Menstruation in PE. Exploring students’ perspectives in online forums

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to explore how students interpret and negotiate menstruation in PE in online forums. We conducted a qualitative discourse analysis of 12 threads from 4 different German-language online forums, in which menstruation in PE is discussed by students. Our goal was to analyse which topics structure this online discourse and how menstruation in PE is constructed as a discourse phenomenon. The study found that participation in PE during menstruation and the use of hygiene products are the dominant topics, with swimming in PE gaining particular attention. The results further detail that students’ online posts invoke specific causes, conditions, consequences, and strategies for dealing with menstruation in PE. The results indicate that students posting in online forums mainly interpret menstruation as an individual, shameful, restrictive, and unpleasant issue, stabilising norms of silence and concealment. Future research and pedagogical approaches must account for this.

KEYWORDS:

• Periods
• physical education
• online research
• discourse analysis
• body
• gender
• sexuality

Introduction

Menstruation has traditionally been described as a topic tabooed in social contexts (e.g. Gottlieb, 2020; Johnston-Robledo & Chrisler, 2020). However, it is currently gaining greater visibility and awareness in different parts of society,¹ including sports. Examples are major sports brands focusing their product innovations on addressing menstruation (e.g. shorts or period underwear with leak protection, workout apps for cycle-specific training), launching campaigns to educate women about exercising during their periods (https://www.nike.com/gb/a/menstrual-cycle-training; #LetsTalkPeriods – o.b.® & DFB, https://www.ob.de/dfb-frauen) or research in sports science focusing on the influence of the menstrual cycle on the physical condition, well-being, and performance of female athletes (Brown et al., 2020; Carmichael et al., 2021).

If and how these developments of increasing visibility and awareness towards menstruation in society, particularly in sports, manifest within the school subject of physical education (PE) is still an open question. PE is characterised by its distinct focus on the body, with teaching and learning processes directly engaging with it (Paechter, 2000). In this context, menstruation can become relevant in different ways. On the one hand, physical activity is often mandatory for participating in PE. During menstruation, which is associated with pain or physical discomfort for many students, this often leads to students wanting to avoid participating in PE, which regularly sparks discussions with teachers or other students. On the other hand, PE in many countries aims to address issues such as performance, gender, or health in relation to the body, movement, and sports (Kirk et al., 2006). This opens opportunities to address menstruation in PE pedagogically, for instance, with the aim of promoting health literacy (Nutbeam, 2000) regarding menstruation as a physiological, affective, but also socio-discursive phenomenon.

There is a growing body of work addressing menstrual health and menstrual health literacy in schools in low- and middle-income countries (Hennegan et al.; 2019; Holmes et al., 2021). Moreover, a discourse on this topic that also mentions PE as a relevant subject has been particularly initiated in Australia (Curry et al., 2022; Ferfolja et al., 2024). In other countries, and specifically in Germany, there have been few discussions and barely any empirical studies on this matter. Generally, there is a lack of fundamental research that can describe how menstruation is perceived and interpreted in PE by the actors themselves. Given the social taboo surrounding menstruation, accessing the perspectives of PE students appears particularly challenging.

Addressing this issue, the purpose of this study was to explore how students interpret and negotiate the topic of menstruation in PE in German-language online forums. Internet spaces, specifically online forums, are emerging as spaces in which current and former students directly engage and share knowledge on personal and intimate topics (e.g. Armour et al., 2021). Previous studies demonstrate the importance of such online spaces for negotiating topics such as students’ sexuality in PE (Böhlke et al., 2024; Böhlke & Zander, 2022) or menstruation in general (Davies et al., 2022). Yet, studies that investigate online communication on menstruation in PE are still lacking.

Our study draws on a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (Keller, 2013; 2018), in which menstruation in PE is considered a sociocultural phenomenon that is shaped by the knowledge that circulates in specific discourses (Foucault, 1983). Online forums are regarded as discourse spaces in which users, through their posts, actively interpret, contribute to, and negotiate the discursive construction of this phenomenon. Analysing 12 threads from 4 different German-language online forums, in which menstruation in PE is discussed by users that identify as (former) students, our study addresses the following research questions:

• What topics are discussed in online forums by students regarding menstruation in PE?

• How is menstruation in PE constructed as a discourse phenomenon in the online communication?

Answering these questions and discussing the findings in the context of existing research, our paper contributes to a better understanding of the knowledge, subject positions, norms, and power relations that are (re-)produced through the discursive construction of menstruation in PE as a sociocultural phenomenon.

