In Experiences of Menstruation from the Global South and North, Kay Standing, Sara Parker and Stefanie Lotter compile multidisciplinary perspectives examining experiences of and education around menstruation in different parts of the world. Spanning academic research, activism and poetry, this thought-provoking volume advocates for inclusive approaches that encompass the diverse geographical, social, cultural, gender- and age-related subjectivities of menstruators worldwide, writes Udita Bose.

Experiences of Menstruation from the Global South and North: Towards a Visualised, Inclusive, and Applied Menstruation Studies. Kay Standing, Sara Parker and Stefanie Lotter (eds.). Oxford University Press. 2024.

As Bobel writes in the foreword to Experiences of Menstruation from the Global South and North, “Menstruation is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere” (xvii). The book attempts to create dialogues between the Global North and Global South, recognising that menstrual experiences are a global issue, but the stigma, shame, and secrecy surrounding menstruation, make it difficult to address the various problems associated with menstruation.

The book criticises how discourse about menstruation in the Global South is characterised by the development approach produced by the Global North.

The book criticises how discourse about menstruation in the Global South is characterised by the development approach produced by the Global North. In the introduction, Lotter et al argue that development approaches adopted in the Global South focusing on “alleviating poverty and working towards gender equality and improvement of living conditions” (10) have reinforced stigma associated with menstruation. This occurs because such development approaches centre the supply and demand of menstrual products, which, according to Garikipati in Chapter Seven, promotes the concealment of menstruation through the use of menstrual products (105). Lotter et a argue that a decolonial approach will help to acknowledge that countries in the Global South have made “trailblazing developments” (11) in destigmatising menstruation and tackling period poverty: Kenya ended the taxation of menstrual products long before Canada, in 2004 (11). The editors thus call for the Global North to learn from the Global South and promote a collaborative global approach when discussing menstrual experiences.

The book identifies how a lack of scientific knowledge and information about menstruation exacerbates the stigmatising of sociocultural experiences associated with it

The collaborative approach is evident in how the chapters in the collection have been organised and linked. For instance, the book identifies how a lack of scientific knowledge and information about menstruation exacerbates the stigmatising of sociocultural experiences associated with it, in the Global North and the Global South. King (Chapter Three) discusses at length how “physiology textbooks” recommended for medical students in the UK do not explain that even though menstruation is a prerequisite for conception and pregnancy, they do not inevitably follow from menstruation (24). Such emphasis on the alleged “purpose” of the menstruating body obscures the reality of the experience for women and girls. The pain, discomfort and blood loss that regularly accompany menstruation is minimised, hindering girls’ and women’s ability to respond to and understand their own bodies. This resonates with Amini’s research in Iran (Chapter 12). Amini demonstrates how most girls in Iran respond to menarche thinking that they have either lost their virginity or have a bad illness (165). These chapters show how the experience of the biological process of menstruation is conditioned by the cultural meaning it gains in a context.

Research [in Nepal] found that intersecting factors like caste, religious ideologies and ethnicity determine whether a teacher can discuss menstruation in school.

Amini’s research connects to that of Parker et al (Chapter Four) which, based in Nepal, reiterates the importance of imparting knowledge about menstruation and placing it in its sociocultural context. Their research found that intersecting factors like caste, religious ideologies and ethnicity determine whether a teacher can discuss menstruation in school. In this chapter and in the research project Dignity Without Danger – a research project launched in 2021 by Subedi and Parker developing and gathering educational resources on menstruation in Nepal (2021) – research participants noted that they were left to study the topic of menstruation on their own (38). The contextualisation of menstrual knowledge also frames the work by Garikipati (Chapter Seven) who focuses her research on menstrual products in the Indian context (103). Along with criticising the profit-driven global market, she emphasises the need to focus on sustainable development. Garikipati advocates for solutions that are tailored appropriately to the individual context (105).

