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A full event description can be found on the Broadly Conceived website.
Maria Tomlinson & New Directions in Critical Menstruation Studies: November Meeting
Tuesday 28 November, 7-8pm
Join one of the UK’s leading menstrual research scholars, Maria Tomlinson, in conversation with Broadly Conceived’s Jemma Walton.
Critical Menstruation Studies is one of the most dynamic and truly interdisciplinary fields, which is reflected in the career of one of its foremost practitioners: Maria Tomlinson.
After a PhD in French studies analysing the representation of the female fertility cycle – menstruation, birth and menopause - in Algerian, Mauritian and French literature, Maria changed disciplines and is now a lecturer in public communication and gender in the University of Sheffield’s School of Journalism, Media, and Communication.
Maria will be joining us to talk about her current research, which focuses on the impact of the menstrual movement on young people's knowledge and perceptions of menstruation and related health and social issues. The stigma that surrounds menstruation negatively impacts young people’s ability to communicate their menstrual experiences as well as inhibiting their access to period products, education, and medical treatment. Maria's research combines the analysis of British newspapers, social media (Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok), focus groups with seventy-seven 16–19-year-old students across nine schools, colleges and universities in Yorkshire, and interviews with 32 menstrual advocates. Topics include menstrual stigma, period poverty, misinformation, the experiences of transgender people who menstruate, environmental activism, endometriosis and PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder). She has also recently contributed to the development of the British Standards Institute’s Guide to Menstruation, Menstrual Health and Menopause in the Workplace.
She will be discussing her work with Jemma, who has just published an article, They are Not All Wolves: Menstruation, Young Adult Fiction and Nuancing the Teenage Boy, in the BMJ's Medical Humanities journal.
Maria's first monograph (a reworking of her PhD) is From Menstruation to the Menopause: The Female Fertility Cycle in Contemporary Women’s Writing in French (2021, Liverpool University Press). A review of the book, by Jemma, is available to read on The Polyphony. Maria's second monograph, The Menstrual Movement in the Media: Reducing Stigma and Tackling Social Inequalities (2024), is forthcoming with Palgrave and will be published open access. In collaboration with expert menstrual advocator and educator Acushla Young, some of the findings from this book have been turned into guidelines for activists and NGOs. This document offers advice on how to effectively communicate about menstruation with young people on social media. Both The Polyphony review and activist guidelines are recommended readings for this meeting.
This event will be of interest to researchers interested in representations of the menstruating body in literature, social media and culture; critical menstruation studies; and scholars keen to develop their knowledge of how to engage with a broad variety of audiences on health-related matters.
To attend this meeting, please sign-up to the Broadly Conceived mailing list. Event links will be sent to subscribers closer to the time.