State of research

Menstruation in school

Existing research highlights a lack of acknowledgement of menstruation within the curriculums, formal regulations, and educational realities of schools (Curry et al., 2022; Ferfolja et al., 2024). Most of this research focusses on specific cultural areas, often distinguishing between low-, middle-, and high-income countries. However, there are also cross-cultural studies (Barrington et al., 2021; Holmes et al., 2021; Phillips-Howard et al., 2016) that comprehensively show that across countries, menstruation is associated with individual issues for students on physical, emotional, and social levels. Studies indicate that the ‘social stigma’ (Johnston-Robledo & Chrisler, 2020, p. 181) surrounding menstruation applies in schools and leads to stress, shame, and fear of appearing as a female student who menstruates (Davies et al., 2022; Sánchez López et al., 2023). Consequently, female students face difficulties concentrating in class and, in certain cultural contexts, even refrain from attending school (Crankshaw et al., 2020). However, Davies et al. (2022) show that students’ perceptions of menstruation can also carry positive connotations. In their qualitative study, menstrual positivity emerged as a central theme (alongside menstrual health and menstrual stigma) of students’ social media tweets. Other empirical evidence reveals that students lack sufficient knowledge about menstruation regarding its biological underpinnings and the management of the menstrual cycle (Betsu et al., 2023; Sánchez López et al., 2023). Additionally, some teachers feel unable to discuss menstruation with students due to shame or lack of knowledge (Harvey et al., 2020).

Building on this existing research, enhancing students’ menstrual health literacy² is discussed as a crucial component of health education and of sexual education in schools, with approaches aiming to address menstruation not only within medical but also within social and emotional frameworks (Armour et al., 2021). School is considered to be an institution in ‘excellent position’ to provide adolescents with knowledge and skills regarding menstruation (Ferfolja et al., 2024, p. 500). In the German context, where our study is situated, health education and sexual education are taught across traditional subjects. Menstruation is included in the curriculum of sexual education, which is taught starting from the fourth grade, often predominantly in biology classes. The sexual education curricula focus on topics such as the female cycle or reproduction from a human biological perspective, and there is no requirement to teach menstruation in relation to aspects of menstrual health (Deutscher Bundestag, 2016).

Menstruation in PE

Australia is one example where PE is discussed as a school subject that provides opportunities for students to develop menstrual health literacy (Curry et al., 2022). In many other countries, such discussions are still lacking. In Germany, PE is a mandatory subject that is taught consistently throughout the entire school career. The topic of menstruation is not anchored in the curricular, however, there are opportunities for integration. In the German curricula, PE is tasked with helping students develop knowledge and skills but also critical and moral values with regard to body, movement, and sports while taking up overarching goals of, for instance, diversity education or health education (Balz & Neumann, 2005). To this end, the body, movement, and sports are to be addressed in PE classes under so-called pedagogical perspectives, among them the perspective ‘enhancement of health and health-awareness’ (Balz & Neumann, 2005, p. 298). This pedagogical perspective offers opportunities for a broad health education that could also include addressing issues of menstruation and developing menstrual health literacy in PE. However, there is hardly any corresponding scholarship. Only Höfinger-Hampel (2010) formulates approaches for a sensitive handling of the female body in PE based on her analyses of situations where menstruation plays a role, such as non-participation in swimming classes.

Outside of the German context, research on menstruation in PE that could inform pedagogical approaches is equally scarce. Nolen (1965) highlights key areas of concern regarding menstruation in PE from the perspective of female students (including pain, fatigue, mood swings), arguing – almost 50 years ago – that girls should be educatively guided, informed, and empowered in forming their attitudes toward menstruation. This guidance – regularly taken up in the following publications – is important as misconceptions and negative perceptions of menstruation tend to be passed down across generations. Harvey et al.’s qualitative study (2020) examining girls’ perspectives on menstruation in the context of physical activity also addresses PE. It highlights that participation during menstruation is influenced by various intrapersonal factors (motivation and enjoyment of sports) and interpersonal factors (fear of visible bleeding in front of others). Girls employed various strategies to alleviate menstrual barriers (e.g. wearing appropriate clothing, using pain relief techniques) that relied more on individual experiences than on knowledge-based education. The recent quantitative study by Takabayashi-Ebina et al. (2023) on how physical education teachers handle menstruation-related issues among students reveals that predominantly female teachers engage in discussions with their students on the topic. Most respondents also reported recommending the use of pain relief medications and adjusting their teaching approach in cases of discomfort (altering the content of physical education classes).

In sum, there is a general lack of research on menstruation in PE. From our perspective, how menstruation is currently interpreted and negotiated by actors of PE, and in how far the outlined societal developments of increasing awareness and sensitivity towards menstruation manifest in these interpretations and negotiations, are questions that warrant particular attention. Contributing to this task, our study focusses on students as central actors of PE and seeks to explore which perspectives on menstruation in PE they express in internet forums, which are emerging as important spaces for discussions of such a topic (Böhlke et al., 2024; Böhlke & Zander, 2022; Davies et al., 2022).

Research approach

Our study follows a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD; Keller, 2013; 2018) to analyse menstruation as a sociocultural phenomenon that is shaped by knowledge that circulates in specific discourses.