The discussions on contextualising knowledge production about menstruation by researchers in diverse sociocultural and physical contexts underline the need for inclusivity. Inclusion is discussed in relation to several dimensions of menstrual knowledge production. Various researchers have captured menstrual experiences in the everyday context of the workplace (Fry et al, Chapter Eight), the school (Parker et al, Chapter Four; King, Chapter Three), the community (Garikipati, chapter Seven; Quint, Chapter Five; Macleod, Chapter 13) and the home (Amini, Chapter 12). In every setting, it is the menstruating body whose agency takes centre stage. This is enabled through the diverse and creative research methods employed by the researchers to explore menstrual experiences. For instance, Macleod (Chapter 13) had menstruating girls shoot films to narrate their menstrual experiences and held informal sessions in the schools in Gombe and Buwenge  in Uganda to watch the films (190).  This resonates with Lessie’s (Chapter Two) multi-sectoral approach to addressing menstruation and menstrual health. As Letsie underscores, the right to information and the right to health are basic human rights. Menstrual health is therefore a human rights issue, and its inclusion in health and development policies and programmes should be prioritised.

The book encompasses menstruating bodies at different stages of life, be it menarche or menopause

The book encompasses menstruating bodies at different stages of life, be it menarche or menopause (Weiss et al, Chapter 10), and menstruating bodies that are disabled (Basnet et al, Chapter Nine). The concluding pages of the book discuss the future prospects of research on menstruation. In doing so, Standing et al highlight the need for more research on “menstruators at margins” (230), for example, menstruators in prisons and detention centres, in humanitarian settings, sex workers, and those with disabilities. Thomson’s (Chapter 11) poem calls for normalising menstruation irrespective of gender and menopause irrespective of age, describing voluntary menopause at a young age to convert from being a female to a male (“because when I was a little girl, I knew I wasn’t…I just thank God that me and my Mother’s menopause didn’t align” 156-157). The poem echoes Lotter et al’s observation in the introduction that “not all women have periods and not all people who menstruate are women” (7). More than seeing menstruation through a lens of gender, it needs to be seen as “an issue of equity and justice” (7).

In this way, the book thus comes full circle in attempting to locate the menstruating body at the epicentre of the school and integrate all other sectors of society (family, community, policy development) into the production of knowledge on menstruation. The amplification of the need for inclusivity is particularly valuable, recognising the differences between menstrual experiences in the Global North and the Global South and challenging the gender binary, as captured in Thomson’s poetry. It is a thought-provoking volume which exposes the reader to the geographical, social, cultural, gender- and age-related subjectivities in which menstruation is experienced, examined through a variety of epistemological approaches. The book thus sets the ball rolling for further advancement of knowledge production around menstrual experiences in all their diversity.

Note: This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credit: PINGO’s Forum on Flickr.

Cartoon by Jen Sorensen.

Donors sympathetic to reactionary-right ideology and their pet pundits have created a cottage industry of bashing college students with negative stereotypes. 

Receive my weekly newsletter by joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.

Follow me on Mastodon or Bluesky

Campaign Action

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.

Neriman Raim, a 16-year-old student in Cologne, Germany, thought that after finishing school she’d want to work in an office.

But two years ago, she did a two-week internship in an architect’s bureau, and it was tedious. Later, a placement working with kindergarteners led her to consider a career as a teacher — but not of kids this young. The next school year, she spent three weeks supervising older children as they did their homework.

Neriman now plans to become an educator working with grade-school children. After finishing school this summer, she’ll participate in a year-long placement to confirm that teaching is the right career for her before going to a technical college. Her internships offered a glimpse of what working life could look like, she said: “I could see what a day is like with kids.”

Neriman Raim, 16, thought she wanted to work in an office but changed her mind when a work placement at an architect’s bureau proved tedious. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report

Neriman is taking part in Kein Abschluss ohne Anschluss (KAoA) — or “no graduation without connection” — a program that has been rolled out across the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia to help students better plan for their futures. Young people get support with resumes and job applications; in ninth grade, they participate in short internships with local businesses and have the option of doing a year-long, one-day-a week work placements in grade 10.

