Taking Charge of the Menstrual Cycle: Discourses of Menstruation and the Menstruating Body in Self-Help Literature

Abstract

Earlier research has shown that menstruation has often been constructed as a nuisance or a pathology in popular and medical texts. Drawing on poststructuralist discourse analysis of 10 contemporary self-help books on menstruation, 4 of which were chosen for further analysis, this article shows how approaches to menstruation in recent self-help texts diverge from these conceptions. Instead of portraying menstruation as something problematic, self-help texts represent the menstruating body as natural, manageable, and potentially empowering. However, by depicting relentless self-monitoring and self-care as routes to mandatory health and well-being, menstrual self-help texts also construct new norms of menstruating that contribute to individualized responsibility.