Sociology of knowledge approach to discourse

SKAD offers a comprehensive research agenda incorporating a theoretical and methodological approach aimed at exploring how realities are constructed discursively within social relations of knowledge and knowing, as well as within the social politics accompanying these relations (Keller, 2018, p. 27). The basic assumption is that discourses construct and circulate specific knowledge regarding phenomena such as menstruation in PE. That is, they construct and circulate specific concepts and ideas about a wide range of aspects related to this phenomenon, such as physiology, anatomy, human development, adolescence, feelings, or emotions. And they relate these concepts and ideas to specific norms, values, and claims to truth. These concepts, ideas, norms, and truths then generate and stabilise everyday ways of acting, feeling, and thinking about menstruation in PE, while being simultaneously reproduced, negotiated, updated, and altered (Keller, 2013). For example, the circulating discursive knowledge both enables and governs whether the phenomenon of menstruation in PE is classified as a problem, who is responsible for dealing with this problem, which solutions are legitimate within the PE and school setting, and which are not. Following SKAD, our study is thus concerned with analysing which knowledge students draw on and (re-)produce in internet forums to socially construct menstruation in PE as a discourse phenomenon.

Menstruation as a discourse phenomenon

From our discourse theoretical perspective, the knowledge about menstruation in PE that is circulated in the discourse space of online forums is connected to how menstruation has been historically constructed in different discourses. Existing scholarship (e.g. Koskenniemi, 2023; Newton, 2016; Zinn-Thomas, 1997) shows that discourses on menstruation are originally shaped by taboos, myths, and (mis-)understandings, which are rooted in religious beliefs (e.g. the established notion of menstruation’s impurity in Christianity) and (pseudo-)scientific knowledge (e.g. interpretations of menstrual blood as a toxic substance until the mid-twentieth century or as a psychological disorder). Building on this, the treatment of menstruating individuals has traditionally been characterised by practices of self-regulation, isolation, taboo, and discrimination (e.g. Koskenniemi, 2023).

In reaction to this, feminist studies strive to make menstruation-related experiences of women visible and analyse them in their cultural meanings. There has been a growing focus on menstruation as a taboo break (e.g. Jackson & Falmagne, 2013) and its connection to gender-hierarchised perspectives and the patriarchal construction of modern societies (Zinn-Thomas, 1997, p. 36). It has been emphasised that negative and tabooing discourses are still perpetuated through various media channels (e.g. educational brochures, popular culture, and social media). These discourses manifest, for example, in euphemistic, derogatory, or condescending, and sometimes sexist language, which contributes to menstruation continuing to be pathologized, ridiculed, and tabooed (e.g. Erchull, 2013).

Our study is concerned with exploring how students’ discussions in internet forums on menstruation in PE relate to these overarching discourses on menstruation.

Materials and methods

Online forums

According to Foucault, whose work SKAD builds on, among others, discourses can be analysed by considering given speech acts that are performed in particular discourse spaces and by attending to the patterns according to which these speech acts form discursive practices that constitute a particular knowledge (Keller, 2018, p. 26). These discursive practices and knowledge constructions become accessible through their materialisation in, for example, pieces of text, reports, books, lectures, leaflets, etc., which serve as empirical data. Online forums are the discourse space that our study focusses on. They function as platforms for (mostly text-based) asynchronous communication (Schiek & Ullrich, 2019). In its interactive structure, this communication not only depicts subjective perspectives but invokes collectively shared interpretations and constitutes a collective discourse. The communication typically begins with a post about a specific topic, followed by subsequent responses that unfold chronologically, often referencing or expanding upon previous posts. This structure creates thematic chains of communication known as threads. In our research approach, these threads are regarded as materialisations of discursive practices and serve as the empirical data that we collected (see below). Users engaging in these threads have the option to choose their username and determine the personal information they wish to disclose, allowing for potential anonymity. While on other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter³, personal profiles play an important role and ‘firmer’ social networks are established, the online forums we examined offer spaces to communicate with others on specific topics, if chosen anonymously, and access expert knowledge with even lower barriers (Schiek & Ullrich, 2019). Yet, it is important to note that expertise and personal details are based on shared user information, which can rarely be independently verified. Existing studies show that online forums, due to their specific character, provide youth and adolescents with valuable accessible, voluntary, and potentially anonymous spaces for communicating about health related and intimate or taboo topics, such as sexuality in PE (Böhlke et al., 2024; Böhlke & Zander, 2022; Scharmanski & Hessling, 2021).

