Significado cultural de la menstruación en mujeres españolas / Cultural meaning of menstruation among spanish women

RESUMEN Objetivo: Conocer qué significados culturales existen en nuestra sociedad respecto de la menstruación, desde la perspectiva de la enfermería transcultural y analizar si se han superado creencias falsas del pasado. Material y método: Estudio cualitativo con diseño basado en la Teoría Fundamentada y cuyas técnicas de investigación fueron la entrevista semiestructurada y los grupos de discusión. Participaron 47 mujeres de diferentes regiones de España. Como criterios de segmentación se establecieron la edad y el lugar de residencia. Como criterios de variabilidad el nivel educativo, madres o mujeres sin hijos/as y la profesión. Las categorías de análisis fueron la menarquia, menstruación, conocimientos sobre sus propios cuerpos y el género. Resultados: La menarquia es vivida de diferente forma según el grado de conocimiento previo; existencia de tabú en diferentes grados según la edad de la mujer, asociado a desconocimiento e ideas falsas; el traspaso de creencias populares erróneas, por transmisión oral, sigue presente. Conclusión: Los cuidados de enfermería transcultural deben ir encaminados a desterrar creencias falsas, utilizando talleres grupales que permitan erradicar creencias erróneas y ayuden a las mujeres a aclarar dudas que al respecto puedan tener.

ABSTRACT The objective of the research was to know what cultural meanings exist in our society regarding menstruation, from the perspective of transcultural nursing, and to analyze whether past false beliefs have been overcome. Method : Qualitative study with a design based on Grounded Theory and whose research techniques were semi-structured interviews and discussion groups. 47 women from different regions of Spain participated. Age and place of residence were established as segmentation criteria and educational level, mothers or women without children and the profession were established as the variability criteria. The categories of analysis were menarche, menstruation, knowledge about their own bodies and gender. Results: The menarche is lived in a different way depending on the degree of prior knowledge; presence of taboo in different degrees depending on the age of the woman, associated to ignorance and false ideas; the transfer of erroneous popular beliefs, by oral transmission, is still present. Conclusion: Transcultural nursing care should be aimed at banishing false beliefs, using group workshops to eradicate erroneous beliefs and help women to clarify any doubts they may have.

[Sexually transmitted diseases: the impact of stigma and taboo on current medical care]. / Sexuell übertragbare Krankheiten: Die Bedeutung von Stigma und Tabu für die Versorgungsrealität.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STD) are probably the most tabooed diseases we know. The many taboos and the related stigmata shape patients' lives and significantly influence health care policies, medical research, and current problems in medical ethics. To better understand these complex influences, the still powerful taboos and related metaphors associated with illness and disease are analyzed within their cultural and historical background and concerning the actual impact on patient care and research. It becomes obvious that research and health care policies cannot be satisfyingly successful in helping people affected by STDs as long as these "nonscientific" factors are not taken into account.

Gay theatre, AIDS, and taboo: reconsidering Robert Chesley.

Theatre was among the first popular culture forms to address HIV/AIDS and did so memorably in such works as The Normal Heart, As Is, Love! Valor! Compassion!, and March of the Falsettos. As a response to criticisms of stage dramas focusing on HIV/AIDS in the main as undifferentiated and melodramatic, the author suggests critical consideration of two works by playwright Robert Chesley. In her analysis of Night Sweats and Jerker, the author argues Chesley offers an alternative perspective that is both liberatory and sex-positive.

An issue of blood: the healing of the woman with the haemorrhage (Mark 5.24B-34; Luke 8.42B-48; Matthew 9.19-22) in early medieval visual culture.

The textual and visual tradition of the story of the woman with the haemorrhage (Mark 5.24b-34parr), the so-called Haemorrhoissa, is related in a specific way to Christ's healing miracles but also to conceptions of female menstrual blood. We notice that with regard to the specific 'issue of blood' of the Haemorrhoissa, there is a visual lacuna in the specific iconography that developed around the story from early Christian times: in the transposition from text to image, there is no immediate depiction of her bleeding. However, the early medieval reception of the story also became an important catalyst for uterine taboos, menstruation and tits relation to magical healing, understood as a system of health practices. In this context, the dissemination of the motif in everyday material culture clearly points to a deep-rooted connection to uterine and menstrual issues. The paper considers both expressions and their-anthropologically framed-relation to this female 'issue of blood', which the Haemorrhoissa came to embody and epitomise literally, as well as figuratively.

