Lara Owen, HDR Candidate, Department of Management, Monash Business School, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Lara Owen has a background in Chinese medicine specializing in the treatment of women. Currently, she is researching menstruation in organizations and society as an HDR (Higher Degree by Research) candidate.

When and why did you join the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research?
I joined SMCR in 2016 to connect with community and to support the work of the Society.

How did you become interested in this work? Who or what influenced your interest?
Around 1979. I was influenced in the beginning by coming off the Pill and noticing the effects, by studying feminism at university, then by studying and practicing Chinese Medicine and learning about Native American teachings on menstruation.

How would you describe the work you do as it relates to the menstrual cycle, menstrual health-care provision, menstrual hygiene management or menstrual advocacy/activism?
I am a longtime activist and advocate for menstrual education and wellbeing, and for understanding the contextual nature of menstrual beliefs cross-culturally, highlighting where these are harmful. I’m the author of Her Blood Is Gold: Awakening to the Wisdom of Menstruation, first published in 1993 and reissued in an expanded and revised version in 2008. These days I work as an organizational consultant on menstruation and menopause in the workplace, give individual sessions on menstrual and menopausal wellbeing, teach occasional workshops and lecture internationally.

What is your work’s current focus? Are you working on a special project or working in collaboration with others?
I am doing postgraduate research on menstruation from political economy and materialist feminist perspectives. My current research interests are sustainable menstrual product use and menstruation in the workplace. I am part of a research group of around 20 critical scholars in Australia exploring areas of work, organizational and economic life that are often overlooked or marginalized. In my department, there is a developing focus on menstruation and menopause in the workplace, with two major menopause-at-work studies recently completed.

Where can visitors to our blog read or learn more about your work?
Blog readers can learn more about my consulting and teaching work at my website.

My book, Her Blood is Gold, was first published in 1993. In 2012, I wrote a piece on how the book came about.

What is the most interesting, important or applicable thing your menstrual-related work has revealed about women’s experience of menstruation?
That there’s a lot we still don’t know about the menstrual cycle. Although my current research is not focused on this, I am very interested in different states of consciousness and moods that women experience throughout the month and that appear to be somewhat predictable but that are utterly under-researched. While menstruating in a healthy woman is not an illness (in fact it’s a sign of health), it is a temporary, cyclical, and often subtly different state of being that, when recognized and taken into account, becomes a resource for rest, integration, creativity, and revitalization. My recent research findings concern how many women would like some time off when bleeding and why, and how using sustainable menstrual products changes the experience of menstruation and attitudes toward the body. More coming on these topics soon.

How has the field of menstrual cycle research or advocacy changed since you entered this area?
Massively. When I began, even saying the word “menstruation” in public was shocking to people.

What else would you like our readers to know about the value, importance or influence of menstrual cycle research, health-care provision or advocacy?
There is so much unnecessary suffering around menstruation, psychologically and physically. We can do so much better. Now we can talk about the matter more easily, I think we’ll see continuing systemic change in how menstruating women are able to navigate working life and family life without feeling they have to “grin and bear it” to get through. Also, modern lifestyles and pharmaceutical drugs may be increasing menstrual symptomatology, and we need much more research into the rising incidence of endometriosis and PCOS. I also think we need much better research into and education about hormonal contraception and its impact on a woman’s long-term health and fertility.

For information on becoming a member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research contact us by email: info@menstruationresearch.org. Subject line: Membership.