Data collection

Systematic considerations for the generation of our data corpus were carried out in intensive examination of relevant methodological literature (Holtz et al., 2012; Schmidt-Lux & Wohlrab-Sahr, 2020; Smedley & Coulson, 2018), whereby our own strategies were carefully documented and continuously reflected in the analysis process. Our data collection followed the method of theoretical sampling, which is suitable for explorative qualitative research that aims at developing a local theory, grounded in the data, of the properties, dimensions, and variations of a specific phenomenon. This sampling method is originally situated in Grounded Theory Methodology (Charmaz, 2014; Strauss & Corbin, 1996) but has since been adapted in other qualitative research approaches, among them SKAD (Keller, 2013; 2018). Following this method, data collection was part of an ongoing iterative process in which initial data analysis informed the collection of new data, the comparative analysis of which provided a richer and deeper understanding of the phenomenon (Charmaz, 2014; Strauss & Corbin, 1996). This iterative process was conducted between January 2022 and April 2023. With the aim of identifying different aspects that constitute the discourse phenomenon of menstruation in PE, we conducted German-language Google-searches that combined PE-related keywords (e.g. physical education, sports, school, teacher, student) with keywords related to menstruation (e.g. menstruation, menstrual, cycle, period, tampon, blood). The keywords and search strings evolved during the iterative research process. We included all websites that could be identified as online forums and here all threads that dealt with aspects related to menstruation in PE from the perspective of users that identified as (former) students. All other websites and threads that did not meet these criteria were excluded. In the included threads, PE was directly mentioned as the context of issues of menstruation. For example, users asked specific questions about participating in PE during menstruation (‘Participate in school sports despite period?’) or described situations from PE classes. We mostly included threads where the connection between PE and menstruation served as the starting point for the thread. This way, we inferred that the context of PE was relevant to all users participating in this discussion. We copied the threads into word documents, additionally saved screenshots to account for the visual elements of the websites and wrote memos of our initial observations. During this iterative research process, 12 threads from 4 different online forums were included in the data corpus for detailed analysis (Table 1). As Table 1 indicates, in some of these threads, the communication spanned multiple years but was inactive at the time of data collection. However, some threads were still open for new posts and might have been reactivated since. This highlights that discourse analyses, particularly in online spaces, are always ‘snapshots’ (Keller, 2018, p. 34).

Table 1. Data corpus.

Threads^a	Contributions	Period (year)	Forum /Website
Topic: Participation in PE during menstruation
Period – PE	57	2008	A
How to avoid swimming at school while period	11	2013	A
PE Teacher forces to swim during menstruation	205	2015–2017	B
Subject: Period/Menstruation in PE	22	2015	C
Participate in school sports despite period?	16	2010	D
How to formulate a written apology because of the menstruation for PE?	9	2012–2019	D
Telling PE-Teacher that I have the period?	3	2018	D
Why join during your period?	86	2021	D
Topic: Use of hygiene products in PE
Alternative to tampons for swimming lessons?	7	2013	D
Can I use a panty liner for PE while I’m on my period?	6	2010	D
How to hide a napkin in physical education class?	9	2020	D
Embarrassing: Leaked at school	9	2015	D

^a Thread titles were translated from German by the authors and modified for the purpose of anonymisation.

Data analysis

SKAD serves as a research approach suitable for exploring largely unknown or under-researched phenomena with the aim of constructing local theories. To reconstruct patterns of knowledge production according to which a discourse performs its symbolic structuring of these phenomena, SKAD offers different analytical concepts, derived from general sociology of knowledge, that can guide the data analysis (Keller, 2018, p. 32). Our study relies on the concept of phenomenal structures. This concept aims at reconstructing ‘the so-called Gestalt of a phenomenon of concern […] within a concrete discourse’ (Keller, 2018, p. 33; emphasis in original). That is, the concept of phenomenal structures guided us in identifying which elements and properties students invoked in their online posts talking about the issue of menstruation in PE and how they typically related these elements and properties which one another to construct the ‘Gestalt’ of the phenomenon of concern, menstruation in PE, in a particular way.

To reconstruct the phenomenal structure of menstruation in PE in online forums, SKAD does not present an own specific method for data analysis, but rather advices researchers in adapting methodical procedures from different qualitative approaches. Like many research projects based on SKAD, we adopted the procedures of open and axial coding, which were originally developed within Grounded Theory Methodology (Strauss & Corbin, 1996). We open-coded all posts line by line while asking ‘what actually happens in the text?’, ‘what category does the textual passage suggest?’ (Titscher et al., 2000; p. 79 cited in Keller, 2013, p. 118). Axial coding then aimed to relate the codes and categories that we found to each other. Going through the data material again, we tried to determine: ‘What are the conditions for the events comprised in the concepts?’, ‘How can the interaction between the actors be described?’, What strategies and tactics can be determined?’, ‘What are the consequences of the events?’ (Titscher et al., 2000, pp. 79–80, cited in Keller, 2013, p. 119). Following these methodical procedures, we were able to reconstruct the content and the general dimensions from which the phenomenon of menstruation in PE is constituted in the discourse space we examined (Keller, 2013, pp. 116–117). That is, the categories we built through open and axial coding identify the dominant topics that students discuss in online threads when addressing menstruation in PE and reveal the specific causes, conditions, consequences, and strategies for dealing with menstruation in PE that are negotiated when addressing these topics. In their characteristic interconnections, these topics and their invoking with regard to specific causes, conditions, consequences, and strategies form the phenomenal structure of menstruation in PE, as constructed in the discursive space of students’ posts in online forums (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Phenomenal structure of students’ menstruation in PE.

