Dr. Flow: the experiences of young women's menstruation through a medicalized Lens

This research explored university-aged women's thoughts and experiences regarding menstruation in an effort to understand if, how, and to what effect menstruation is medicalized. Using a mixed methods approach – a survey with a sampleof 218 and four semi-structured qualitative interviews, the data revealed that there is a complicated relationship between menstruation and women's experience of medicalization. The survey data revealed that women identify menstruation as medical through their framing of menstrual changes as sickness and their strong association of menstruation with Pre-Menstrual Syndrome but they do not think menstruation is medicalized. The interviews indicated that there is a strong association between experience with medicalized menstruation and critique of medicalized behaviours. The interviews suggested that the reasons for this are linked to education, especially from women's experiences, which helps create resistance to medicalized menstruation, and increase critical thought regarding medicalization and its benefits. These results suggest that more attention is needed to the methods of educating women about menstruation.