Presenter: Sarita Miller, Neurobiology and Physiology, Global Public Health Scholars
The practicum project I am completing this semester is research focused on women’s health and cultural stigmas on perceptions of menstruation. I will dive into different research articles about how period taboos and a lack of education on periods impact women’s overall well being. I will use research from Dr. Madhu Kushwahato to familiarize myself with different taboos in rural and urban India. Inspired by her work, I am planning on creating questionnaires for women in the U.S. about their experiences with stigmas and how they affect them. I will make a point to analyze how their cultural background and their life in the U.S. have played a role in their ideas about menstruation. This will allow me to get a glimpse into many cultural values about women’s health and if they still play a prominent role in the United States. The questionnaire will be shared with women from varying University of Maryland clubs such as Public Health Beyond Borders, Get Ovary It, Girl Up, and several student unions on the campus. I also will have completed the CITI Program training on social and behavioral research as part of my practicum to better understand what my work can potentially entail.
This is such an interesting practicum project! I definitely did not know how big of a role culture played in menstruation, what products women used, and what they are and are not allowed to do while menstruating, although we did learn a little about this in Dr. Maring’s class. Did you expect to see the results you did?
Do you think the very taboos which you are trying to assess with your survey perhaps prevent women from answering your survey?
It's truly exciting to see someone address the stigmatism around what women have to go through naturally. I love how you collected women's personal experiences with the periods and society. This was a really good way to provide facts and research to back up the claims that there is a negative stigmatism behind women and their periods.
I think your independent research is very impressive and exigent! I do wonder though if there's a significant difference between the amount of women that learn taboos and believe those taboos?
After completing our group podcast project for this course within the past semester involving poor menstrual health management in developing countries, I love how your project takes an even deeper dive into the comparative analysis involving the stigmatization and cultural biases involving menstruation, especially as it relates to different cultural groups. A questionnaire seems to be a really beneficial way to collect data, as it allows these women to be very honest in their experiences.