Ethics

Based on recent discussions (Eysenbach & Till, 2001; Schmidt-Lux & Wohlrab-Sahr, 2020) and adhering to current guidelines (Franzke et al., 2020) on ethics in online research, our study followed a dynamic and situational approach to research ethics. This approach emphasises that ethical assessments and decisions must continually occur within the openly and reflexively designed research process, as researchers gradually develop a deeper understanding of the characteristics of their online research field. Our study relies exclusively on public and open internet forums as a research field. The discussions in these forums constitute ‘natural’ discourse, occurring without our intervention. Posts in these forums can be accessed and read by anyone, which justifies considering them as ‘public behaviour’ (Holtz et al., 2012). Continually deliberating this research field and the potential data material in our research team, we determined that users in the online threats that we included understand the public nature of their communication, have moderate to low expectations of privacy and controlled which information to disclose, e.g. through their choice usernames or in their posts.

Following the ethical decision-making model for (online) fieldwork by Heibges et al. (2019), we determined that, given these privacy expectations and characteristics of our research field, obtaining individual informed consent was not necessary (see also Eysenbach & Till, 2001; Schmidt-Lux & Wohlrab-Sahr, 2020). Ensuring the non-identifiability of individual users to protect personal rights and avoid harm, we anonymized the data as needed (e.g. removal of demographic data or other possibly identifying data of the users; removal forum names in this publication) and maintained this anonymity throughout the research process.

Additionally, our research perspective is not focused on individuals and their personal experiences or perspectives. Rather, our approach to online discourse analysis is exclusively interested in collectively constructed knowledge.

Findings

Findings will be presented in accordance with our research question. We present participation in PE during menstruation and the use of hygiene products in PE as the two dominant topics of this online discourse (research question 1), with swimming, as a specific content and practice in PE, gaining particular attention in relation to these topics. Then, we detail the specific causes, conditions, consequences, and strategies for dealing with menstruation in PE that are constructed in the online discourse to shape the phenomenal structure of menstruation in PE (research question 2). Before that, the first section gives a general characterisation of the online discourse we examined to provide readers with a general understanding of how menstruation in PE is talked about by (former) students in online forums. We present these findings in an aggregated form that includes illustrative quotes from the data material. Figure 1 provides an additional overview over the main findings.

Talking about menstruation in online forums

The discourse in the online forums is characterised by subjective experiences and uncertainties regarding specific situations or events in PE typically serving as the starting points for students’ communication about menstruation. These situations or events are usually addressed directly in an initial post: ‘Issue: My teacher told me that if I don’t swim next time, I’ll have to stay in after school’. The subsequent communication is then often focused on problem-solving, with different advice, opinions, and arguments coexisting, sometimes without reaching a conclusive agreement. This results in online forums being a discourse space where (former) students are positioned/position themselves between knowing and not knowing, between seeking and giving advice regarding menstruation in PE. Strategies of positioning oneself and others include expressing subjective opinions on the issue at hand (‘I also find it very unhygienic to have to swim with my period’), devaluing others (‘Your teacher is really a stupid cow’), showing solidarity (‘I can totally understand, I’m feeling terrible too’), and making appeals (‘You don’t have to be embarrassed about it!’).

Most users of the online forums identify as female and use a shared concern for menstruation as a female issue to frame their communication. Specifically, dealing with menstruation in PE is portrayed as a gender-specific development-related challenge (‘All girls have problems with periods in sports, especially at the beginning! You are not the only one. It will all work out’.). This challenge is said to affect female students during puberty, a high phase of physical-sexual development and emotional sensitivity that usually coincides with menarche. In this phase, menstruation, framed as an expression of female sexuality and receptivity, and the (often negative) feelings connected to it are depicted as shaping the PE classroom interaction with others, especially of the opposite gender (‘Many girls are very insecure about coming out to the whole class and saying they don’t feel comfortable because of their period (…) because of the boys!’). Online communication about menstruation in PE thus also serves as a medium for negotiating gender identity and notions of femininity.

Dominant topics regarding menstruation in PE

The different issues, arguments, and opinions discussed in the online forums commonly relate to participation in PE during menstruation and the use of hygiene products in PE as the two dominant topics, with swimming in PE gaining particular attention. These topics can be understood as distinct contexts within PE, on which the online discourse about menstruation in PE hinges. Yet, these topics are also part of further discourses, e.g. about performance or clothing in PE. Even though these topics are often discussed together, we address them separately to provide a clearer picture of the content dimension of the online discourse on menstruation in PE.

Participation in PE during menstruation

Many posts deal with questions of participating in PE during menstruation. The background often relates to discomfort or pain during menstruation (nausea, lower abdominal pain, headaches, fatigue). Questions addressed revolve around whether such menstruation-related discomfort or pain are a legitimate reason for non-participation in PE that must be recognised by teachers, and the role of a written excuse or medical certificate in this context: ‘Do I always have to provide a doctor’s certificate if I can’t participate due to my period?’. Threads discuss strategies for (not) communicating with PE teachers as well as parents/guardians on this topic, and even sample letters for written excuses are posted.