“You don’t learn about a job in school,” said Sonja Gryzik, who teaches English, math and career orientation at the school Neriman attends, Ursula Kuhr Schule. “You have to experience it.”

Germany and other Western European countries have long directed students into career paths at earlier ages than in the US, often placing kids onto university tracks or vocational education starting at age 10. Students in Germany can embark on apprenticeships directly after finishing general education at age 16 in grade 10, attending vocational schools that offer theoretical study, alongside practical training at a company. College-bound kids stay in school for three more years, ending with an entry exam for university.

Small class sizes at Ursula Kuhr Schule allow teachers to offer guidance and support. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report

The apprenticeship system, which is credited with keeping youth unemployment low, has drawn strong interest in the US amid growing disenchantment with university education. Youth apprenticeships have begun to pop up in several US states, and career exposure programs are expanding. “Many of the best jobs our country has to offer don’t require a college education,” wrote workforce training advocate Ryan Craig in his recent book “Apprentice Nation: How the ‘Earn and Learn’ Alternative to Higher Education Will Create a Stronger and Fairer America.”

But in Germany, the hundreds-year-old vocational system has faced headwinds. There is longstanding criticism that low-income students and those from immigrant backgrounds are channeled into vocational fields and away from more academic ones. More recently, despite the high demand for workers in the trades, students and their parents are increasingly hesitant about vocational education. Germany’s labor market has become digitized, and young people are keeping their options open before settling on a career path. Meanwhile, the pandemic had an outsized impact on vocational training, forcing many programs to close for long periods. And recent immigrants may be unaware of voc-ed’s high standing.

All this has led more students to choose to attend university. Yet many drop out: According to recent data, up to 28 percent of students fail to complete a degree. The figure for students in humanities and natural sciences is even higher, up to 50 percent.

Students can test their horticultural skills in the school’s garden. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report

This high failure rate, coupled with labor market needs, has led policymakers to tweak traditional vocational models to make them more flexible. Students in the academic track increasingly have access to both apprenticeships and university, and some students who complete vocational qualifications can still go on to attend a university, where options for combining practical experience with academic studies are growing.

The program Neriman participates in, KAoA, is part of a wave of efforts to engage all students, not just those bound for vocational programs, in workforce preparation. All ninth and 10th grade students in North Rhine-Westphalia must do a three-week-long practical internship. Those on a vocational track begin apprenticeships after completing 10th grade, while students hoping to go to university attend academic high school for three additional years. The program encourages students from all backgrounds to think about their futures in concrete terms, said Bernhard Meyer, a teacher at Ursula Kuhr who coordinates KAoA in 11 towns across the Northwestern region.

“We have every type of possibility,” Meyer said. “And there’s not only apprenticeship or university, there are some studies in between.”

At Ursula Kuhr Schule, students in the school’s woodworking lab build birdhouses and toy cars. A state-of-the-art kitchen lets students develop their culinary skills. An extensive garden, full of herbs, and boasting a hen house, offers an opportunity to test out horticultural skills.

Students take field trips to learn about different jobs. For example, on a trip to the airport they learn about positions such as flight attendant, fire service, security or aircraft mechanic. Employees from Ford, which has a plant in Cologne, visit the school to talk about their work with students and parents.

While university is free in Germany, students who study vocational fields can achieve financial security earlier on.

Crushed by negative news?

Sign up for the Reasons to be Cheerful newsletter.
[contact-form-7]

Businesses in Germany seem keen to participate in vocational training. Chambers of commerce and industry support company-school partnerships and help smaller businesses train their interns. Students are even represented in unions, said Julian Uehlecke, a representative of the youth wing of Germany’s largest trade union alliance.

The goal of apprenticeships is to offer training in the classroom and in the workplace. The system gives students “a pretty good chance of finding a well-paid stable job,” said Leonard Geyer, a researcher at the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research.

