Period Stain and Social Evaluation. The Performance of Shame

Abstract

The "period stain" could be considered as a symbolic and material object with strong moral overtones. In this article, I propose to analyze it from the research program of gossip and reputation (Giardini & Wittek, 2019a) in dialogue with the intersection between Simmel’s and Goffman’s relational sociology on one side, and feminists’ theories from the other. I will give an account of the meanings attributed to body information, such as the staining of clothes with menstrual blood and the impact on the social evaluation of bodies from a woman's point of view. To achieve this, I analyze the results of an instrument applied in March 2021 entitled Virtual survey on the experience of menstruation in the context of the pandemic caused by Covid-19. Although women do not share the gender stereotypes associated with menstruation, they reveal the negative impact these stereotypes had on the social evaluation of this bodily experience. Women are concerned about the negative evaluation that others have of the experience of the period stain. I will show how the performance of shame associated with period stain is narrated; and, how mockery is an affective device of reputation. However, there are also ways to re-signify the experience based on solidarity among friends.

Keywords

• body
• emotions
• shame
• menstruation
• gender