The Body’s Discourse: Menstrual Narratives of Bengal under Intersection-Feminist Lens

Abstract

Social presentations of ‘selective’ bodies undergo scrutinization of the untouched dichotomical power-play- “pure/impure”; here, this ‘norm’ of impurity on certain anatomical functions of particular selective bodies is an area of discussion, and from an intersectional dimension. Women as a notion and definition has been ascertaining too many features which have also been fixed by the social norms; Judith Butler eventually takes this thread of describing what a “women” is-- “Women are the sex which is not “one”. Within…a phallogocentric language, women constitute the unrepresentable…women represent the sex that cannot be thought, a linguistic absence and opacity” (Butler, 1990, 13). Hence, an empirical and observational qualitative research methodology will be followed with queer-post-structuralist-feminist-theory to decipher the ongoing menstrual marginalization merging with gender power dynamics, operating within Bengali culture, based on some interviews.