The use of hygiene products in PE

As second dominant topic, which is at times discussed in close connection with the first topic of participating in PE during menstruation, is the use of hygiene products in PE. Discussions revolve around which tampons, pads, panty liners or other innovative hygiene products (e.g. menstrual cups or discs) are best suited to be used in PE, specifically regarding the physical activity expected there. Aspects discussed include students’ concern about ‘leaking’ during PE class (‘I’m always afraid, and I feel like something might leak … ’), but also concerns about visibility (e.g. pads showing through sports leggings, visible tampon strings in swimwear) and practicability (‘Of course, pads are not so practical, try getting used to tampons’).

Swimming in PE

Within these two dominant topics, swimming in PE presents a context that students’ often explicitly address in their posts. Swimming is portrayed as offering special and heightened conditions for dealing with menstruation in PE, among them being in the water and being particularly exposed in swimwear. Posts discuss if it is reasonable, appropriate, or even allowed for teachers to require students to participate in swimming during menstruation (‘Can my teacher force me to swim during my period?’) or if certain menstruation products can be used when swimming (‘Usually the tampon does not soak up water while swimming’).

The phenomenal structure of menstruation in PE

Zooming in on how students’ discussions about the aforementioned topics and issues shape the phenomenal structure of menstruation in PE, our analysis revealed specific causes, conditions, consequences, and strategies articulated in the online forums.

Causes

Causes refer to the causal conditions that contribute to menstruation becoming a matter of concern in PE according to the perspectives of students. These causes become apparent when considering which reasons for posting about issues related to the phenomenon of menstruation in PE students explicitly or implicitly refer to.

Many posts refer to menstruation as an individual bodily experience that is intimate, private, and emotionally charged. In addressing this experience, the posts draw on socially widespread notions of menstruation as something that is shameful, disgusting, restricting, and painful. Connected to these notions are norms that make it more difficult for students to communicate about menstruation within the PE setting, for example a norm of concealment or discretion: ‘Take a tampon, this is the most discreet’. This for instance results in students expressing insecurity or hesitation about revealing their menstruation status to other students or to the PE teacher: ‘Help! I’m the only one in my class who already has her period, and soon we have swimming’; ‘I want to phrase the excuse in a way that the PE teacher doesn’t find out that I have my period … I JUST DON’T WANT TO!’.

Thus, students view the intimate, emotionally charged, and difficult to communicate bodily experiences of menstrual bleeding as causes that contribute to menstruation in PE becoming a matter of concern which they seek help in dealing with. Against this backdrop, the online discourse then also offers counter interpretations and counter norms that, for example, construct menstruation as a natural phenomenon to be communicated openly: ‘The menstrual circle is entirely natural! So, just speak openly with your teacher about it’.

Conditions

Conditions refer to contextual and ‘external’ as well as personal and ‘internal’ conditions that influence how menstruation in PE can be experienced and dealt with according to the perspectives of students.

Contextual and ‘external’ conditions include school being viewed by students as a social setting in which the intimate bodily experience of menstruation potentially becomes subject to attention and discussion with peers, teachers, or parents. This also relates to structural aspects of schooling, such as the obligation to participate in classes, from which students can usually only be exempted through a written excuse (from a doctor or parents/guardians). This makes menstruation complicated to deal with, even more so in the subject of PE, in which the body and physical performance are put center stage. The online discussions touch on issues of health, clothing, social relations, or teacher professionalism, referring to specific movement situations (which for instance include bending or spreading the legs) or sports clothing (like sports leggings or shorts) in which the intimate areas of students, including visible blood stains or noticeable hygiene products, can become particularly visible. Additionally, posts allude to the general expectation that participation in PE relates to performing physically, which can become challenging during menstruation: ‘I constantly have lower abdominal pain . I really cannot do sports with it!’. In the online discourse, the question of participating in PE during menstruation is crucially influenced by PE teachers handling it differently (e.g. keeping menstruation calendars, general exemption during menstruation). Specifically, personality traits of the teacher, such as empathy and understanding (‘Our teacher is totally understanding’), sometimes in relation to the gender (‘she [female PE teacher] should know best what it’s like to have your period’), are discussed as ‘external’ conditions that influence how menstruation is experienced and dealt with by students in PE.

Personal and ‘internal’ conditions relate to the individual students and their backgrounds. From their perspectives, experiencing and dealing with menstruation in PE is dependent on age or how long one has been experiencing menstruation: ‘It’s an age-related issue because younger students tend to react more awkwardly to tampons, while older ones have already experienced their periods a thousand times’. Other individual conditions relate to menstruation itself, such as the intensity of menstrual flow, the length of the menstrual cycle, or the regularity of the periods. These specific conditions can impact the choice of hygiene products or how participation becomes an issue between students and teachers: ‘My PE teacher said to my friend, “How often do you actually have your period?” Mean, isn’t it? Because my friend just had irregular periods at that time!’.

