Blood, Silence, and Speech: A Narrative Inquiry into Menstruation and Gender Performativity

This study investigates how young women from diverse cultural backgrounds describe their menstrual experiences and how their linguistic practices around menstruation index (or signal) gender identity. Drawing on a feminist narrative approach, the research analyzes in-depth interviews with ten women aged 16–28 from five countries, all of whom have tertiary-level education and are fluent in English. The study examines the language choices, metaphors, silences, and stances through which menstruation is narrated, revealing how these discursive practices negotiate cultural taboos, psychological perceptions, and social expectations. Findings show that menstruation remains a globally stigmatized topic: participants often struggled to identify positive language for their lived experiences, while fluently articulating negative associations such as shame, impurity, and pain. The narratives reflected tensions between resilience and vulnerability and between menstruation as both a marker of womanhood and a site of exclusion. Cultural differences shaped menstrual restrictions and beliefs—particularly in religious contexts—but participants also shared common experiences of marginalization and economic inequity. Through subversive speech acts—such as rejecting euphemisms, educating others, and resisting concealment—participants reframed menstruation as a site of agency and identity formation. By carrying out a discourse analysis of menstrual narratives, this research contributes to the emerging field of critical menstruation studies. It underscores the significance of language in both reproducing and resisting gender norms and argues for the centrality of menstruation in feminist research as a bodily experience that must be spoken, theorized, and politicized.