Unleashing menstrual blood: A qualitative study of free-bleeding activism on Instagram


Estefania Reyes, Western University

A diverse range of menstrual activism with different approaches and goals has challenged longstanding menstrual inequalities built around menstruation in the last decades. Within this landscape, the free-bleeding movement, one of its most radical branches, has flourished to transgress normative mandates and show its potential to allow bleeders to resignify and reappropriate menstruation on their own terms. However, little scholarship has been dedicated to theorizing the mediation of menstrual blood and its potential as a tool for activism. Therefore, from a poststructuralist feminist perspective, this research explored 1) how free-bleeding activists used menstruation on Instagram to challenge normative representations about menstruation and gendered bodies and 2) How the comments posted in response to the display of menstrual blood on Instagram suggest public discourses about menstruation and gendered bodies are in flux? Through the lens of six menstruators, Rupi Kaur, Kiran Gandhi, Cass Clemmer, Steph Góngora, Laia Manzanares and Lauren Archer, I closely examined texts and visuals of one of their posts and employed critical discourse analysis (CDA) and semiotic analysis as approaches to answer the research questions. By using these methods, I underscore the significance of language (CDA), signs and symbols (semiotic analysis) as instrumental tools for upholding ideological control over non-normative bodies within an overarching system perpetuating hegemonic and gendered power dynamics. The findings showed four main conclusions: Firstly, menstrual blood can blur the dichotomous boundaries of the public/private distinction by permeating through them, literally and symbolically. Secondly, in a culture where menstrual concealment is the norm, free-bleeder bodies become subversive bodies that act outside patriarchal and neoliberalist discourses and reveal the nuances of bleeding while embodying particular challenges, privileges and conditions. Thirdly, free-bleeders set the stage to expose a wide range of normative, non-normative and paradoxical standpoints concerning menstruation that give an idea about what are the central debates and narratives shaping the experiences of menstruators nowadays in the Western context. Menstruators are not only fighting the stigmas, negative attitudes and control mechanisms over gendered bodies, but they are also challenging essentialist and reductionist notions about bodies and genders, giving space to a diverse range of embodying identities. Finally, the results confirmed the potential of menstruation as a means to build more critical views about identities and gender, inequalities, and embodying practices towards activism and resistance. Merely discussing menstruation in the public sphere falls short of constructing new, boundary-pushing, and collaborative discourses that carve out spaces for a more extensive and diverse spectrum of embodied realities. To truly normalize the experiences of menstrual bodies and counteract the sanitized narratives perpetuated by profit-driven corporations that thrive on concealment and shame, menstruation must be conveyed through all the senses, with a particular emphasis on visibility—both symbolically and explicitly. In this context, free-bleeding activism emerges as a potent and viable form of resistance against the established social norms around menstruation and its oppressive cultural constructs. Engaging in seemingly individual acts of resistance through free-bleeding can potentially catalyze a broader movement toward social justice.

This paper will be presented at the following session: