MÉTODOS DE ENSAYOS DE LOS PIGMENTOS

Menstruation is a socially acknowledged transition from childhood to womanhood, whereby the body takes on new social physiognomies and girls begin to enact and embody the symbolic meanings, and subsequent stigmas, that are associated with womanhood (Kelland, Paphitis & Macleod, 2017). Menstruation therefore has an important symbolic role in constructing femininity and it thus plays an important shaping identity construction, and informing gender roles and power relations. In line with this view, I sought to investigate the construction of social identities and associated gender power relations in the context of menstrual poverty in New Zealand. This context of scarce resources potentially disrupts the usual practices of ‘menstrual hygiene’ that are central to constructions of successful womanhood. The interest then was on young women’s gendered identity work in the face of a potentially identity tarnishing circumstances.

To achieve this, I interviewed eleven adolescent girls from two schools in Tairawhiti, using a semi-structured interview structure in which I pursued personal understandings of the participant’s experiences, while exploring how each participant perceived such experiences in relation to broader sociocultural norms associated with menstruation. Analysis of the participants’ narratives of menstrual stigma pointed to conflicting messages surrounding menstrual bleeding. Participants expressed powerlessness over their bodies and constructed a dualism between the self and the physical entity. The body is considered a place of both enabling and limiting freedom, as it provides the ability to express ourselves, but also

constricts us through requiring constant management of bodily functions – functions which may hold alternatively empowering or disabling associations (Kelland, Paphitis & Macleod, 2017). As discussed in Chapter 4, by asking participants to talk about their body at the same time as their experiences, I attempted to understand how girls construct and perform personal agency, in the matrix of society’s constraints on that agency.

Data were analysed following Bamberg’s (2004) and Riesman’s (2012) discursive approaches to narrative analysis, which involved identifying reoccurring discourses and positions presented by the interviewees in their talk, and then breaking down how the girls used these discourses and positions to create subjective identity portrayals of themselves. Participants had to negotiate these contradictory discourses in order to position themselves as supporting femininity ideals. Relevant literature highlights social norms of femininity as a key site for troubled identities in women, as failure to comply with the strict regimes of femininity results in stigmatisation (Bobel & Kissling, 2011; Bobel, 2010; Chrisler, 2011; & Fingerson, 2005). Data from this study reflected this consideration; participants were found to negotiate their identities by drawing on dominant discourses to create the self as an ideal and hygienic woman who successfully manages menstruation discreetly, while ‘othering’ those who fail to share the same ‘morality’ towards menstruation. Participants in my study maintained positive positions by naturalising menstruation, using similar discursive resources to those in Morison, et al.’s (2016) research, by reframing menstruation as a natural process.

At the broader societal level, the data indicate that dominant discourses and menstruation- associated stigma continue to support social and gender inequalities. I found the girl’s narratives demonstrated hostility towards their bodies, situating the women’s natural body as a place of fear and exclusion. Under the imminent threat of marginalisation, the girls portrayed their bodies as defective and in need of control – an expected position given the dominant norms projected onto the body (Kelland et al., 2017). Participants were largely unaware of the

social norms that restrict their agency, or of the methods through which they themselves reinforce menstrual oppression. However, when they did try to resist the menstrual oppression—by being more assertive, challenging, or speaking up about menses—they risked being positioned as uncooperative and angry, thus contravening norms of femininity. The participants therefore avoided displaying unfeminine traits to prevent being ‘called out’ as menstruating and jeopardize their identity. Likewise, they specifically ‘othered’ girls who were seen to elude menstrual etiquette, therein reinforcing public perceptions of menstruation. Further indicating that agency is severely constrained.

The data were not without contradictions or tensions. Girls simultaneously described menses as natural and intermittently feeling more adult when menstruating. Yet at the same time, they expressed concerns about hiding menstrual odours and sanitary items from public sight – an action that reflects a construction of menstrual blood as unnatural and invoking disgust. This double bind (natural and desirable vs. unnatural and undesirable) can be understood as an ideological dilemma, which was not necessarily resolved in any of the accounts, but rather glossed over (Edley & Wetherell, 2001).

Other unresolved contradictions also occurred in the narratives. For instance, girls positioned themselves as more knowledgeable than both younger girls and boys—who were positioned as naïve and immature respectively— on the topic of menses, despite also admitting to being inadequately educated on the biological process and experiencing increased discomfort at their own bleeding. Participants also rejected occurrences of menstrual poverty, however discussed distress at asking for sanitary resources and using alternative means to conceal bleeding - actions that infer participants have, in fact, experienced menstrual poverty.

The failure to resolve ideological dilemmas and inconsistencies suggests that the contradictions in menstruation discourse are precisely the method through which oppressive

power relations are maintained. Girls are confronted with many discrepancies in the messages they receive around acceptable ways to behave and they must navigate these through the most important times of their lives in terms of identity construction. The implications this has on girls’ everyday lives is that active choices must be made to self-present a successfully feminine identity.