Women’s Health, Destigmatization, and Sustainability: The Co-Construction of Reusable Menstrual Technologies in the Context of Menstrual Activism in Argentina

• In Event: Emergent Technologies in Biomedicine and Healthcare: Boundaries, Tensions, and Possibilities - III

Abstract

In this essay, I use the domestication framework to explore the integration process in which two emergent reusable feminine technologies -the menstrual cup and reusable menstrual pads become part of the everyday life of users. Drawing on interviews, focus groups discussion and observation in online and offline sites in Argentina, conducted during 4 years, this study sheds light on how technologies and users co-construct each other in the context of an emerging menstrual activism. By listening to the stories of the participants of this study, I show the potential of women’s agency in transforming technology. New and not foreseen uses and meanings were assigned to the reusable menstrual technologies, which improved user´s understanding of health and their bodies. However, this happens while the identities of users were also transformed in the process of domestication, illustrating how the identity of being a menstruating woman and technologies co-shape each other. It is argued that the material and symbolic uses of the reusable menstrual technologies depend not only on the personal experience of the user with the technologies but also on the support networks to which the user belongs and on the possibilities to accessing information, especially through the internet. I reflect on how all of these factors are highly dependent on women´s middle-class status.

Author

• Jacqueline Gaybor, Erasmus University Rotterdam