Distintos discursos socio-culturales operan en las sociedades occidentales, siendo estos discursos cambiantes donde se construyen diferentes normatividades. Pero a su vez, surgen y aumentan políticas menstruales que contestan dichos discursos hegemónicos; diversos entre sí, pero con una clara crítica de la biomedicina androcéntrica. Desde el marco de las epistemologías feministas de la salud, el ciclo menstrual, además de ser un indicador de salud, se convierte en espacio de reflexión y política que plantea diversos retos en el intento de superar las desigualdades sociales y de género.

El Sangrado Uterino Anormal (SUA) engloba todas aquellas alteraciones del patrón de sangrado menstrual normal. El SUA puede ser consecuencia de una enfermedad ginecológica subyacente y puede implicar un impacto negativo en la calidad de vida de las mujeres que la sufren. Se encuentra infradiagnosticado e infratratado debido a la falta de herramientas diagnósticas útiles, sencillas y validadas y debido a la normalización de los trastornos del sangrado menstrual tanto por parte de las pacientes y de los profesionales sanitarios. Otro aspecto para considerar es la falta de perspectiva de género en el desarrollo de nuevos fármacos. En este sentido, los estudios de seguridad realizados durante el desarrollo de la vacuna contra la covid-19 no incluyeron como reacción adversa las alteraciones del patrón menstrual.

La presentación se desarrollará en 3 partes: Un primer momento el origen de la colectiva y el porqué la menstruación tiene que estar como tema en la agenda pública, explicar conceptos de pobreza menstrual, gestión menstrual, derechos menstruales, sustentados con datos globales y de México. En una segunda instancia, se abordará los avances de la colectiva en la incidencia legislativa y de políticas públicas que se han tenido en México. Por último, se darán algunas recomendaciones de cómo ayudar a la erradicación de la pobreza menstrual desde el ámbito personal

During my fieldwork on menopause in Punjab, I have interviewed 25 women with natural and surgical menopause. I have also interviewed traditional healers and biomedical practitioners. My data suggests that menopause remains unmarked in women’s lives in Punjab. Middle aged women in Punjab are socially engaged with family issues like looking for suitor for their children, looking after elderly relative or financial burden that when they experience menopause they don’t find time to pay attentions to changes occurring inside their own body. It is not a cause of concern for healthcare providers because there are other health issues that needs more attention such as anaemia, tuberculosis and pneumonia. The Punjab government is highly focused on population control in order to meet the millennium goals of population growth given by international funders. There are massive campaigns to spread awareness on contraceptive methods arranged by government but next to nothing has ever happened on issues related to menopause. All these factors combined has resuted in invisibility of menopause in Punjab.

La menopausia es una etapa de la vida donde cesa la actividad ovárica. ¿Por qué las experiencias son tan diferentes de unas mujeres a otras? ¿Por qué para unas es prácticamente como una enfermedad y en cambio para otras es una etapa más? Haremos un recorrido de la menopausia desde varias perspectivas integrando los aspectos biológicos, psicológicos y sociales.

Ponencia acerca de la experiencia en relación a la realización de la película documental sobre sexualidad en la vejez de las mujeres: Viejas que hierven. Problemáticas comunes que suelen presentar las mujeres en la tercera edad vinculadas a la sexualidad y a la salud genital. Problemáticas sociales que suelen relatar las mujeres de más de 70 años en relación a la sexualidad y a los vínculos sexo-afectivos con hombres y mujeres. Cómo inciden los cambios corporales y hormonales en la tercera edad posterior al climaterio. La representación hegemónica de lo erótico en la sociedad y su relación con el cuerpo de la mujer a partir de la tercera edad.

