Researcher’s Reflection: Learning About Menstruation Across Time and Culture

Abstract

Mendlinger looks at the ethnically pluralistic society of Israel to explore how young women acquire the knowledge informing their health behaviors including those related to menstruation. Beginning with the origin story of her research agenda at a time of mass immigration to Israel, she then offers the main findings from 48 in-depth interviews with mothers and daughters that fall into several categories of mother-and-daughter dyads: native-born Israelis and those composed of immigrants from North Africa, Europe, the Former Soviet Union (FSU), United States or Canada, and Ethiopia, each bringing traditional knowledge and practices to bear on what it means to menstruate. Mendlinger’s work, anchored by the voices of women, vividly demonstrates that four types of knowledge: traditional, embodied, technical, and authoritative that are passed generationally from mother to daughter change through the immigration process.