Table Of ContentDuquesne University
Duquesne Scholarship Collection
Electronic Teses and Dissertations
Spring 2007
Te Bloody Truth: A Psychological and Cultural
Study of Menstruation as Lived and Experienced
by Women
Carolyn DeForest
Follow this and additional works at: htps://dsc.duq.edu/etd
Recommended Citation
DeForest, C. (2007). Te Bloody Truth: A Psychological and Cultural Study of Menstruation as Lived and Experienced by Women
(Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from htps://dsc.duq.edu/etd/472
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The Bloody Truth:
A Psychological and Cultural
Study of Menstruation
As Lived and Experienced by Women
A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty
of the Department of Psychology
McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
Duquesne University
in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology
by
Carolyn A. DeForest
March 23, 2007
Director: Eva Simms, Ph.D.
Reader: Michael Sipiora, Ph.D.
Reader: Anthony Barton, Ph.D.
The Bloody Truth ii
Acknowledgements
I have many thanks to give to my dissertation committee for their gifts of time,
wisdom, patience, and genuine curiosity about my topic. Foremost, I am indebted to Dr.
Eva Simms for generously agreeing to be my director on this project and for remaining
not only intellectually and practically insightful but continuously supportive and tolerant
of my ‘process’ throughout. Additionally, I am thankful to Dr. Mike Sipiora for his
energizing enthusiasm and his enviable ability to create coherence from great loads of
historical, social, and psychological material. Finally, I am grateful to Dr. Anthony Barton
for his unyielding support, guidance, and friendship, and for always being intrigued by
and willing to investigate the so-called ordinary or mundane aspects of human being.
Overall, I would like to express gratitude for all my opportunities to pursue what I
had imagined was off-limits to me- an education. Throughout this long haul, many
different individuals encouraged me- friends, community college teachers, co-workers,
bosses, even strangers, often reminded me to keep going and that what I was pursuing
was valuable. My sincere thanks go to Dr. Ann McColskey for telling me I was worthy, to
Dr. Daniel Herman for introducing me to Phenomenology and Duquesne University, to
Ruth and Gregg for making a life in Pittsburgh possible, and to Masami, Janine, Shizuka,
Cherie, Bobbie, and all my friends in animal welfare for their respect and friendship.
Thank you to Norma and Marilyn for shepherding me through my education at Duquesne.
Also, special thanks go to Amy and Andrea for making my participant search for
this project so much easier. Last, but not least, I want to express my appreciation to all the
women who participated in this study, each for sharing her own bloody truth.
The Bloody Truth iii
Abstract
The present research explores the negation and affirmation of menstrual life as
found in culture, theory, and the concrete experiences of individual women. A
phenomenological and hermeneutical thematic analysis is used throughout. In this study,
the aspects of culture analyzed include language, humor, art, television, film, literature,
print and television advertising, menstrual education, medicine, and some of the historical
influences in the perception of women. Additionally, the formal psychological literature
is examined as part of the cultural data, as are the researcher’s own observations and
cultural experiences.
Overall, this research reveals that the experience of menstrual bleeding has been
culturally ignored and negated since the beginning of history. Those who menstruate are
ignored and silenced, afforded less consideration as human beings, and are understood as
necessarily secondary and inferior to men. Advertisements for menstrual products, for
example, sell improved products to women but still push the same old messages of
shame. However, the research also repeatedly reveals a very small minority vision in
history, culture, and theories, where a more appreciative and validating view of menstrual
bleeding and women is expressed.
Additionally, the research explores the experiential meanings of menstruation
through protocol analyses of a sample of women. The findings demonstrate that women
unfold personalized, menstrual meanings through relationships with others while being
simultaneously influenced by the powerful bombardment of the silencing, tabooing,
negating, and inferiority provoking aspects of the cultural tradition. Despite this
(generally unnoticed or taken for granted) bombardment from the culture, in some way,
The Bloody Truth iv
each woman comes to terms with her own bleeding, changing, predictably unpredictable
body and finds her own sense of self within the culture and within her particular life. The
women develop over time a certain felt sense of identity with their menstrual self, which
becomes for some a kind of “friend,” a familiar ritual, which is something like a sweet,
interior secret, or, at least, as all say “a part of me – part of who I am.”
