My Menstrual Story

Ingrid’s Story

I have always been intrigued by menstruation. I remember watching the film Growing Up and Liking It with my mother in elementary school at the age of 10 and then pouring over the matching booklet for weeks following. The booklet featured two flowers with faces, talking back and forth about every aspect of menstruation possible. It wasn’t until three years later that I finally got my long-anticipated period, after fainting in church earlier that day. I still remember the date: March 15^th, 1981.

     
My interest in menstruation broadened to other reproductive health issues and sexuality throughout high school and college. In college, as a pre-med major, I conducted an independent study, where I asked women at different phases of their cycle to engage in various olfactory tasks. I proudly presented this research at the New England Psychological Association meeting in Salem, MA, never once feeling like it was a strange or stigmatized topic.

Serendipitously, I was fortunate to work closely with Joan Chrisler at Connecticut College, where I completed my Master’s Degree in Psychology. A highlight of my two-year experience with her was our work on a widely cited study based on the Menstrual Joy Questionnaire. I went on to a Ph.D. program at the University of Rhode Island where I did my dissertation on lower income women’s experiences with childbirth preparation. Between 2000 and 2012, I had the pleasure of teaching full-time at SUNY, Fredonia where I worked with undergraduate students on many different research projects related to the menstrual cycle, most notably my work on attitudes toward menstrual suppression, published back in 2003.

     
In my first year (2001) as a tenure-track faculty member at SUNY, Fredonia, Joan asked me to serve as her program chair for the conference of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. At this conference in Hartford, CT, I was exposed to a rich community of scholars, many of whom had written articles and books I had read, and felt like I had found my home. I have enjoyed 14 years of active involvement in this group, work and support that has contributed so much to my professional development. The special issue of Sex Roles, Positioning Periods: Menstruation in Social Context I co-edited with Margaret Stubbs, within which this article is published, is the SMCR project of which I am most proud.

   
 I am currently an Associate Academic Dean at Castleton State College but enjoy continuing to contribute to and learn about menstruation and women’s reproductive health more broadly. I am working with Joan Chrisler on a book regarding social constraints on women’s embodiment and am serving as her Associate Editor for the new SMCR journal, Women’s Reproductive Health, published by Taylor & Francis. I am also proud to serve currently as the President of SMCR.

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