Menstruation is a health marker for menstruating bodies. Disturbances in their menstrual cadence respond to physical, physiological, and psychosocial disruptions that threaten their health. The increasing incidence of menstruating bodies with pathological and disordered menstrual patterns in the last decades has forced clinical research to address hormonal changes as a potential factor hindering the health of the menstruating population. Yet, the data on the effect the ecological crises the world is undergoing could have in menstruating bodies remains insufficient. This paper will have as its main goal the formulation of a definition of health in menstruating bodies that acknowledges the impact of their menstrual cycle on their health. The definition postulated in this paper will suggest a definition of health that is differential, dynamic, and relational. The scientific data needed to provide this definition is, nevertheless, limited. In recent years, the lack of presence of menstruating bodies in research on clinical disciplines has been repeatedly pointed out. In a clear case of gender bias, clinical research has resolved to focus its efforts exclusively on normative male bodies, extrapolating to menstruating bodies results of studies that systematically exclude them from sample groups. This paper will call attention to the biased nature of the clinical research conducted to date, underlining the risks for menstruating bodies resultant from institutional recommendations and policies made based upon partially inaccurate investigations. The role of sex differences in the clinical domain, nevertheless, while understudied, remains undeniable, particularly when looking at the onset, incidence, symptomatology , severity, and prognosis of diseases connected to clinical factors that affect predominanctly menstruating bodies. The reduced nature of the body of research devoted to these pathologies has prevented the incorporation of sex-specific data into clinical practice and hindered any attempt of more accurate definitions.

This paper will defend the need for sex-specific clinical research, giving examples of diseases specific to menstruating bodies, illnesses whose symptomatology changes depending on the sex of the patient, and pathologies whose development varies due to the hormonal fluctuations menstruating bodies undergo. As a result, this paper will postulate that any formulation of a definition of health in menstruating bodies that acknowledges the impact of the menstrual cycle on their health should be differential. Sex differences are not, however, the only factor the negligence of scientific attention to menstruating physiologies may have obscured. Menstruating bodies do, in fact, present a remarkable variability throughout their lifetimes, depending on distinct phases of their lives (menarche, pregnancy, puerperium, menopause) and different phases of their menstrual cycle (early and late follicular phase, ovulation, early and medium luteal phase, premenstrual), as well as due to the consumption of exogenous hormones (hormonal contraceptives, hormonal replacement therapy, IVF or fertility treatments). In this paper, I will provide examples of the variability factors can have in menstruating bodies, depending on the aforementioned elements and the role some of them, such as the consumption of oral combined birth control, have in the catalyzation of illnesses. This paper will, as a consequence, postulate that any formulation of a definition of health in menstruating bodies that acknowledges the impact of the menstrual cycle on their health should be dynamic. Lack of data on menstruating bodies has also, ultimately, obscured the awareness scientific research has of the effects commonly used substances might have in menstruating bodies. These elements include, but are not limited to, elements recently defined under the umbrella term of environmental endocrine disruptors (EEDs), referred to as pollutant compounds interfering with the hormonal health of, particularly, menstruating bodies. Substances such as fungicides, insecticides, herbicides, solvents, plasticizers, and heavy metals have been, among others, added to the list of substances measurably compromising the health of menstruating bodies.

This paper will provide examples of incomplete research on the effects of EEDs and more recent studies on their impact of menstruating bodies. This paper will also postulate that, far from being defined in isolation, health is a transforming concept that is reshaped and determined by contingent and specific conditions that must be considered when evaluating the consequences of environmental changes, and that any formulation of a definition of health in menstruating bodies that acknowledges the impact of the environment on their health should be relational.

Thus, a differential, dynamic, and relational definition of health in menstruating bodies points towards a more sophisticated understanding of the interaction among organisms, their health, and their environment, where health is subject to an ever-growing number of elements within an ecosystem. The definition of health in menstruating bodies developed in this paper will be presented as an alternative to dominant discourses of public health and will appeal for programmes and policies that reflect the complexity of the system of interactions menstruating bodies are intertwined with.

This presentation will examine the way Turner Syndrome (TS) affects the social timing of menarche and puberty. It explores how families respond to a diagnosis of TS in childhood, and how they navigate providing support for a child who does not start periods or go through puberty without medication.

TS is a rare chromosome disorder affecting 1:2500 women; symptoms include slow growth, short height and infertility. Only 5% of women with TS can conceive without intervention. When girls are born, ovaries are either absent or non-functioning by puberty. Slow growth is treated with growth hormone, then puberty is initiated with oestrogen. Consequently, girls’ social timing misaligns with that of average girls, as these ‘paradigmatic markers of life experience’ (Halberstam, 2005) are delayed or controlled with medication.

