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Dissertation ETD Draft EDIT ABSTRACT STONE, MELISSA MARIE Rhetorics of Menstruation: Mattering Menstrual Healthcare Technologies. (Under the direction of Dr. Stacey L. Pigg). This dissertation is the first rhetorically focused analysis of menstrual healthcare technologies, and it concludes that communities face difficult material-discursive circumstances in their interactions with menstruation, an unavoidable health-related process for a large percentage of the global population. Menstrual healthcare is enacted through technical communication artifacts and rhetorical discourses that aid in the concealment of menstruation, enforce control over menstruating bodies, ignore a consensual relationship with menstruators, and motivate feelings of bodily shame. While previous feminist analyses in technical and professional communication (TPC) and the rhetorics of health and medicine (RHM) have addressed menstruation by proxy of other sexual and reproductive health concerns, my dissertation addresses menstrual healthcare directly. In this dissertation, I apply material feminist approaches to analyze the rhetorical implications of material arrangements that include menstruating bodies, reproductive health discourses, menstrual healthcare technologies, and their related public-facing technical texts such as manuals, tutorials, and marketing artifacts. My material feminist analysis illustrates how menstruating bodies are (re)mediated and coproduced through technologies and practices that are predicated on models of efficiency and productivity that align with but also differ from those discussed by previous TPC and RHM scholarship. The overarching objectives of this dissertation include the advancement of material feminist rhetorics and social justice approaches in TPC and RHM, providing examples through which to theorize a material feminist approach to intervening in technical rhetorics of menstrual healthcare, and informing rhetoricians and technical communicators about the importance of menstrual healthcare and more inclusive technological designs and instructional compositions. © Copyright 2021 by Melissa Stone All Rights Reserved Rhetorics of Menstruation: Mattering Menstrual Healthcare Technologies by Melissa Marie Stone A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillMent of the requireMents for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ComMunication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Raleigh, North Carolina 2021 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ _______________________________ Stacey L. Pigg Nicholas T. Taylor ComMittee Chair _______________________________ _______________________________ Zachary Beare Jordynn Jack ii DEDICATION To anyone who has ever menstruated or will ever menstruate. Bleed freely and without shaMe. iii BIOGRAPHY Melissa Stone is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in the ComMunication, Rhetoric & Digital Media (CRDM) prograM at North Carolina State University (NCSU). She graduated from the University of North Carolina WilMington (UNCW) in 2016 with a master’s degree in English. Her research frequently focuses on technical rhetorics, material feMinist theories, and on the innovation and use of reproductive and sexual healthcare technologies. Melissa’s solo and co- authored published work has appeared in the feMinist rhetoric journal Peitho, the international Media studies journal MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture, and the comMunity-engaged journal Reflections. She has a forthcoming co-authored book chapter that analyzes access to reproductive healthcare using telehealth medicine mobile apps, as well as a forthcoming collaborative dialogue in the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine journal that situates rhetorics of reproductive justice within the rhetorics of health and medicine. All these projects, in different ways, explore the real-world potential for rhetorical-materialist studies of technoscience through radically inclusive feMinist research practices. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a difficult thing to write a dissertation, let alone writing that dissertation in a worldwide pandeMic. Upon completing this dissertation, I aM sometiMes not sure how I was able to do it. While I did the hard work of researching and writing this thing, I also owe a lot to the people who made it possible for me to keep pushing through even in the hardest of tiMes. I want to first thank my dissertation comMittee: Stacey Pigg, Zachary Beare, Nicholas Taylor, and Jordynn Jack. Each in their own way, they have helped me envision how and why menstruation Matters, especially as it concerns rhetorical studies and technical comMunication. In particular, Stacey and Zach have taken so much of their tiMe to help me think through this project and its iMportance. I have learned so much from all of you, and I aM excited to continue to work with and along-side each of you as I continue my career. I also want to thank all my mentors who have helped shape this project, and more largely My acadeMic trajectory, in ways that I could have never iMagined. Kate Maddelena, Sarah Hallenbeck, Marie Novotny, Erin Frost, and Lori Beth De Hertogh, each of you have helped me to realize how iMportant my work with menstrual justice is, and you have given me so many ideas with where to take this work in the future. I aM looking forward to many more collaborations and discussions! I would be reMiss if I did not also thank my peers (who have become some of my very best friends in life), both from my master’s prograM and from CRDM. First, Jeff BruinsMa, LeTriece Calhoun, and Caleb Covington. Where would I be without you?! We’ve been doing this acadeMic thing together for what seeMs like forever. All your support and the hijinks we’ve gotten up to throughout the years has meant so much to me and it always will. From the tiny little TA office in Morton Hall on UNCW’s caMpus in 2015 to where we are now at our respective v institutions in 2021, I have talked to you all in some form alMost every single day. That’s nearly six years of daily talks, laughs, and much needed complaining about the universe! I can only hope we continue our discussions and adventures into our careers. Second, to my CRDM cohort. What can I even say? I knew early in the prograM that I was aMongst sMart, funny, and supportive people. I couldn’t be luckier to be a part of a cohort like ours. We’ve laughed together, traveled together, cooked together, and we have certainly had our share of rosé together. I aM so glad I could enjoy this PhD journey with you all. To my mom, sister, and my dad who is no longer with us. Thank you for always putting up with my obnoxious know-it-all self! Thank you, too, for understanding my need to be in school basically forever. Mom, you are perhaps the biggest reason why I have dedicated my life to feMinist scholarship. You taught me early on what it means to be a strong and capable woman. I continue to learn from you every day. You are truly an inspiration to me. AManda, my baby sis! I’m lucky to have such a great little sister like you. Through all the sibling fights and teenage angst, we’ve become the very best of friends. I aM so glad we have a close relationship, one which is built upon a foundation of support, humor, and the very deepest of love. It meant so Much to me that you were both able to attend my dissertation defense. Lastly, to my dad. I wish every single day that you were still here with us. It was the hardest thing in the world to lose you, but I know you are resting easy. You told me often how proud you were of me, and it always Meant the world to hear that. I love you all very much. Finally, to my partner, Justin. Thank you for sitting by my side every single day in pandeMic lockdown while I wrote this thing. Thank you for being there for me through the loss of my father and for telling me that everything was going to be alright when it really felt like it wouldn’t be. I love you and our stinkin’ cats more than words can say. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... viii Introduction: The Need for a Material Feminist Analysis of Menstrual Healthcare ............ 1 The Need for FeMinist Technoscience Interventions .................................................................... 9 Establishing More Equitable Definitions of Technology ................................................ 10 Inclusivity in Reproductive and Sexual Healthcare ......................................................... 12 Rethinking Hierarchies and Entrenched Binaries ............................................................ 14 Redressing Violence Against Women and Marginalized Populations ............................ 17 Reproductive Justice and/in Rhetorics of Health and Medicine .................................................. 19 The Mattering and Meaning of Menstruation in Rhetorical Studies ........................................... 21 Menstruation: A Stigmatized Experience ........................................................................ 22 Making Menstrual Healthcare Technologies More Transparent ..................................... 24 Uneven Access to Menstrual Health Knowledges and Options ...................................... 25 Overview of Dissertation ............................................................................................................. 26 Chapter One: A Material FeMinist Approach to Analyzing Menstrual Healthcare Technologies ...................................................................................................................
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