DISCLAIMER: In this article we will be discussing historical time periods so will refer to “women” as a demographic as well as “menstruators” for people who experience menstruation. The portrayal of “women” and “menstruators” will coincide for the basis of this article.
Mentions of menstruation in and out of literature have always been taboo. Deemed as “inappropriate” despite being a normal bodily function, periods and discussions around them have been largely absent from literature. When they were mentioned, these were concealed within wider narratives about the experiences of women and menstruators. This article will discuss this presence and absence of menstruation in literature.
Virtually no overt mentions of menstruation exist within literature from the nineteenth century – in a time where a woman being the independent heroine of her story was controversial, a mere mention of menstruation would have been enough to send Victorian society into a frenzy. I mean they could barely handle an ankle or (God forbid!) women having the vote. While there may not be any overt discussions of menstruation within classic literature, other types of literature from around the time of the Brontës, George Eliot and Louise May Alcott exist with references to menstruation. Homemade family recipe books from the 19th century feature references to “cures for flooding” and “menses profuse” (Frydman). Although references to menstruation exist in some forms within texts from the 19th century, we may not see Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet groan over the arrival of a period, but by delving into the archives or looking deeper into a text, we can gain some information on how menstruation was culturally received in these time periods. In this case, the absence or disguisal of discussions of menstruation speak loudly to attitudes of the time.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, whilst mainly about a woman’s experience of post-partum depression, is also in a way similar to the attitudes surrounding periods and women’s health in general. When talking about her physician husband, the narrator says: “You see he does not believe I am sick!”. This highlights the lack of understanding and empathy towards women’s mental and physical health and is sadly a narrative still present today. According to Endometriosis UK, it can take anywhere between 4 months to 9 years to get a diagnosis of endometriosis. The lack of information about female bodily health (as discussed in The Yellow Wallpaper) meant the science around menstruation was largely unexplored and very much not a topic of discussion – leading to these disguised or absent portrayals of menstruation.
Today we view menstruation as a “coming-of-age" moment for menstruators, and this is present in many bildungsroman novels published in the last century; Elena Ferrante’s 2011 novel My Brilliant Friend, Are You There God?; It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, published in 1970 and more recently, Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater, published in 2018. However, in stories of growing up from the 19th century, menstruation is absent. We hear about the moral quandaries of the characters in Little Women, who are lectured by their Marmee on how to be the best women they can be, but a discussion about what to do when you got your period happens off the page. Maybe the odd outburst by Jo or Amy could be put down to their period, but that is just inferring things based on the text.
These hidden discussions surrounding menstruation within texts can be associated with the discussions around periods, even today – the discreet passing of a pad to someone, walking in front of your friend so they can subtly check you’ve not bled through. So much surrounding periods is discreet, it’s been viewed with embarrassment and shame within and without literature for so long. Which is why books like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye were so revolutionary and controversial when they were published. Blume’s novel has faced censorship numerous times since its publication, featuring at number 60 on the 100 most frequently challenged books list from 1990-1999 (American Library Association). It still faces censorship today, being one of 80 books banned in a Florida school district in 2023, due to its discussions of race, gender and sex, under which the topic of menstruation falls (Dugan). Outside of coming-of-age novels, menstruation is still largely the subject of avoidance – how does Katniss deal with her period in The Hunger Games for example? The narrative of menstruation is only limited to coming-of-age novels, and is barely even normalised then, apparent from the censorship and the way these novels are viewed – as something for ‘older’ children or ‘inappropriate’.
It is significant that literature with mentions of menstruation or women’s health today still sometimes face the same scrutiny as their nineteenth-century counterparts. While discussions around them are becoming more normalised, the topic still is subject to stigma. Menstruation is still mostly consigned to coming-of-age novels, especially among children and young adult’s fiction. An increase in representations of menstruation in literature in general can help the topic become more normalised. We may have come far from the absent portrayals of classic literature, but there’s still a little way to go.
References:
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper, Penguin Books, 2015, p.1
Dugan, Emily. “Judy Blume: book banning now much worse in US than in 1980s.” The Guardian, 3 April 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/03/judy-blume-book-banning-now-much-worse-in-us-than-in-1980s. Accessed 9 October 2026
Frydman, Tess. “Literary Periods: Women’s Writing on Menstruation in Recipe Books.” Material Matters, 2019
https://sites.udel.edu/materialmatters/2017/12/11/literary-periods-womens-writing-on-menstruation-in-recipe-books/. Accessed 9 October 2026
Endometriosis UK. Diagnosis and Treatment. Endometriosis UK, 2026, https://www.endometriosis-uk.org/diagnosis-and-treatment. Accessed 9 October 2026
American Library Association. 100 most frequently challenged books: 1990-1999. American Library Association, 2016 http://www.ala.org/bbooks/100-most-frequently-challenged-books-1990%E2%80%931999 Accessed 9 October 2026