Creating a shift in menstrual cycle attitudes & practices: Celebrating cycles through education and advocacy in various health settings

Celebrating Cycles provides health educators and practitioners with  background, tools and talking points to create a cultural shift in how our culture thinks and feels about the menstrual cycle.  This session provides historical, cultural, psychological and physiological aspects of how the menstrual cycle is viewed and understood across the lifespan. This research addresses the question of whether or not women should have natural menstruations, or participate in the preventing or delaying of menstruation.  Practitioners should recognize and understand the dichotomy in society’s attitudes and experiences with menstrual cycles.  Addressing the medicalization, influential social attitudes, psychological and emotional responses, and the environmental concerns with having and suppressing menstrual cycles is critical in sexuality education. This session engages the practitioner in a learning environment and allows them to develop useful tools and skills that can be implemented in their settings.  The authors will be presenting the findings of an analysis of women and men’s perceptions and beliefs about menstrual cycles using the Menstrual Joy Questionnaire (Delany, Lupton, Toft, 1987). This research and session utilized the Community Empowerment Model (Wallerstein, 1991) and opens a dialogue for individuals and communities on a once taboo topic. This research identifies the historical and cultural nuances of menstrual cycles to include a variety of perspectives especially across class, race, and ethnicity. This workshop allows practitioners to tailor their materials to the needs and capacities of their populations. Health literacy and cultural perspectives are important factors within this workshop and are a central theme throughout it.