Menstrual Injustice: Listening to and Learning from Women’s Experiences of ‘Period Poverty’ and Menstrual Injustice in Newcastle Upon Tyne

Abstract

This PhD thesis seeks to explore the lived experiences of period poverty and menstrual injustice of women living in Newcastle upon Tyne. Drawing on qualitative research, including interviews with 38 working-class women and ethnographic observations from volunteering in a local foodbank, this PhD research illuminates the gendered and classed dynamics of period poverty and menstrual injustice. I seek to answer three research questions. Firstly, what are the barriers adult women face in accessing menstrual products and resources for menstrual management? Secondly, in what ways do women navigate this landscape of menstrual injustice? Finally, in what ways are women supported through this unjust socio-gendered and embodied landscape? I use the more common term period poverty as a starting point to explore the socioeconomic influences of women being unable to access or afford menstrual products to manage their periods. This money- and product-focussed understanding of period poverty develops into a conceptualisation of participant’s experiences as menstrual injustice. Period poverty is only one part of menstrual injustice. There are significant personal, political, and structural forces at play which create an unjust landscape for women to manage their periods comfortable. Through the frame of menstrual injustice, we see how access to money, materials, and space to manage one’s period is impacted by women’s socioeconomic status, gender-based violence, homelessness, changing living circumstances, and support networks. Significantly, this thesis highlights how women’s experiences of period poverty are more unjust and more complex than just access to money, which popular understandings of ‘period poverty’ suggest. I argue that with the intellectual concept of menstrual injustice, we broaden our understanding of period poverty as a complete absence of menstrual products to include intersectional experiences of social, economic, physiological, and gendered inequalities in relation to menstruation. Engaging in a feminist epistemology, I draw out answers to these research questions intimately from the data and lived experiences of participant’s lives. Focusing on their experiences gives voice to the neglected gendered social issue of period poverty and illuminates the wider menstrual injustices at play. From a feminist standpoint, I highlight the impact of period poverty and menstrual injustice on women’s lives. Using this data, I conclude with some reflections on how we can achieve menstrual justice for women across Newcastle and the UK.