Scarlet Murmurations: Advancing Global Menstrual Justice
An estimated 2 billion people worldwide experience menstruation. However, they don’t always have the resources to do so with dignity and comfort. This report, commissioned by Irise International and the Global Menstrual Collective, defines menstrual justice and addresses other areas of justice that overlap with menstrual justice. It provides case studies for how organizations have addressed menstrual justice within their context. It also includes recommendations for how organizations, researchers, donors, and policymakers can work towards menstrual justice.
Our experiences of menstruation are shaped by social and economic systems and structures. These are sometimes rooted in inequalities and inequities. Everyone who menstruates needs access to menstrual products, clean water, safe facilities, and menstrual education. Nevertheless, too many don’t have access to these. The menstrual justice movement strives to address this by seeing menstruation as a social justice issue.
The menstrual justice movement develops out of the reproductive justice movement and other feminist justice-oriented movements. As such, a menstrual justice framework is structural, intersectional, centers the lived experiences of the most marginalized, and communal. Menstrual justice intersects with economic justice, environmental justice, disability justice, gender justice, and racial and decolonial justice. We must address all the factors that affect our experiences of menstruation.
To work towards menstrual justice, we need practices that reflect the culture and context. Our solutions should develop out of the community and reflect broader coalitions. We need education around our bodies. The menstrual justice movement goes beyond meeting the immediate needs to addressing the systems that hinder our abilities to menstruate with dignity.
In the vast skies of social change, a remarkable phenomenon is taking shape. Like the mesmerising dance of starlings at dawn and dusk, individuals across the globe are coming together in a powerful, synchronised movement to advance menstrual justice.
SOURCE: Irise International and the Global Menstrual Collective • AUTHOR: Ingrid Lynch and Abigail Solomons • LAST UPDATED: January 1, 2024