Consequences

In addition to the causes and conditions, the online discourse on dealing with menstruation in PE is characterised by students referring to specific consequences that (are anticipated to) occur when either adhering to or violating relevant social and formal norms.

Social norms that students draw on in their discussions include the norm of being discrete about or even concealing one’s menstruation. Students highlight embarrassment and humiliation as consequences of violating these norms, for instance in posts that address experiences of social exclusion or ridicule from classmates because of visible blood stains on clothing: ‘They laughed at me’. Posts reacting to such experiences call for empathy and mildness when this ‘leaking’ is communicated as a mishap: ‘It would be extremely embarrassing for me too. If something goes in the pants, it’s awkward, but anyone who laughs about it is just dumb’. Anticipating such embarrassment or humiliation as potential consequences, many students refer to dealing with menstruation in PE as an emotionally taxing task that they often grapple and suffer with alone (‘I haven’t had my period yet, but I’m kind of scared that I’ll get it in PE. What should I do then?’).

Formal norms again pertain to participation in PE, with students discussing facing trouble with their teachers or receiving poor grades as anticipated consequences for unexcused absences or non-participation: ‘doctor’s note, or you accept a related grading’. On the flip side, increasingly self-determinant handling of one’s body is mentioned as a positive consequence of being able to adhere to this formal norm and participate in PE even when menstruating (e.g. being able to participate in swimming by using a tampon).

Strategies

Finally, students discuss specific strategies – specific possibilities, forms, and goals of action – for dealing with menstruation in PE in the online forums. From a discourse theoretical perspective, these strategies link causes, conditions, and (anticipated) consequences to discursively construct the phenomenon structure of menstruation in PE as a discourse phenomenon. Mostly communicated as advice or appeals, students address strategies of social adaptation as well as confrontational strategies.

Strategies of social adaptation relate to the prevailing norm of discretion or concealment and aim at keeping menstruation invisible to others. This pertains to strategies of managing menstruation-related discomfort and pain, such as advice on taking medication (‘There are all kinds of medications for that, Dolormin for women or maybe the birth control pill’) or advice on selecting and using hygiene products (‘A pad or panty liner in your swim trunks won’t help, as it immediately soaks up and the adhesive power diminishes’). It further includes strategies of managing insecurities and fears related to menstruation in PE, such as advice to stay away from school altogether during menstruation to avoid having to justify inactivity in PE (‘Just stay at home if you feel bad, then you don’t have to say anything’) or advice for dealing with fears of visible leakage (‘Just go to the bathroom at the beginning of the second hour and check if everything is still in place’; ‘Wear dark pants, then one won’t see if something goes wrong’). As the examples illustrate, these strategies of adapting to the social norms of discretion and concealment can be aimed at either avoiding participation in PE during menstruation or facilitating it.

In contrast, students also address confrontational strategies that oppose the social norms of discretion and concealment, aiming for an emancipatory behaviour characterised by dealing with menstruation in PE openly and self-determinedly. This includes advice to communicate with teachers about issues related to menstruation and collaboratively developing solutions (‘I would talk to the teacher; that’s always better than saying nothing or lying’) or finding solidarity with fellow female students (‘Join forces with the other girls; you’re not the only one with this problem’). Students express that such strategies are about not letting menstruation limit them (‘Just try using tampons! Then it’s no problem at all!’) or about managing menstruation on their own terms (‘Having a teacher tell me to use tampons?! That’s MY body, MY period, and MY privacy’).

Discussion and conclusion

From a discourse theoretical perspective, menstruation is a sociocultural phenomenon that emerges in different discourses of modern society. While there is an increasing visibility and greater sensitivity towards menstruation in public discourses, particularly within the field of sports, the phenomenon appears to remain tabooed and negatively framed in the context of schools. Our study explored how students – as central actors – view and negotiate menstruation in PE. Identifying internet forums as a discourse space that allows students to actively negotiate issues of dealing with menstruation in PE, we were interested in how this online discourse is characterised, which topics structure it, and how menstruation in PE is socially constructed as a discourse phenomenon within students’ online posts.

