SUMMARY At the end of the nineteenth century, medical paradigms of menstruation were located in a language of pathology and disability. Women were, therefore, perceived as incapable of competing with men in the world of education, work, and economics on account of their erratic and debilitating biology. This essay examines the challenge posed to this vision of menstrual disability by female medical practitioners in the early decades of the twentieth century. The new narratives of menstruation authored by these women not only re-cast normative menstrual experience as non-disabling, but were also formulated on the basis of canvassing the opinions of healthy schoolgirls rather than developing theories based on clinical contact with a minority of women defined as `ill'. Yet female practitioners remained tied to a culture of `menstrual discretion', thus perpetuating the secrecy and taboo associated with menstruation in the nineteenth century. This essay explores the tensions inherent in striving to overturn an oppressive medical model of menstruation whilst promoting menstrual discretion, and aims to place such apparent contradictions within the context of cultural notions of gendered identity and feminine sexuality
...More
Article
Stukenbrock, Karin;
(2008)
Der Krieg in der Heimat: “Kriegsamenorrhoe” im Ersten Weltkrieg
(/isis/citation/CBB001220567/)
Book
Vostral, Sharra Louise;
(2008)
Under Wraps: A History of Menstrual Hygiene Technology
(/isis/citation/CBB000831088/)
Article
Steinert, Ulrike;
(2012)
K. 263+10934: A Tablet with Recipes against the Abnormal Flow of a Woman's Blood
(/isis/citation/CBB001211308/)
Thesis
Bianca Zietal;
(2016)
The Genesis of Premenstrual Syndrome
(/isis/citation/CBB016052947/)
Article
Löwy, Ilana;
(2011)
“Because of Their Praiseworthy Modesty, They Consult Too Late”: Regime of Hope and Cancer of the Womb, 1800--1910
(/isis/citation/CBB001250083/)
Article
Brookes, Barbara;
(2006)
“The Glands of Destiny”: Hygiene, Hormones and English Women Doctors in the First Half of the 20th Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000930215/)
Chapter
Stolberg, Michael;
(2004)
Deutungen und Erfahrungen der Menstruation in der Frühen Neuzeit
(/isis/citation/CBB000670156/)
Book
Walle, Etienne van de;
Renne, Elisha P.;
(2001)
Regulating Menstruation: Beliefs, Practices, Interpretations
(/isis/citation/CBB000650738/)
Article
Gabriele Torcoletti;
(2024)
A Matter of Blood. Female Health and Impurity in Byzantine Medical and Canonical Discourses
(/isis/citation/CBB470349907/)
Article
Alessandra Scimone;
(2023)
Unum quoddam corpus nova facie formatum: Caspar Wolf e la composizione dell'Harmonia Gynaeciorum
(/isis/citation/CBB951192927/)
Article
Totelin, Laurence M. V.;
(2007)
Sex and Vegetables in the Hippocratic Gynaecological Treatises
(/isis/citation/CBB000830390/)
Article
Faraone, Christopher A.;
(2011)
Magical and Medical Approaches to the Wandering Womb in the Ancient Greek World
(/isis/citation/CBB001035042/)
Article
Fan, Tiequan;
Chen, Xing;
(2013)
The Ai You Association during the Republic of China
(/isis/citation/CBB001200173/)
Chapter
Monica H. Green;
(2019)
Recovering ‘Ancient’ Gynaecology: The Humanist Rediscovery of the Eleventh-Century Gynaecological Corpus
(/isis/citation/CBB519279997/)
Article
Cryle, Peter;
(2012)
Vaginismus: A Franco-American Story
(/isis/citation/CBB001250105/)
Article
Mitchinson, Wendy;
(2006)
No Longer the Same Woman: Medical Perceptions of Menopause, 1900--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB000930220/)
Article
Vincenzo Fai;
(2019)
An Evolving Profession: Obstetrics in Greek-Roman Antiquity
(/isis/citation/CBB598324733/)
Article
Gennimata, Maria;
(2009)
Die Rolle der Frau als Mutter aus der Sicht der Arkteia-Riten in Brauron und der gynäkologischen Schriften des “Corpus Hippocraticum”
(/isis/citation/CBB001032275/)
Article
Felitti, Karina A.;
(2007)
El debate médico sobre anticoncepción y aborto en Buenos Aires en los años sesenta del siglo XX
(/isis/citation/CBB000831361/)
Book
Green, Monica Helen;
(2008)
Making Women's Medicine Masculine: The Rise of Male Authority in Pre-Modern Gynaecology
(/isis/citation/CBB000932941/)
Be the first to comment!