Research! Let’s Reflect

For this assignment, I ended up doing a lot of different kinds of searches, more than I wanted to, but I wanted to make sure that I found sources that actually worked. At first, I was just looking up general things like “menstruation stigma” or “periods in literature,” but those were kind of too broad and didn’t always give me useful results. What helped more was being more specific, like searching “menstrual suppression” and “psychological symptoms in menstrual cycle.” That’s how I found articles that were useful to me. For the poems, it was easier because my professor gave me a lot to work with, thankfully, so I could just search the titles directly.

One thing that went well was finding strong scientific sources. There IS a lot of research about the menstrual cycle, especially the biology and mental health side of it. That helped me feel like I had a solid foundation for explaining how the body actually works, not just the social side. It also connected really well to Period Power since that book talks a lot about understanding your cycle. I also think my mix of sources is good because I have both scientific articles and poems, which makes my topic more interesting and not just one-dimensional.

Something that was kind of difficult was finding sources that directly connected menstruation to stigma in a literary way. There’s a lot of science, and there are poems, but not as many sources that bring those two things together. I kind of had/ will continue to make those connections myself instead of finding articles that already did it. It was also a little hard to find sources that talk about menstruation in a positive or empowering way, because a lot of research focuses more on problems or symptoms.

I was surprised by how many sources talked about mental health and the menstrual cycle. I was pleasantly surprised that there are resources that talk about how much hormones can affect mood, anxiety, and overall mental well-being. That made me think differently about some of the poems, because now I can see how those emotional experiences might connect to real biological changes! I also didn’t expect to find as much research about menstrual suppression and how it’s considered safe and even helpful.