Our findings show that students view menstruation in PE as a relevant and multifaceted phenomenon. The challenges and issues that they discuss in online forums are closely related to the specificity of PE as a body- and movement-centered school subject (Paechter, 2000), including classroom situations that expose students’ bodies, especially in swimming lessons, hierarchical relationships between students and teachers in the context of the obligation to participate, and the expectation that participation in PE requires physical performance. Discussions on these issues invoke different interpretations through complex argumentations. In line with existing literature on menstruation in schools (e.g. Barrington et al., 2021; Ferfolja et al., 2024) and in PE (e.g. Harvey et al., 2020; Höfinger-Hampel, 2010; Takabayashi-Ebina et al., 2023), predominant interpretations in students’ online discourse construct menstruation in PE as something shameful, restrictive, and unpleasant. In contrast, menstruation is also framed as something natural and as a valuable expression of femininity in this online discourse (see also Davies et al., 2022). However, these perspectives are mainly positioned as counter-interpretations. The different perspectives find common ground in addressing the phenomenon of menstruation fundamentally and in all its facets as a personal and individual matter for students to (at least initially) cope with alone. Interpreting menstruation in PE in this way, students’ online communication tends to favour and stabilise norms of silence and concealment, as emphasised in current literature addressing the widespread school-related taboo surrounding menstruation (Sánchez López et al., 2023). Thus, while our findings demonstrate that alternative and contemporary perspectives are part of students’ online discourse, they still support the conclusion that Ferfolja et al. (2024, p. 496) draw for menstruation in school more generally: ‘[The] general negativity continues into the twenty-first century’.

Further, our findings provide a better understanding of the possibilities of subject positioning that this discursive construction of menstruation in PE offers for students. Tying in with existing discourse analyses (e.g. Koskenniemi, 2023; Newton, 2016), the different subject positions available for students in the online discourse on menstruation in PE hinge on menstruation being constructed as a female bodily experience that is individually different. Our findings show that subject positions of female students are shaped by personal conditions such as the (age-related) experience of menstruation, including the intensity of bleeding, accompanying (physical and psychological) symptoms, or the temporal patterns of the menstrual cycle. Moreover, our analysis identified contextual conditions, including the general requirements of PE, the demands of specific PE lessons, or the attitudes and approaches towards students’ menstruation of the respective PE teacher. In relating these conditions and (anticipated) consequence to different strategies for dealing with menstruation in PE, students’ online discourse is marked by polarising perspectives that grant a higher status to certain subject positions of menstruating students (e.g. those who manage menstruation in a self-determined, self-confident and discreet manner), while devaluating others (e.g. those raising suspicion that menstruation is being used as an excuse to avoid class).

In line with existing literature (e.g. Harvey et al., 2020), our findings indicate that students’ strategies for dealing with menstruation in PE are less based on school or subject-specific education but are rather acquired through experience, which is then shared online. Most of the strategies shared online position students’ as being individually responsible for their menstruation as a personal matter to be managed alone or in solidarity with other students, or to be shared trustfully with their teacher. This individual responsibility for menstruation under the specific conditions of PE represents a dominant and a highly demanding ‘truth’ that is circulated in students’ online discourse.

Our study thus demonstrates that online forums constitute distinct cultural spaces that are significant for students. Unlike in school, they provide students with a space to actively engage with the phenomenon of menstruation in PE anonymously and with relatively low barriers. However, our study also reveals that discussions in these spaces tend to reproduce the very norms and taboos regarding bodies, gender, and menstruation that hinder their more open and inclusive discussion in school.

Pedagogical practice faces the challenge of addressing this ambivalence. We support destigmatizing and diversity-sensitive approaches that aim to increase menstrual health literacy (Armour et al., 2021; Curry et al., 2022; McGawley et al., 2023). We maintain that these approaches should explicitly consider divers subject positions and work to sensitise both students and teachers for destabilising problematic discursive norms and claims to truth – i.e. following the ‘critical’ level of (menstrual) health literacy according to Nutbeam (2000). To that end, sport pedagogical research needs to support educators in gaining a better understanding of how menstruation is negotiated among students in relevant (online) spaces. At the same time, online forums should be acknowledged as distinct youth cultural spaces not to be ‘colonised’ or instrumentalised pedagogically.

The limitations of our study pertain to its focus on German-language online forums and on students’ perspectives. Future research should explore other national and cultural contexts and consider the perspectives of other actors (e.g. cis-males, Prince & Annison, 2023). It is important to note that our discourse analytical approach and our anonymous data did not focus on individual persons, providing in detailed information about them, their biographies, or everyday actions. This would require other, complementary research approaches. Staying within our discourse analytical perspective, our study focused on current online communication that represented a specific problem-oriented discourse. Future research could add a historical perspective on menstruation in PE as a discourse phenomenon. And it should continue to explore other online as well as offline spaces to enhance our understanding of how this phenomenon is discursively interpreted and negotiated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This can be seen in public campaigns arguing that menstrual products are essential hygiene items for women that should not face additional taxation, as this is deemed inappropriate and discriminatory (https://chng.it/gcXH4qwFsW). In many countries, these campaigns have led to a reduction in sales taxes on menstruation products.

2 Drawing on perspectives of health literacy (Nutbeam, 2000), menstrual health literacy aims to empower individuals to autonomously utilise acquired knowledge about menstruation to promote and maintain menstrual health in three progressive competency areas: functional, interactive, and critical competence (e.g. Curry et al., 2022; McGawley et al., 2023).

3 See Davies et al. (2022) for Twitter as a social media platform providing a valuable space for supporting menstruating individuals.