Bodies that menstruate at work:

an analysis of reactive digital comments on menstrual leave on instagram

Abstract

From an intersectional and decolonial perspective (Maldonado-Torres, 2018; Akotirene, 2019; Collins, 2019, 2022; Rea, 2019; Sala, 2020; Cândido; Saliba, 2022; Vasquez, 2022), this article analyzes how users discursively respond to the operations of knowledge and power as they traverse the bodies of people who menstruate, within the comment space of the social media platform Instagram (Paveau, 2021; Gomes, 2022). The analysis focuses on two posts addressing menstrual leave, published by the profile @Universa_uol. The first 20 comments were collected based on the category of non-transactional verbal sociodiscursive reactions (Gomes, 2022). The knowledge-power dispute surrounding menstrual leave – and, by extension, menstruation and people who menstruate – remains deeply embedded in colonialist meanings and practices, which frame menstrual issues through biomedical, patriarchal, sexist, and binary paradigms, ultimately reinforcing the naturalized and hierarchical belief that menstruation is a woman’s thing – and specifically, a cis woman’s thing.