Law's Ability to Further the "Menstrual Movement"

The current menstrual movement calls for overcoming the cultural stigma associated with menstruation, achieving “menstrual equity,” and ending “period poverty.” The stigma the movement seeks to address is that menstruation is seen as taboo, unclean, and impure. The movement’s aims are twofold: First, it wants to increase awareness of menstruation and remove discrimination against those who menstruate, thus achieving menstrual equity. Second, it intends to provide greater access to menstrual hygiene products (“MHPs”), particularly for homeless and lower income people, thus eliminating period poverty. To achieve these goals, the movement is advocating to legislatively eliminate the “tampon tax” and increase access to MHPs in prisons, homeless shelters, and schools. It also supports lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the tampon tax. Advocates view these legal changes as instrumental in furthering the goals of equity and access to MHPs that underlie the movement. This Essay discusses whether the two major legislative changes the movement advocates—repeal of the tampon tax and providing MHPs in schools for free—will actually achieve the movement’s goals. The Essay begins by explaining how these legal changes, in theory, are meant to address menstrual equity and period poverty. It then explores the operational limits to, and expressive benefits of, these legal proposals. The Essay concludes that the expressive function of demanding these legal changes, and sometimes achieving them, plays a more significant role than the laws’ actual operation in reaching the movement’s goals.

Interpersonal Violence in Context

Negative reactions to interpersonal violence survivors are reproduced in patterned ways across multiple social settings. This chapter proposes a framework of cultural stigma surrounding interpersonal violence, one with utility in explaining a paradoxical pattern of condemnation of survivors (relative to perpetrators) and persistent delegitimization of interpersonal violence experiences (relative to impersonal or unintentional traumas). In the proposed framework, the state of being a victim is conceptualized as inherently stigmatizing in the setting of dominant Western cultural values that uplift invulnerability and individual responsibility. Cultural stigma enables disavowal of vulnerability and mutual accountability, reproducing cultural constructions of violence that legitimize abuse. Proposed forms of cultural stigma are denial, minimization, distortion, victim-blame, and labeling. This chapter summarizes relevant research and highlights ways that psychology as a discipline has transmitted such cultural stigma. The final section considers disciplinary avenues to resist stigma, toward a cultural awakening that affirms the full humanity of survivors.

Why work it when you can dodge it? Identity responses to ethnic stigma among professionals

Culturally different professionals often encounter stigma as they negotiate work lives. Professionals commonly seek to repair stigmatized identities by constructing more positive and relatively coherent self-views. This study draws on interview, observation and diary data from Romanian professionals in the UK, in order to understand how they construct their identities when faced with ethno-cultural stigma. We find that these professionals engage in counterintuitive identity responses which consist of simultaneously denying and acknowledging personal stigmatization (doublethink), and evading engagement with the stigmatized identity (dodging). Unlike the restorative identity work highlighted by previous studies, these atypical responses require less effort, provide less coherence and do not attempt to restore the blemished ethno-cultural identity. Our analyses further indicate that being professional and being White confer on individuals privileges that sustain doublethink and dodging. We contribute to scholarship by underscoring the need to consider both stigmatized and privileged identities when investigating reactions to stigma. We also reflect on the practical implications for organizations of what it means for stigmatized individuals to deny stigmatization or to dodge engagement with stigma.

To Widen the Cycle: Artists Engage the Menstrual Cycle and Reproductive Justice

Art holds powerful potential to break the social and cultural stigma around menstruating bodies by making the invisible visible and pushing the boundaries of what we know about the menstrual cycle. This chapter presents a selection of artwork and artists’ statements from Widening the Cycle, a historic exhibit curated by Jen Lewis and first shown at the 2015 Society for Menstrual Cycle Research conference in Boston, USA.

Who Has to Tell Their Trauma Story and How Hard Will It Be? Influence of Cultural Stigma and Narrative Redemption on the Storying of Sexual Violence

Although survivors of sexual violence have shared their stories with the public on social media and mass media platforms in growing numbers, less is known about how general audiences perceive such trauma stories. These perceptions can have profound consequences for survivor mental health. In the present experimental, vignette-based studies, we anticipated that cultural stigma surrounding sexual violence and cultural preference for positive (redemptive) endings to adversity in the United States (U.S.) would shape perceptions. Four samples of U.S. adults (N=1872) rated first-person narratives of 6 more stigmatizing (i.e., sexual violence) or less stigmatizing (e.g., natural disaster) traumatic events. Confirming pre-registered hypotheses, sexual violence trauma (versus other types of trauma) stories were perceived as more difficult to tell, and their storytellers less likeable, even when they had redemptive endings. Disconfirming other pre-registered hypotheses, redemptive (versus negative) story endings did not boost the perceived likelihood or obligation to share a sexual violence trauma story. Rather, redemptive (versus negative) story endings only boosted the perceived likelihood, obligation, and ease of telling other, less stigmatizing types of trauma stories. Findings suggest that sexual violence survivors do not benefit, to the same degree as other survivors, from telling their stories with the culturally valued narrative template of redemption. Clinical and societal implications of the less receptive climate for sexual violence stories are discussed.

Does Getting Stigma Under the Skin Make It Thinner? Emotion Regulation as a Stress-Contingent Mediator of Stigma and Mental Health

Emotion regulation deficits may link stigma to poor mental health, yet authors of existing studies have relied on self-reported stigma and have not considered contextual factors. In the present research, we examined associations among cultural stigma (i.e., objective devaluation of one’s stigmatized status), emotion regulation deficits, and poor mental health. In Study 1, we created an index of cultural stigma by asking members of the general public and stigma experts to indicate desired social distance toward 93 stigmatized attributes. In Study 2, emotion regulation deficits mediated the association between cultural stigma and adverse mental health outcomes, including depressive symptoms and alcohol use problems, among individuals endorsing diverse stigmatized identities. The indirect effect of cultural stigma, via emotion regulation, on these outcomes was stronger among those reporting more life stress. These findings highlight the adverse impact of cultural stigma on mental health and its role in potentiating stigmatized individuals’ susceptibility to general life stress.