Only Women Bleed: Menstruation, Women and Public Health

Abstract

Menarche for women is a significant life event. How a women perceives herself throughout her life can be influenced by her experience and attitude to this event. Menstruation has been successfully pathologised by scientific medicine, and the notion of women as biologically defective has contributed to gender inequalities. A feminist framework for exploring the current medical ideology of women as a biological entity will be addressed by this paper, and the consequences this may have for women's health and public health practise will be addressed.