Abstract Book of the 7th Global Conference on Women’s Studies
Year: 2025
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Czech Media Discourse and Menstruation
Petra Poncarová
ABSTRACT:
The topic of menstruation is becoming not only an important but also a forefront topic in women’s and gender studies. However, there is still not enough scientific focus on the analysis of media discourse in conjunction with menstruating bodies. The discursive approach to the body prioritizes how scientific or media representations discursively construct bodies, i.e. how the body is problematized or how social practices applied to bodies arise through cultural discourse. Therefore, the aim of my research is to outline how Czech newspaper articles co maintain a normative discourse regarding menstruating bodies, and how the readers / audience reacts to the stigmatized topic of menstruation. With the use of critical discourse analysis (CDA), it will be shown, how menstruating bodies are supervised through this type of media discourse. The analysis is focused on selected newspaper articles from Czech online mainstream media and online discussions under them. The selected articles focus on menstruation and menstruating bodies, and at the same time, the aim is to capture the development of menstrual discourse in popularization texts. The analysis will outline how newspaper articles co-maintain a normative discourse regarding menstruating bodies, and how the readership reacts to the stigmatized topic of menstruation. It will be shown how menstruating bodies are supervised through this discourse.
Keywords: menstruation; media; discourse; women’s bodies; Czech Republic