Identity, morals, and taboos: beliefs as assets.

We develop a theory of moral behavior, individual and collective, based on a general model of identity in which people care about "who they are" and infer their own values from past choices. The model sheds light on many empirical puzzles inconsistent with earlier approaches. Identity investments respond nonmonotonically to acts or threats, and taboos on mere thoughts arise to protect beliefs about the "priceless" value of certain social assets. High endowments trigger escalating commitment and a treadmill effect, while competing identities can cause dysfunctional capital destruction. Social interactions induce both social and antisocial norms of contribution, sustained by respectively shunning free riders or do-gooders.

Travelling the path from fantasy to history: the struggle for original history within Freud's early circle, 1908-1913.

Between 1908 and 1913, Freud and his disciples debated different theories of the origins of mankind, which Freud analysed in the context of his theory of neuroses. Wittels was the first of this group to present, in 1908, what Freud labelled a "fantasy" on the subject. Wittels contemplated various prehistoric scenarios (such as a murder of the father by his children) which he postulated as potential explanations for the origin of man's conception of religion, law and state. Freud (1913) eventually conceived his own human prehistory which differed significantly from the ideas of Wittels and his other disciples (Jung, Tausk) and allowed him to claim he now held a "historical" point of view that his disciples were missing.

[Forbidden sexualities: madness and the male gender]. / Sexualidades interditadas: loucura e gênero masculino.

The article identifies and studies male sexuality and affectivity as forbidden and imprisoned in Brazilian asylums in the first decades of the Republic. By analyzing psychiatric records from that era, it explores the notion that sexual and affective behavior had little to do with the construction of male profiles deemed 'deviant' and/or 'pathological'. This reflection shifts the focus of analysis to the gender specificities that determine the various traits displayed in 'mental disturbances' attributed to certain sexual and affective behavior.

Views on sexuality in croatian medieval sources.

We analyzed attitudes towards sexuality during the medieval period in Croatia. For that purpose we investigated numerous medical and literary texts, statutes, and specific natural philosophical work entitled "Lucidar". Contrary to medical books, which had a low impact on the broader community, literary texts were important in spreading messages on sexuality, as well as in shaping medieval mentality and creating sexual taboos. Consequently, a specific perspective and culture influenced rules and practices for community protection, as well as various levels of social systems. Within the three large groups of sources, we selected those typical both in their content (ideas) and forms, and representative in shaping attitudes toward sexuality on our territory. The first group of sources (examples from literary genres) were identified as an important vehicle in transferring messages of morality, moral obligation and sexuality in general. Deeply rooted in Christianity they became a pattern according to which the way of life and value were measured, a specific view toward sexuality was shaped, and notions of stigma and taboo articulated.

How many frogs does it take to leap around the Americas? Comments on Anderson and Gillam.

In modeling the colonization of the Americas, Anderson and Gillam (2000) employ size estimates for vanguard forager bands that are of dubious reproductive viability in light of human incest prohibitions and variable sex ratios at birth.

[Tainted femininity--traces of traditional menstruation myths in product advertising of feminine hygiene products]. / Befleckte Weiblichkeit--Spuren tradieter Menstruationsmythen in der Werbung für Produkte der weiblichen Intimhygiene.

OBJECTIVE: Does the portrayal of menstruation in menstrual product advertisements reflect cultural myths about menstruation? METHODS: We analyse the reception of menstruation in contemporary and historical menstruation product advertisements. RESULTS: In menstrual product advertisements, menstruation is depicted as an unclean attribute, discrediting an ideal femininity and creating the need to conceal it. CONCLUSION: This tendency to taboo menstruation in menstrual product advertising contributes--by conveying a negative definition of femaleness--to a negative self-perception, particularly in young women.

Incest/child sexual abuse: historical perspectives.

After identifying that social scientists and historians have long believed (and vigorously defended) that the only universal trait found in every known culture is the prohibition against incest, occurrence of incest and child sexual abuse is traced first through Western culture from antiquity to the present with special emphasis on Sigmund Freud's "reversal." It then is traced through Eastern culture from ancient to modern times. Contemporary trends of self-disclosure of incest and child sexual abuse are examined, and current incidence data are provided. The backlash phenomenon is then explored, and conclusions are drawn.