Lukas Graf, head of the Swiss Observatory for Vocational Education and Training described the “basic principle” of Germany’s program as providing all-around training: “in the classroom, in the seminar room, and training in the workplace.”

Woodwork supplies at Ursula Kuhr Schule, a school in Cologne, Germany. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report

Mile Glisic, a 15-year-old student at Ursula Kuhr Schule, is doing a long-term work placement at a hardware store and considering an apprenticeship in sales. Earning money while training for a career will help him understand financial planning, and prepare him for a future in which he has a house and family, he said. “I think it’s better because you start to learn what to do with your money when you’re younger,” said Mile.

While the KAoA program has rolled out across all 2,000 schools in this region of Germany, including those that focus on university preparation, Ursula Kuhr Schule prioritizes practical education. Students, more than half of whom come from minority backgrounds, begin career orientation when they are just 12 or 13.

Backers of vocational training say it supports social inclusion by giving young people training that allows them to secure well-paid, stable jobs. But, as in the United States, many argue it limits the prospects of students from marginalized backgrounds and reproduces generational inequalities. This is “a huge debate,” said Graf, of the Swiss Observatory.

To Graf, the value of either a university degree or practical study depends on the particular courses chosen. A university graduate in a field like philosophy, for example, might end up with fewer well-paid opportunities than someone with vocational education training, he said.

The pandemic deepened many parents’ ambivalence about vocational training. While university teaching continued through online platforms, on-the-job training came to a stop when companies had to shut down, said Hubert Ertl, vice president and director of research at Germany’s Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training and professor of vocational education research at the University of Paderborn.

Parents have a big influence: Research by Ertl’s institute shows that when students express interest in a vocational program, their parents often talk them out of it and push them toward higher ed instead. “That’s often not doing the young people any favors,” he said.

His organization works with schools and parents to tackle preconceived ideas about vocational education. “We’ve started to engage with parents quite directly because parents often don’t know about the vocational programs at all, and they don’t know what opportunities they afford.”

Frank Rasche teaches woodwork and technical education at Ursula Kuhr Schule. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report

Tim Becker, 20, is doing an IT apprenticeship after completing the university entry exam at his academically oriented high school in Cologne. At first, his parents, who worked for CocaCola, were uneasy. German parents usually want their children to go to university, “especially if they go to a gymnasium,” Becker wrote in an email, referring to academic high schools.

But in school, his career classes urged students to compare the benefits of university to a practical qualification. For Becker, who’d always loved computers, hands-on training beat out academic theory. “I am just not that guy that likes to sit all day in any lectures at some university,” he said. Some of his old classmates have already dropped out of college and are pursuing internships, he added.

Parents at Ursula Kuhr attend meetings, called “future conferences,” with their kids several times a year. Mile’s parents, who moved to Germany from Serbia when he was nine, have met his teachers frequently. “I know that they were very happy with it,” he said, referring to his career path. “They had some questions about it. But I think they’re thinking good about it because, I mean, it’s only doing good for us.”

Become a sustaining member today!

Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can.

Join

Neriman’s mother, who is a nanny, “loved the idea” that her daughter would teach in grade-school, Neriman said. The teachers and staff at Ursula Kuhr help students gain confidence about their futures, she said. “The teachers do everything for us — they don’t want anyone to finish school and have nothing.”

Other European countries are seeing similar labor market needs. Denmark, whose minister for education trained as a bricklayer, is facing a significant skills shortage in vocational fields, said Camilla Hutters, head of the National Center for Vocational Education, a Danish research organization.

Students are encouraged to think about their futures. “We always talk about different jobs that might be suitable for them,” said Sonja Gryzik, who teaches English, math and career orientation at Ursula Kuhr Schule. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report

In the 1960s, practical and project-based learning was common in Danish schools, Hutters said. That changed in the 1990s, when Denmark scored poorly on international rankings like the Program for International Student Assessment. Now, economic needs are causing a swing back to vocational and career education.

