What emotions promote menstruation?

Abstract

Our study investigates the importance of the emotions in the collective construction of menstruation. That is, this paper analyzes how Basque youth emotionally understand menstruation. For this we analyzed the emotional definition that 185 young people aged 18-26 made about menstruation. To begin with, an exercise of free association was carried out and its results were analyzed through lexical analysis. Secondly, the PANAS scale of negative and positive affect was also applied. All results were worked on taking into account the sex (female/male) and the feminist ideology (feminist/non-feminist) of the participants. The results revealed that menstruation still generates a high negative emotional charge linked to feelings of disgust, shame, anger or sadness. However, also emerged a representation with a positive emotional charge linked to emotions such as pride or happiness. This positive construction that empowers women is especially linked to feminist ideology. In addition, the implications of the emotional representation of menstruation, as well as their importance in the way that this issue is faced, are considered.