Challenging Menstrual Norms in Online Medical Advice: Deconstructing Stigma through Entangled Art Practice

Abstract

This article analyses three examples of online medical advice provided by UK based health websites on the topic of menstruation, and reflects on my artistic practice as a critical response to notions of menstrual normativity. The article considers to what extent these online platforms — now part of the cultural fabric of contemporary healthcare advice — sustain dominant Western cultural perceptions of menstruation. Through thematic and comparative analysis, the article explores how these texts reflect cultural discourses around menstruation through reinforcing cis and heteronormative standards, presenting menstruation as failed pregnancy, and as a largely problematic rather than positive experience. The article also reflects upon autobiographical and performative artworks as spaces developed alongside the analysis of the online medical advice texts, which propose and explore resistance to the social stigma still associated with menstruating.