Nature denotes the possibility of the expression of a femininity by women, where as “nature” is evidence of the colonisation of femininity by the dominant phallocentric culture in the West. A sacred space of feminine Nature that resides on the borders of culture cannot be accessed and returned to culture until it has been dislodged from the patriarchal depiction of menstruation as a monstrous threat to civilization. / I find that the hysteric provides an historical instance of feminine disorder linked to the sorceress that allows me to explore the domain of the sorceress and what I have referred to as “blood magic.” In order to develop this positive reconstruction of the menstrual taboo I draw on several case studies in which women’s menstrual cycles are ritualised for women’s empowerment. It is in relation to this sacred ritual space of femininity that I call for women to write their own feminine imaginaries, in connection with their menstrual cycles. Moreover, I argue that this constitutes the expression of an authentic account of female sexuality by women, which is dually the writing of a menstrual dialectic. Authenticity in these terms refers to the expression of the menstrual aspect of female sexuality by women. It therefore requires that women recognise the value of articulating the menstrual aspect of female sexuality.

Zugl.: Witten, Herdecke, Universiẗat, Diss., 2005 u.d.T.: Brehme, Sabine: Geschlechterspezifische Therapie venerischer Krankheiten und Einstufung der Menstruation in der Frühzeit der Homöopathie.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Univ., 2004. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Thesis (M.A. (Health Social Science))--Mahidol University, 2006. / LICL has E-Thesis 0012 ; please contact computer services.

Tübingen, Univ., Diss.,2007.