Today, Danish students as young as six might visit a workplace or spend a week learning about a particular career, she said, and discussions are under way to further integrate practical learning in primary school. Danish leaders also want to improve collaboration with business across the education system, including at the university level, Hutters said, where an increasing number of courses are likely to involve working with a company. Political leaders are discussing reforms that would “improve practical learning in the whole system,” she said.

But a tension between on-the-job training and academia persists in Danish thinking, she added. Although policymakers want to expand the practical element across all levels of education, university still remains the goal for many students and their parents. “This is a little bit of a mixed tendency at the same time, right now in Denmark,” she said.

Back in Germany, Becker will finish his internship in September 2024 with expertise in IT services and network security. Throughout his training, he has earned money — and will get up to €1,260 (roughly $1,360) per month in his final year — which has meant he could avoid taking on part-time work as some of his college friends have done.  “You don’t need to sit all day in university and go to work in the evening to pay your bills,” he said.

And it suits him. He grew up surrounded by computers, tinkering alongside his dad, and that love of technology persisted through his teens. He likes working with his hands and doing, “something where I can learn practical things,” he said.

This story about German vocational training was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post How Schools in Germany Are Preparing Students for Flexible Futures appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

This article was first published in the February 2024 monthly print edition of Byline Times. Subscribe now to get ahead of the curve.

After the infamous 49 days of Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak was identified by the Conservative Party as the safest available pair of hands. He was a Prime Minister who could be trusted to knot his own tie and lace his own shoes, a dependable front-man for the increasingly unbalanced Conservative Brexit belief system. In short, he was Head Boy material.

Boyish and immature were qualities previously observed in Sunak’s male predecessors. Neither David Cameron nor Boris Johnson could quite carry off the role of grown-up, as if at heart both men remained fans of escapades without consequences. 

Cameron had his boyishly unlined face and Johnson his unbrushed hair. He had his arch schoolboy’s vocabulary – the fourth-form Latin and ripe English poppycock – and between them the old Etonian pals looked confident of doing what they wanted and not getting caught. Or not being punished if they were.

Sunak’s boyishness is of a slightly different order. 

Keen, compliant, he too gives off a sense of arrested development – the old school old boy who never grew up. The first clue is the hair. 

Hair statements are a conspicuous feature of 21st Century politics and, in the hothouse of Sunak’s private all-boys boarding school, Winchester College, he’d have understood hairstyles as a form of communication, a way of giving or withdrawing consent. His neat side-parting consents to authority and to the inherently traditional values of any institution founded in 1382.

His daily care with a comb projects a message that once, in his schooldays, was graciously received: Sunak was favoured by the adults and appointed Head Boy. 

As Prime Minister, he retains an unmistakable Head Boy Energy.

Importance Ingrained

In April 2022, Rishi Sunak made a donation of at least £100,000 to his old school. In an interview with Sky News, the then Chancellor said that Winchester College “helped make me who I am as a person and I’m sure it helps me to do the job in the way that I do it”. This sounds true enough, especially because since becoming Prime Minister Sunak has brought in former Winchester chums like James Forsyth as his closest advisors. 

In the same interview, Sunak thanked Winchester for the “opportunity”, like a contestant on The Apprentice. He isn’t wrong to do so, because in Conservative politics an education at a grand English public school is still today a gateway to the big end-of-series prize. 

Sadly for Sunak, achieving his schoolboy ambitions didn’t stop him getting stuck at Head Boy. He applies himself to public speaking, for example, as if no idea or policy is entirely his own, though his attempt at presenting as an adult should be commended considering his age. 

If he continues to do his duty and work hard he’s confident of earning adult approval and an impeccable termly report. Because isn’t that what always happens?

Take a look at the Conservatives’ poll ratings, and his own personal favourability with the public, and it would seem not.

Democracy was not a feature of Sunak’s appointment to the big job, now or then.