The Bloody Truth v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………ii
ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION and METHOD………………….……………………..1
Introduction…………………………………………….………………………………….1
Method…………………………………………………………………………………….4
Cultural Analysis….………………………………………………………………4
Participants, Questions, and Interviews………...…………………………………8
Comparison of Cultural Data to Individual Data…..…………………………….16
CHAPTER II: ANALYSES OF CULTURAL DATA…..………….………………...…17
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………17
Language…………………………………………………………………………17
Humor……………………………………………………………………………32
Music……………………………………………………………………………..46
Art………………………………………………………………………………..54
Television………………………………………………………………………...60
Film………………………………………………………………………………75
Literature…………………………………………………………………………88
Print and Television Advertising……………………………………………….113
Menstrual Education……………………………………………………………146
Medicine………………………………………………………………………..165
Historical Influences in the Perception of Women……….……………...……..203
Researcher’s Observations and Cultural Experiences…….………………...….221
Psychological Literature Introduction…………………………………………………..232
Psychoanalysts……………………………………………………….................234
Freud…………………………………………………………………....234
Deutsch…………………………………………………………………235
Bettelheim………………………………………………………………237
Horney…………………………………………………………………..239
The Bloody Truth vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS, CONTINUED
Developmental Theorists……………………………………………….............241
Erikson……......……………………………………………………..….241
Chodorow, Gilligan, Stone Center Authors…………………….............244
Existential Phenomenological Theorists………………………..……………...247
Merleau-Ponty…………………………………………………………..247
De Beauvoir…………………………………………………….............248
Irigaray……………………………………………………………….....253
Leder……………………………………………………………………254
Recent Phenomenological Research…………………………………………....256
Cultural, Anthropological “Blood” Authors……………………………………258
Psychological Literature Review Summary…………………………………………….262
Cultural Data Conclusions……………………………………………………...............264
CHAPTER III: ANALYSES OF PARTICIPANTS’ DATA…………………………...270
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..270
Relationships as Grounds for Menstrual Meanings…………………………….271
Relationships to Mothers……...………………………………………..271
Relationships to Fathers………………………………………………...276
Relationships to Boyfriends/Husbands…………………………………281
Relationships to Authority Figures……………………………………..289
Relationships to Girlfriends……………………….................................298
Relationships to Self……………………………………….…………...309
Relationships to Bodily Self/Bodily Being………………….………….322
Relationships to the Culture..……………………..................................326
Summary of Participants’ Data…………………………………………………………335
CHAPTER IV: COMPARISON OF CULTURAL DATA
TO PARTICIPANTS’ DATA………………………………………….338
Overall Comparison/Contrast.……………….…………………………………………338
Dimensions of Lived Menstrual Experience within the Culture…..……………………339
Medicalized Menstruation and Personalized, Lived Experience…..…………...339
The Bloody Truth vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS, CONTINUED
Silenced in the Culture and Expression of Menstrual Experience…..………….340
Male Loathing and Internalization, Mundane Acceptance,
or Self-Acceptance………………………………………………………….…..342
Sexual Availability and Sexual Exposure….…………………………………...343
“Protection” of Men, Culture, and Self Requires Secrecy and Hiding…………345
Production and Reproduction…………………………………………………..346
Menstruation as Accepted, Rejected, and Celebrated…………………………..347
CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION…………………………………………………….........353
Back to the Experts: Results of Research in Relation to the Theorists…………………367
Limitations of the Research……………………….……………………………………377
Final Words….………………………………………………………………………….379
REFERENCES….……………………………………………………………………...382
APPENDICES …………………………………………………………………………391
A: Participants’ Answers and Interviews..……………………………………...391
B: Miscellaneous Humor Data….……..………………………………………..496
C: Participants’ Consent Form…………………………………………………..504
The Bloody Truth 1
CHAPTER I
Introduction and Method
Introduction
As a topic of study, I am interested in how women of today experience their own
menstruation and how those experiences dialogue with the voices of Western science
and medicine and American culture. Of what importance is menstruating to women, and
where do women place this aspect of their being? Is it named or spoken about in ways
which are not yet recognized in average relationships, psychology, or science? Or does
it remain silent and ignored for the most part like the untouched laws which often
contain and oppress women (and marginalized others) without much notice? My main
focus was to question women explicitly about their own experiences and attitudes of
menstrual bleeding and attempt to put words to that which has lain in the mute spheres
of bodily being for so long. Admittedly, one of my aspirations for this project is that the
research itself will assist in creating a break in the historical taboo of menstruation and
begin to liberate those silenced meanings, i.e., give this aspect of women=s being a voice
and a space in which to simply Be.
In general, the nature of this study is three-fold, involving a review and analysis
of the manifested meanings of menstruation found in the culture, including a review and
analysis of the formal psychological literature which addresses menstruation, and
structured questions and interviews with seven women to access concrete, lived
meanings of menstruation. This study is somewhat unconventional in that the formal
literature review becomes part of the cultural data by laying out the explicit meanings of
