Four takes on Fertility Control at the 21st Biennial Conference of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research at The Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, June 4-6, 2015, Suffolk University, Boston
Image by Diana Álvarez
Not A “Real” Period: Redefining Menstruation and Reconfiguring Birth Control
Katie Ann Hasson, University of Southern California
Menstruation, as a “natural” bodily process, seems self-evident, despite a great deal of feminist work that has highlighted menstruation as culturally constructed. Yet even in this work, how menstruation is defined or what “counts” as menstruation is rarely questioned. Examining menstruation alongside technologies that alter it highlights these definitional questions.
I examine the case of menstrual suppression birth control as a technology that regulates menstruation, drawing on an analysis of medical journal articles and FDA advisory committee transcripts paired with websites used to market menstrual suppression to consumers. Across these contexts new definitions of menstruation converged on a distinction between bleeding that occurs when women are taking hormonal birth control and when they are not. This distinction was previously known but became newly salient as it helped to normalize menstrual suppression contraception. Redefining menstruation was an important step in reconfiguring birth control pills into menstrual suppression pills, and thus in reconfiguring co-constructed uses and users of birth control pills. This paper seeks to broaden a sociological understanding of gendered embodiment by attending to the co-construction of users, bodies, and technologies through processes of reconfiguration.
“Bringing Down My Period” – Metaphors Around Ending an Unwanted Pregnancy
Susan Yanow, MSW
Around the world, including in the United States, women are self-inducing miscarriage/abortion using medicines obtained via the Internet, friends, etc. While some women consider this practice “DIY abortion’” others frame it as “bringing down the period” or “menstrual regulation.”
This presentation will share information on prevalence of this practice in the U.S., legal issues, and the disproportionate impact of these restrictions on low income and rural women will be highlighted. Participants will be invited to consider what the role of clinicians and activists could/should be in supporting women who choose to self-induce to end an unwanted pregnancy.
“I would not recommend it to anyone.” – What can we learn from women who share their bad experiences with Depo-Provera?
Laura Wershler, Women’s Health Critic
In three years my blog post Coming off Depo-Provera can be a women’s worst nightmare, (re:Cycling, April 2012) gathered 900+ comments, many suggesting that the title was an accurate statement of experience for many women. A later post, Stopping Depo-Provera: Why and What to do About Adverse Effects, a Q&A with endocrinologist Dr. Jerilynn C. Prior, received almost 400 comments.
Analysis of these comments (excerpts to be presented) revealed four recurring themes: 1) Uninformed choice 2) Lack of body literacy 3) Feelings of anger, fear, regret, betrayal and solidarity 4) Frustration with health-care providers. I’ll present arguments as to why this contraceptive method, as currently provided, does not serve reproductive choice or justice and offer suggestions for criteria required to ensure Depo-Provera is a contraceptive method that respects informed choice, body literacy, and women’s well-being.
“I Won’t Have What She’s Having!” – Menstruation Suppression, Illusion of Choice, and the Lure of Posthumanisms
Diana Álvarez, Student, Texas Woman’s University
This paper explores why women choose to take menstruation cessation birth control pills and how this “choice” influences the way women view themselves. I am interested in understanding how the current cultural rhetoric on menstruation serves as a type of coercion for women to take these drugs. The analysis represents women’s eliminated cycles as a type of (dis)placing of the female body. Women are being convinced that the natural physiological occurrences of their bodies are at best inconvenient but at worst completely unnecessary and in need of elimination. Menstrual suppression will be discussed as a step towards posthumanism which as defined by Richard Twine is the “belief that the human race should be ‘enhanced’ using technological means.” I’ll address how the practice of not menstruating embraces a cyborg feminine identity.
Media Release and Registration for the SMCR Boston Conference.
