Authors:
- Offers an innovative addition to the field of Critical Menstrual Studies, a rapidly growing new field of study across an array of disciplines
- Draws on deep qualitative and analytic wells in order to shed critical light on contemporary broad, global, girl-centered MHM interventions
- Draws on a uniquely rich, mixed-methods research design on three continents
- Grapples with key issues in MHM in a theoretically sophisticated, multidisciplinary manner
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Framing the Problem: Stories of Risk, Risk of Stories
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Front Matter
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Framing the Solution: Developing the “Good Body”
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
Reviews
“The Managed Body would be a valuable addition to courses on gender and health, embodiment, critical development studies, medical anthropology, and reproductive health and rights. This book’s accessible style also makes it appropriate for a much wider audience, and The Managed Body belongs on the reading lists of development professionals, feminist activists and anyone else interested in gender, health, and development.” (Leigh Senderowicz, Gender & Society, Vol. 20 (10), 2020)
“This book will not only appeal to those interested in the topic but also to those who research race, globalization, transnationalism, rhetoric, feminism, public health, gender, activism, or economics.” (Berkley Conner, Affilia, December 6, 2019)
“The book is a timely, important and provides a fascinating read about contemporary feminism, activism and capitalism.” (Camilla Mørk Røstvik, Social History of Medicine, Vol. 32 (4), November, 2019)
“A skilled, articulate, and sensitive feminist researcher, Chris Bobel helps us understand the complex web of issues surrounding menstruation. Using careful and compassionate language that avoids oversimplification, she offers a detailed analysis of the many interrelated challenges girls and women face in order to achieve gender equity. In the end, Bobel insists on evidence-based policies and community-derived interventions that ensure girls rightful access to a good education, decent jobs free from harassment, and eventually to an acceptance of themselves and their powers.” (Judy Norsigian and Jane Pincus, Co-Founders of Our Bodies Ourselves, USA)
“The Managed Body artfully captures the complexities, possibilities, and pitfalls of the global players invested in managing the business of menstruation. More subtly, however, Bobel puts on the boxing gloves to battle the bigger and more insidious stories attached to menstruating bodies: the selfishness of capitalism, the curious lack of self-reflexivity of neoliberalism, the blindspots in global activism, and the ever-intensifying ways that women’s and girls’ bodies are a battleground for sexist and racist stories about ‘cleanliness’, ‘dignity’, and ‘hygiene’. As a writer, Bobel brilliantly straddles that difficult line between compassion and criticality, careful analysis and radical reimagining.” (Breanne Fahs, author of Out for Blood and Firebrand Feminism)
“The Managed Body is a much-needed contribution to contemporary discussions about menstruation, and the meanings of menstrual hygiene management in the Global South. Bobel interrogates the “menstrual mandate” of shame and invisibility and how it leverages products to hide stigma while perpetuating systems of inequality. Yet, there is hope! Bobel offers the antidote of menstrual literacy as a means to change attitudes about menstruation and thus improve the lives of women and girls.” (Sharra L. Vostral, Purdue University, and Authorof Under Wraps: A History of Menstrual Hygiene Technology and Toxic Shock: A Social History)
“Chris Bobel offers a brilliant feminist critique of ‘menstrual hygiene management’ in regions of the Global South where the menstrual products industry is only beginning to install ‘the modern way to menstruate’. Bobel’s meticulous and well-grounded analysis exposes how remnants of cultural colonization and reductionist assumptions dilute the complex realities girls face as they mature. This book is essential reading for those who care about building a stronger movement for menstrual justice as a means to resist gender inequality.” (Eugenia Tarzibachi, Author of Cosa de Mujeres: Menstruación, Género y Poder (Women’s Thing: Menstruation, Gender and Power)
“Menstruation matters. But perhaps we have fallen for a shortsighted view of how and why. Here feminist scholar Chris Bobel refocuses the lens from menstrual care and management to stigma, and in so doing revealshow global efforts at enabling girls to manage their menstruation leave unquestioned the misogynist assumption that their bodies are burdens. By promoting educational efforts that address the problem of stigma, not blood, Bobel imagines a world in full appreciation of girls’ bodies as good enough just the way they are. This book should be required reading for all who seek to live in respectful dignity with menstruating bodies, which, if you think about it, is all of us.” (Tomi-Ann Roberts, Colorado College and President, The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, USA)
“When a topic suddenly takes on massive attention from the development community—as is the case with MHM--we should ask why. Because that is precisely when we tend to get caught between that Scylla and Charybdis of women’s and girls’ empowerment: neoliberal market-based “modern” solutions and traditionally oppressive roles. Of course we want practical progress that enables girls and women to free themselvesfrom immobility and seclusion, but, as Bobel aptly points out in this lively and engaging book, gender subordination does not get resolved by menstrual products. Rather, substantive change requires a revision of norms and the promotion of inclusive health systems that resist rather than reproduce discrimination.” (Alicia Ely Yamin, Georgetown University and Harvard University, Author of Power, Suffering, and the Struggle for Dignity: Human Rights Frameworks for Health and Why They Matter)
“I have been ‘waiting’, no, ‘wanting’, no, ‘longing’ for the arrival of such a book in the increasingly cluttered marketplace of menstruation studies. This book represents a mighty long leap in bringing a critical feminist perspective to thinking about menstruation, menstruation activism and interventions. This book will rescue menstruation studies from the onslaughts of ‘technical fix’, ‘product mania’, and the ‘girl effect’ (where the bodies of young girls are presented as a new category for useful intervention) perpetuated by the global development industry.” (Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, The Australian National University, Australia)
Authors and Affiliations
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Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA
Chris Bobel
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Managed Body
Book Subtitle: Developing Girls and Menstrual Health in the Global South
Authors: Chris Bobel
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89414-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-89413-3Published: 08 November 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-07764-8Published: 21 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-89414-0Published: 19 October 2018
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 351
Topics: Gender Studies, Medical Anthropology, Medical Sociology, Development Studies