Episode 014: Menstrual Activism & How Feminist Thinking Becomes Feminist Doing with Chris Bobel

The Days for Girls Podcast

Chris Bobel is a scholar of social movements, an author and a professor specializing in the intersection of feminist theory and menstrual health activism. She lectures on Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts, served as president of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and has helmed a wide range of groundbreaking literary works pertaining to the menstrual movement.

In this episode, Chris shares deep insights from her 20 year career in menstrual health advocacy and research – like how studying the body can provide a window into social hierarchies and norms; the consequences of corporate industry exploits period shame to sell products; and how the “pad promotion” approach to menstrual health is ultimately a byproduct of misogyny and capitalism. She also dives into two of her most noteworthy books, the beginnings of her career in social movement scholarship and much more!

Notable Quotes

“Studying the body is a window into hierarchies and marginalization and just generally the values that shape our everyday realities.”

“The body is…a messy place. It's a place of contradiction. The body itself is a site of power and pleasure and potential and peril. And so when you dig into understanding what we say about bodies, how we manage our bodies, whose value whose bodies we value more than others, I really think we can unpack how the world works in a lot of ways.”

“The language of menstruation is really bound by the vocabulary of sexism, and the grammar of capitalism. And what I mean by that is, we think about menstruation as a woman's problem to fix, it's her burden and it's her responsibility. Because it's rooted in this idea, this misogyny, of hating women and disrespecting their bodies, and how their bodies perform. And the grammar of capitalism, which is: the body is a problem to be solved in consumer culture.”

Highlights:

• How studying the body can give us insights into power, privilege and how the world works
• What it means to be a scholar of social movements
• How she came to combine feminist activism with menstrual health research
• How deeply menstrual stigma, secrecy and “the necessity of silence” are embedded in our cultural fabric - and how product marketers reinforce and capitalize on that shame to sell period products
• What inspired her book New Blood, which explores the menstrual activist movement in the global south – and key difference she’s found in low/middle vs high income countries
• The role of The Palgrave Handbook for Menstruation Studies as a helpful resource for all people in the MHH field
• The role of silence in perpetuating violence
• The consequences of media and society viewing menstruation through a narrow, capitalistic and misogynistic lens

Connect:

Email: [e-mail]

Twitter: @ChrisBobel

Resources:

Palgrave Handbook for Critical Menstruation Studies

Scholarly Anthology (Be Press)

Bio:

Chris Bobel is Professor and past-Chair of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA. She finds the body, especially the body on the margins, a rich site where social norms, cultural anxieties and political agendas come to life. As a scholar of social movements, she is curious about how feminist thinking becomes feminist doing at the most intimate and immediate levels. At the intersection of these interests lies menstrual activism with a research and advocacy focus that has sustained Chris’s interest for nearly 20 years.

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