Essay
Good proposal 5 - Menstrual Invisibility
- Module
- SPS5034 Research Design
- Institution
- University Of Glasgow
Good proposal 5 - Menstrual Invisibility
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Investigating the Infrastructures of Menstrual Invisibility in ScotlandOverview
Menstruation is an often-invisible part of social life. However, it has become increasingly
visible and politicised through new research, public debates, and policy initiatives – e.g.
state-funded provision of free menstrual products in educational institutions as a response
to ‘period poverty’ (Newton, 2016; Coryton, 2019; Scottish Government, 2018). These
actions are important in equalising access and challenging the silence surrounding
menstruation. However, they rest on the assumption that disposable menstrual products
(DMPs) are necessary to manage menstruation – an assumption that carries significant
social and environmental costs.
The feasibility of DMPs is scaffolded upon complex and hidden infrastructures, involving
human labour and ecological consequences (Davidson, 2012). It also rests upon socio-
cultural notions that menstruation should be rendered invisible. This study explores the
material impact of DMPs in conjunction with the socio-cultural dynamics of menstrual
management, interrogating the infrastructures and meanings that underpin their
widespread use. It is driven by the overarching research question: What are the
infrastructures that support the use and disposal of DMPs and how do they operate to
render menstruation invisible? This is addressed through the sub-questions:
What do menstruators and sanitary workers perceive DMP infrastructure(s) to be?
What, if any, social and material infrastructures do they see as facilitating and
challenging the invisibility of menstruation?
How do they make sense of the social, infrastructural and environmental ‘costs’ of
DMP use?
This project builds upon my previous research into menstrual invisibility (Moffat and
Pickering, forthcoming) which addressed how social and material infrastructures support
each other but also break down. By exploring the infrastructures underpinning menstrual
invisibility, this project will provide critical insights into the consequences of challenging
period poverty through extending DMP use and into the intersections of social and material
infrastructural success and failure.
Context
A central theme within social scientific literature on menstruation in the West is that it
should be invisible (Johnson-Robeldo and Chrisler, 2013; Jackson and Falmagne, 2013). This
has its origins in the ‘civilising process’ (Elias, 1978), whereby bodily functions come to be
increasingly positioned ‘behind the scenes of social life’ (van Krieken, 1998:96), coupled
with an increasing association of women with ‘leakiness’ (Grosz, 1994). In contemporary
, Scotland, these processes are cultivated through ‘menstrual etiquette’: an intricate set of
rules dictating that menstruation must be hidden, concealing blood and the products used
whilst also concealing it discursively (Laws, 1990).
DMPs are the dominant method of menstrual management. Shail (2007:85) argues that
their widespread use is embedded in the broader ‘economy of disposability’ of commodity
capitalism. To promote mass consumption, emphasis on ‘hygiene’ redefined the relationship
between the body and material goods as one of waste production: using products became
‘using them up’, ensuring repeated purchases (Shail, 2007). The multi-billion dollar ‘feminine
hygiene industry’ offers a plethora of disposable ‘sanitary’ products, sold as the ‘solution’ to
the ‘problem’ of menstruation by facilitating women’s involvement in public life (Kissling,
2006; Mandziuk, 2010). However, surrounded by narratives of ‘hygiene’, the association
between women, leakiness, dirtiness, and – therefore – the private sphere is strengthened
through the need to conceal menstruation (Shail, 2007).
This literature provides valuable insights into the commoditisation of menstruation and
sustaining of gender inequality through menstrual invisibility. However, it neglects DMPs
themselves, as material objects, and the infrastructures facilitating their use. Davidson
(2012) addresses the environmental consequences of the ‘life-cycle’ of a DMP: natural
resources are extracted for production and packaging; carbon emissions are released during
transportation; and sewers and landfills can be clogged through their disposal. Davidson
(2012) and Shail (2007) together point to a need to locate DMP use within a wider, systemic
analysis.
Rendering menstruation invisible through DMPs requires material infrastructure (e.g.
dispensers and disposal bins in public toilets) and social infrastructure (i.e. menstrual
etiquette). My undergraduate research, forthcoming in The Sociological Review,
demonstrated that these infrastructures do not always work effectively. Women’s ability to
conceal menstruation was threatened when bins were absent or overflowing and when
dispensers were broken or un-stocked. Rather than complain, they resorted to hiding
bloodied tampons in their handbags or finding the nearest shop (Moffat and Pickering,
forthcoming). This suggests that rendering menstruation invisible socially intersects with the
material infrastructure required for menstrual management, reinforcing women’s exclusion
from the public sphere and, paradoxically, creating a situation where menstrual invisibility is
difficult to achieve. This project builds on this by centring DMPs and the infrastructures
underpinning their use and disposal. Doing so will illuminate the complex networks of
people and technologies involved in rendering menstruation invisible; the meanings
underpinning DMPs and these infrastructures; and their environmental and social effects –
including the work that menstruators must do to maintain invisibility in the face of non-
functioning material infrastructure.
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