There was no public vote to make him Prime Minister and, back in the 1990s, Winchester’s Head Boy was anointed by the Head Man. I’ve asked former pupils what the position involved, but most have only vague memories of a ceremonial function, often involving Latin. No one remembers clearly what these Head Boys did (there were two of them, which Sunak has never managed to mention) and they tended to be ‘anonymous’.

I imagine it all felt much grander and more important to those who were actually chosen; a once-and-forever Head Boyness ingrained for the rest of a Head Boyish life. 

From now on, Sunak was not to be criticised but congratulated. He could have been forgiven, aged 18, for looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. As Head Boy, his presence around the quads and classrooms was exaggerated in size, at least to himself. Looking ahead, the future appeared smaller and less simple. 

Now, from 2024, he can look back with the telescope the right way round – he’s learned that much at least – and school is magnified to look like the best days of his life. Worth a gift of a hundred thousand pounds, at least.

In his carefully curated biography – let’s call it the ‘Head Boy of Winchester College’ – is a widely-known, self-publicised fact about Rishi Sunak. It’s a boast he doesn’t recognise as a curse. If he did, he’d never have made Head Boy in the first place. Nor, as a schoolboy, could he have ingratiated himself so successfully if he hadn’t mastered an indifference to glaring class injustices or to the texture and traction of contemporary reality, which was refused entry at the Winchester College gates.

Sunak was proud to represent 800 years of elite plunder and token forays into the community. Later, he confirmed his horizons were so narrow and his mind so unquestioning he reliably came back with his gormless £100,000. 

Representation Not Responsibility

The Head Boy, by any old school measure, was someone who made the grown-ups happy. Children at boarding schools, like Sunak at Winchester, often find themselves making an unconscious promise to their parents not to fail or get into trouble. A stonking career compensates for the parental ‘sacrifice’ and justifies the family separation. 

But every step up the ladder is also an unresolved plea for attention and affection – a condition explored in 1970 by the Jamaican writer and politician Lucille Iremonger. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, like Johnson and Cameron before him, has the Phaeton complex.

Phaeton, in Greek mythology, is a frustrated child of the sun god Helios. He insists on driving his father’s chariot just for one day. When eventually he gets his chance he crashes the chariot, which in the ancient worldview explained why so much of Africa was a desert. According to Iremonger, a hunger for power was the tragic fate of children who suffered a trauma in childhood, and she developed her theory from a study of British prime ministers between 1809 and 1940. Most of them were abandoned by their parents in English private boarding schools. Phaeton’s blind sense of purpose, Iremonger notes, “could lead only to disaster for himself, and possibly for others”.

Pity the eager Head Boy. His character already compromised by boarding school adaptations, he now embraces the corruption of prestige without power. Head Boy is Sunak’s version of Tory immaturity, which like Cameron and Johnson he can use as a reason to be excused. 

In front of the COVID Inquiry, for example, he could convince himself he wasn’t included in significant decisions and that, to the best of his recollection, few communications of any importance passed across his desk. He may have been Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he was light on power and responsibility. The Head Boy always is.

What Sunak’s Head Boy persona does bring with it is a brittle neediness. He needs validation, which is what got him the job in the first place. When he isn’t liked, or when he’s challenged, his Head Boy face drops. He gets tetchy and confused when he can’t find the right answer or when his answer isn’t accepted as right. 

He’s a good boy, he really is. He’s done well and worked hard, so why doesn’t he get the respect his unelected Head Boy status deserves? Why isn’t he loved? He has no idea, and if a playful Christmas video might help he’ll try it. It turns out he’s not very good at playful, not after so many years of pretending to be fully grown-up. 

Due to his immense personal wealth, but also due to his schooling, Rishi Sunak is vulnerable to accusations that he’s out of touch. During his Sky News interview, for example, he appeared unaware of the fact that he was echoing the more hapless contestants from The Apprentice. Those who thank Lord Sugar for the opportunity are the ones about to leave the show.

Thank you for the opportunity, Winchester College. Sorry I couldn’t have done better.

Richard Beard is the author of ‘Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England’