In this study, Kafer's (2013) concept of 'crip time' is applied to show the multiple ways in which women and girls with TS managed, circumvented and normalised the timing challenges of living with TS. As their daughter’s social and physical development misfit with the socially expected schedule, in turn, mothers misfit with peers who had unaffected children and whose growth and social development hit the expected trajectories. This presentation shows how the practise of intensive mothering (Faircloth and Gurtin, 2017) shaped expectations of maternal duty and consequently, the pressure mothers felt they should plan for and manage their daughter’s development and future fertility.

This study used photo-elicitation interviews within a constructivist grounded theory framework to explore these issues in depth with 19 women with TS and 11 mothers of girls with TS.

En las sociedades occidentales, aunque los avances científicos están reconsiderando el ciclo menstrual como un factor relevante en la salud (recientemente el 5º signo vital), persisten aún narrativas disfuncionales que perjudican la salud mental y global de las personas. Son discursos socioculturales hegemónicos y androcéntricos que se transmiten, de manera intergeneracional, a través de mitos, creencias y atribuciones peyorativas sobre procesos biológicos como la menstruación o la menopausia que van a producir unos efectos nocivos en la propia vivencia, contribuyendo a perpetuar el tabú y, a su vez, a su invisibilización y medicalización (Botello y Casado, 2017, Blázquez y Bolaños, 2017, Beitia, 2018, Freixas, et al. 2009).

Estas narrativas tienen repercusión a nivel social, cognitivo y emocional, y esto se traduce, en primer lugar, en la relación con el cuerpo -conocimiento, gestión emocional, autoconcepto, psicosomática, sexualidad, autoestima…-; en segundo lugar, en la salud de las mujeres -cabe señalar que la elevada prevalencia del Síndrome Premenstrual, la Dismenorrea y otros malestares "silenciosos" e “invisibles”, son fruto de un conocimiento parcial y masculinizado de la salud del cuerpo de las mujeres, que no atiende a la morbilidad diferencial (Valls-Llobet, 2009, Barranco, 2013, García, 2006)-; y, por último, en las relaciones sociales y familiares, donde el (des)conocimiento de la ciclicidad juega un papel determinante en la calidad de los vínculos que se establecen en las relaciones afectivas.

En este trabajo, se propone un programa de psicoterapia integral con enfoque de género dirigida al acompañamiento del ciclo vital de las mujeres, así como a la prevención de problemas de salud, a través del counselling, el conocimiento consciente de los procesos naturales (ciclo menstrual, menarquia, menopausia...), el empoderamiento, el trabajo corporal, emocional y relacional, así como la transformación de las narrativas con fines terapéuticos (White y Epston, 1993).

Research has shown that bodies can be forces of social change even in instances of subordination and stigmatization. Within Taiwan, women’s bodies have historically been entangled in biopolitics and campaigns for modernization, while menstruation has been understood as both a mere physiological process separate from reproduction as well as a sign of pollution and female weakness. In this preliminary analysis of menstrual cup (a reusable, insertable menstrual technology) usage in Taiwan, I explore how the availability of this product, coupled with rising concerns about gender equality, women’s health, and environmental sustainability are challenging traditional notions about menstruation and women’s bodied. Similar to tampons, menstrual cups are classified as class II medical devices in Taiwan restricting importation, distribution, and advertising. Distributors and users of menstrual cups claim such restrictions are embedded within patriarchal policies aimed at controlling women’s bodies and sustaining their purity (i.e., hymen). Despite these restrictions, some cups have become legally available, while others are imported and sold illegally given increasing demand. As young menstruators have begun to engage with insertable products, some have created online platforms to share their experiences using their own bodies as cites of experimentation, while encouraging others to do the same. Their desires to experience a more comfortable way to menstruate are often couple with aspirations for more sustainable living and/or gender equality. These online spaces create safe learning environments and networks through which some menstruators can more easily discuss their periods and seek advice. For others, these spaces have encouraged them to more directly confront menstrual stigma and other gendered constraints in their everyday lives. This combination of bodily exploration through an insertable menstrual product and the willingness to share such lived experiences is ultimately working to transform menstrual taboos through and between menstruators bodies.