Let's Talk Menarche

The Menstruation Podcast

This website presents research results from a group of five students of Leuphana university in Lüneburg. The form of presentation aims at presenting the findings in a creative way, therefore you can find three podcast episodes below.

The research was all about menstruation, specifically the menarche - the very first bleeding in a woman’s* lifetime. The focus of the project was to find out if the experience of the menarche, remembered in retrospect by young women, has shaped the social relationships in their lives in any specific way. Besides investigating the (possible) changes of social relations through the experience of bleeding, the semi-structured interviews also covered questions about the general memory of the first bleed. The research question that functioned as guideline for the project was the following:

How do individuals perceive and remember the first menstruation (menarche) and how does this experience influence social relationships?

The podcast episodes try to transport the most important results in a tangible way to make them accessible for everyone who is interested in learning more about the topic of menarche. Not only the findings of this specific research project are presented, but also an overview of some current scientific trends that can be found in the field of research around menarche will be given. To understand the whole menstrual cycle better, an overview of the biology is explained too, as well as very personal stories by the two podcast hosts about their menarche experiences. Overall, the podcast aims to create a mixture of personal, scientific, cultural and educational lenses, looking at the topic and the research project from different perspectives.

The topic of menarche was chosen as menstruation affects roughly half of the world’s population, and still is not spoken about enough. Menstruation in general still is a big taboo in many places of the world, and this research and most of all the podcasts shall contribute as a small, yet hopefully significant addition to the literature and educational material that already exists. Menstruating, and therefore also the very beginning of it, marked by the menarche, is connected to shame in various expressions (which was one of the findings of the research project and can be confirmed by other studies as well). Therefore it is important to open up conversations around menstrual health, as well as mental well-being and provide decent education.

In three episodes the two podcast hosts Lina and Jo will guide the listener through the series and share various questions, answers and perspectives about menarche and the research project.

* As the research project focused on cis-gender women, binary language is used in this podcast with terms such as women, girls and female body. We as research team are aware of the fact that menstruation and bleeding does also affect non-binary people, as well as trans* people and gender queer people and their experiences and reality especially in connection to menstruation and menarche needs much more representation and research within the scientific canon. The term female body will be used in this podcast in a biological sense.

The first episode functions as an introduction and welcoming to the topic, the podcast format and what the research team wants to create in the series. It provides an overview of the content of the three episodes, dives into the topic of menarche through personal sharings about the own menarche experience from the two hosts Lina and Jo and emphasizes the importance to acknowledge that every experience is unique and worth being taken seriously in whatever shape it comes.

20:10 min

One of the two central aspects of this second episode consists in the explanation of the biology behind the menstrual cycle and why it is comparable to the four seasons of the year to create a fundamental understanding of the biological processes that take place in the female body. Additionally, some information about current and ongoing research in the field of menarche is presented with a focus on the three main lenses according to which the research can be categorized (biological, socio-psychological and cultural). Furthermore, the research project is presented more in depth, i.e. explaining how the frame of the research looked like, what the specific research question was, what was decided upon in terms of methodology, who accompanied the research process and which possible biases of the research team occurred. In general, this episode offers first reflections about the research process and the findings.

38:46 min

In the last episode, the hosts Lina and Jo present all the research results and ultimately what was learned from the experience of doing that research and conducting the interviews. The most important results that function as an answer to the research question are explained more in depth and the research question is reflected, as the results of the study were different than expected. The topic of shame is being discussed by the hosts as it appears to be the predominant finding. Some possible aspects of the meaning of this research are discussed and an overview of the research limitations and biases is given. The last part of the third episode becomes personal again, with Lina and Jo sharing about their biggest take-aways from the whole research process and especially from the results. A big emphasis lays on the fact that communication and connection through sharing of personal experiences around menstruation and the menarche can help to decrease stigmata and open up the conversation in terms of honesty and more empathy towards the own experiences as well as those of others.

34:40 min