Speaker – Professor Bettina Bildhauer 

Professor Bettina Bildhauer is a Professor of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews. She researches the medieval history of menstruation, the recent Ending Period Poverty campaign in Scotland and the stigma still attached to sustainable menstrual products.

Theme

Professor Bettina Bildhauer, in cooperation with Dr Lara Owen, has recently observed a new form of menstrual stigma: eco-shaming those who do not use sustainable menstrual products. Using this research as an example, she shows how important humanities approaches and techniques are to make progress in menstrual health research and practices. Textual and linguistic analysis reveals unconscious persistence of stigma, despite policy-makers’, researchers’ and menstruators’ best intentions. Knowledge of the millennia-old roots of menstrual stigma helps to identify its shifting patterns and explain its persistence. This can help us understand why progress in menstrual research, treatments and practices is so slow, though we have all the scientific data to know what needs to change.

When

The seminar will take place online via zoom on Friday October 6th, 12:00-13:00 (BST). As with all our talks in this seminar series, it’s FREE for anyone to join! Register to attend the seminar here.