Issue 37
Notebook

“Of course, I can go swimming”: Sports Imaginaries in US Menstrual Education Films

PDF (Español (España)) PDF
  • Miriam Sánchez Manzano,
  • Alan Salvadó Romero
Miriam Sánchez Manzano
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Bio
Alan Salvadó Romero
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.63700/1117

Published 2024-01-31

Keywords

  • Menstrual education films,
  • Sport,
  • Physical activity,
  • Health,
  • Hygiene,
  • Menstruation
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Sánchez Manzano, M., & Salvadó Romero, A. (2024). “Of course, I can go swimming”: Sports Imaginaries in US Menstrual Education Films. L’Atalante. Journal of Film Studies, (37). https://doi.org/10.63700/1117

Copyright (c) 2024 L'Atalante. Journal of film studies

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Menstrual education films made in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s played a pioneering role in the creation of an imaginary that related menstruation and sports in the audiovisual medium. This article offers a thematic and visual analysis of seven of these educational films to explore how biomedical discourses have underpinned the relationship between menstruation and sport in Western audiovisual culture. The findings suggest that these productions contributed to the establishment of a narrative that helped introduce a female perspective on physical exercise, while at the same time naturalising the use of menstrual hygiene technologies in sport.

PDF (Español (España)) PDF

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

  1. Bonah, C., Cantor, D., Laukötter, A. (eds.) (2018). Health Education Films in the Twentieth Century. Rochester: University of Rochester Press
  2. Butler, J. (1999). El género en disputa. Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós.
  3. Canet, F. (2023). Contra la injusticia. Motivos prosociales. En A. Salvadó y J. Balló (eds.), El poder en escena. Motivos visuales en la esfera pública (pp. 162-169). Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.
  4. Clemente, F., Silva, A. F. (eds.) (2022). Women in Sports and Exercise: From Health to Sports Performance. Basilea: MDPI.
  5. Delaney, J., Lupton, M. J., Toth, E. (1976). The Curse. A Cultural History of Menstruation. Nueva York: E. P. Dutton & Company.
  6. Douglas, M. (2007). Pureza y peligro: un análisis de los conceptos de contaminación y tabú. Buenos Aires: Nueva Visión.
  7. Elsaesser, T. (2009). Archives and Archaeologies: The Place of Non-fiction Film in Contemporary Media. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
  8. Foucault, M. (2019). Historia de la sexualidad I. La voluntad de saber. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores.
  9. Ghanoui, S. L. (2020). From Home to School: Menstrual Education Films of the 1950s. En C. Bobel, I. Winkler et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies (pp. 931-943). Boston: Palgrave.
  10. Going With the Flow. Blood & Sisterhood at the London Marathon (2015, 20 de julio). Recuperado de https://medium.com/endless/going-with-the-flow-blood-sisterhood-at-the-london-marathon-f719b98713e7
  11. Heinrich, T., Batchelor, B. (2004). Kotex, Kleenex, Huggies: Kimberly-Clark and the Consumer Revolution in American Business. Ohio: The Ohio State University Press.
  12. Johnston-Robledo, I., Chrisler, J. (2020). The Menstrual Mark: Menstruation as Social Stigma. En C. Bobel, I. Winkler, B. Fahs et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies (pp. 181-200). Boston: Palgrave.
  13. Kane, K. (1990). The Ideology of Freshness in Feminine Hygiene Commercials. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 14(1), 82-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/019685999001400108
  14. Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Nueva York: Columbia University Press.
  15. Mandziuk, R. (2010). «Ending Women’s Greatest Hygienic Mistake»: Modernity and the Mortification of Menstruation in Kotex Advertising, 1921-1926. Women’s Studies Quarterly, 38(3-4), 42-62. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.2010.0015
  16. Mouro, M. (2022, 8 de julio). Las futbolistas inglesas piden cambiar el color del pantalón por la menstruación. La Vanguardia. Recuperado de https://www.lavanguardia.com/deportes/futbol-femenino/20220708/8394500/futbolistas-inglesas-piden-cambiar-color-pantalon-menstruacion.html
  17. Sánchez-Manzano, M. (2021). Iconografía de la sangre menstrual en la ficción audiovisual. Trabajo Final de Máster. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Recuperado de https://repositori.upf.edu/handle/10230/52234
  18. Schaefer, M. M. (2020). The Story of Menstruation (1946): Teaching Menstrual Hygiene in American Classrooms. SourceLab, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.21900/j.sourcelab.v1.397
  19. Tarzibachi, E. (2017a). Cosa de mujeres: menstruación, género y poder. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.
  20. Tarzibachi, E. (2017b). Menstruar también es político. BORDES. Revista de política, derecho y sociedad, 2(7), 35-45. Recuperado de https://publicaciones.unpaz.edu.ar/OJS/index.php/bordes/article/view/181
  21. Thiébaut, E. (2018). Esta es mi sangre. Gijón: Hoja de Lata.
  22. Vostral, S. L. (2008). Under Wraps: A History of Menstrual Hygiene Technology. Lanham: Lexington Books.
  23. Vostral, S. L. (2011). Advice to Adolescents: Menstrual Health and Menstrual Education Films, 1946–1982. En C. K. Warsh (ed.), Gender, Health, and Popular Culture: Historical perspectives (pp. 47-64). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
  24. Young, I. M. (2005). On Female Body Experience: «Throwing Like a Girl» and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.