More Than Function: A Qualitative Exploration of Tanzanian Women’s Perceptions and Values of Menstrual Products
(2025) UTVK03 20251Sociology
- Abstract
- Critical scholarship has increasingly questioned the effectiveness of external menstrual health interventions in the Global South, often highlighting their lack of cultural sensitivity and potential to reinforce menstrual stigma. These critiques raise concerns not only about individual well-being, but also about broader questions of gendered inequality. Although such initiatives frequently center menstrual products, little attention has been paid to the deeper sociocultural meanings attached to these items. This qualitative study investigates how Tanzanian women across rural and urban contexts interpret menstrual products, and how these meanings are shaped within shifting societal conditions. The analysis draws on symbolic interactionism... (More)
- Critical scholarship has increasingly questioned the effectiveness of external menstrual health interventions in the Global South, often highlighting their lack of cultural sensitivity and potential to reinforce menstrual stigma. These critiques raise concerns not only about individual well-being, but also about broader questions of gendered inequality. Although such initiatives frequently center menstrual products, little attention has been paid to the deeper sociocultural meanings attached to these items. This qualitative study investigates how Tanzanian women across rural and urban contexts interpret menstrual products, and how these meanings are shaped within shifting societal conditions. The analysis draws on symbolic interactionism (Blumer; Goffman), theories of capital (Bourdieu; Skeggs), and feminist postcolonial perspective (Mohanty) to examine how interpretive processes, individual agency, and structural conditions interact in shaping how menstrual products are socially understood.
Findings show that menstrual products carry symbolic and sociocultural values far beyond their functional use. Five interrelated domains of meaning emerged: products as expressions of identity and belonging; instruments of discretion and moral hygiene; symbols of status and aspiration; carriers of embodied meaning; and sites of economic navigation. These meanings are continuously shaped by processes of globalization, including urbanisation, migration, marketization, and the expansion of new communicative channels. Taken together, the findings reaffirm the heterogeneity of Tanzanian women’s experiences, the relational complexity of their subjectivities, and their active engagement in navigating menstrual health. The study contributes to a more contextually grounded understanding of how menstrual products become socially meaningful within Tanzanian women’s everyday lives. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9212758
- author
- Högberg, Maja LU
- supervisor
-
- Yvonne Jila LU
- organization
- course
- UTVK03 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Menstrual health, Menstrual products, Symbolic meaning, Tanzania, Postcolonial feminist perspective
- language
- English
- id
- 9212758
- date added to LUP
- 2025-09-18 15:13:16
- date last changed
- 2025-09-18 15:13:16
@misc{9212758,
abstract = {{Critical scholarship has increasingly questioned the effectiveness of external menstrual health interventions in the Global South, often highlighting their lack of cultural sensitivity and potential to reinforce menstrual stigma. These critiques raise concerns not only about individual well-being, but also about broader questions of gendered inequality. Although such initiatives frequently center menstrual products, little attention has been paid to the deeper sociocultural meanings attached to these items. This qualitative study investigates how Tanzanian women across rural and urban contexts interpret menstrual products, and how these meanings are shaped within shifting societal conditions. The analysis draws on symbolic interactionism (Blumer; Goffman), theories of capital (Bourdieu; Skeggs), and feminist postcolonial perspective (Mohanty) to examine how interpretive processes, individual agency, and structural conditions interact in shaping how menstrual products are socially understood.
Findings show that menstrual products carry symbolic and sociocultural values far beyond their functional use. Five interrelated domains of meaning emerged: products as expressions of identity and belonging; instruments of discretion and moral hygiene; symbols of status and aspiration; carriers of embodied meaning; and sites of economic navigation. These meanings are continuously shaped by processes of globalization, including urbanisation, migration, marketization, and the expansion of new communicative channels. Taken together, the findings reaffirm the heterogeneity of Tanzanian women’s experiences, the relational complexity of their subjectivities, and their active engagement in navigating menstrual health. The study contributes to a more contextually grounded understanding of how menstrual products become socially meaningful within Tanzanian women’s everyday lives.}},
author = {{Högberg, Maja}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{More Than Function: A Qualitative Exploration of Tanzanian Women’s Perceptions and Values of Menstrual Products}},
year = {{2025}},
}