Introduction: Menstruation as Material

Excerpt

The varying meanings attached to menstruation, the stories we tell about it, the ways we manage it, and even how we experience menstruation differ depending on time, place, culture, and individual embodiment. But menstruation itself should seem self-evident. Menstruation is a biological reality, after all—a material fact, a fluid produced by the body that can be seen and felt, a reality that gives rise to a range of materials and products designed to absorb or contain it. And yet, as the chapters in this section show, despite its seemingly obvious materiality, menstruation must nonetheless be made to “matter.”