Following the previous two entries on WPR and climate-related topics, I decided to examine three WPR applications on the question of how menstruation is problematised. The exercise is intended to draw attention to the versatility of WPR and how it can encourage thinking differently about a wide range of issues. The gift of WPR is exactly that – taking what is commonsense and turning it around, highlighting the operation of power relations. 

The three articles are from 2023, 2024, and 2025:

King, S. 2023. Why current menstrual policies do not work. Nature Human Behaviour 8(11): 2072-2073, DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01996-4

Koskenniemi, A. 2024. Extremely Private and Incredibly Public – Free Menstrual Products and the “Problem” of Menstruation in the Finnish Public Discourse, NORA—NORDIC JOURNAL OF FEMINIST AND GENDER RESEARCH 2023, VOL. 31, NO. 4, 381–394 https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2023.2189301

McAllister, J., Amery, F., Channon, M. and Thomson, J. 2025. Where is menstruation in global health policy? The need for a collective understanding. GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH
2025, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 2448272 https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2024.2448272

[on the related topic of menopause, please see: Liana B. Winett & Louise Dalingwater (30 Mar 2025): “Women are hard to study”: US and UK National Legislator discourse on menopause-related research, Critical Policy Studies, DOI: 10.1080/19460171.2025.2483537]

As in the two previous entries, I take each article, summarise its main argument, note the materials it uses and make a few comments on how WPR is adopted/adapted. My hope is that engaging with articles that draw on WPR will assist those who wish to use it. 

All three articles are stimulating and insightful. I highlight what each contributes to a critical analysis of menstruation-“related” policies. I have problematised “related” because, as we shall see, useful insights are generated primarily by removing the focus from menstruation as the “problem”. 

Working on this topic reminded me of earlier reflections (Bacchi 1999: 5-6) on the possible gains and losses accompanying “social problem” status. McAllister (2025, p. 1) notes that “In recent years, attention to menstrual policy has proliferated at both the national and international level”. So, you could say that menstruation has achieved social problem status. According to the sociologist, Armand Mauss (1975: x), the fact that we debate and deal with “social problems” is a sign of the health of our democracy. In contrast, it is possible to suggest that it is the very nature of the piece-meal approach to change encouraged by “social problem” thinking which keeps change within limits and manageable.

Because both King and McAllister et al. deal with Global Health policy, I comment on their contributions first. We will then turn in the next entry to Koskenniemi and the situation in Finland. 

ARTICLE 1: 

King, S. 2023. Why current menstrual policies do not work. Nature Human Behaviour 8(11): 2072-2073, DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01996-4

Brief Summary:

This is a short, highly insightful piece of writing that deserves close attention. King targets the following topics: “period poverty”; “tampon tax” policy changes; “menstrual leave” and “menopause leave” policies; and educational policies to do with menstruation. She argues that, in the case of most menstrual and menopausal policies to date, the “problem” 

“appears to be the menstruating body (and “women” by association), rather than universal menstrual ignorance and taboos, associated discriminatory beliefs and practices, and those who profit from these things”. 

Material used:

Because of the nature of this short opinion piece, King does not describe her sources in any detail. She makes reference to WHO and UNICEF guidelines, and to New York State policy. Doubtless, King’s other publications on the topic would provide details on the material informing her critical analyses. See:

King S. Menstrual Leave: Good Intention, Poor Solution. In: Hassard Juliet, Torres LD, editors. Aligning Perspectives in Gender Mainstreaming, Springer International Publishing; 2021, p. 151–76. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53269-7_9.

King, S. (2020). Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) and the myth of the irrational female. In C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, 

B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, & T.-A. Roberts (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation 

studies (pp. 319–336). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_25

Applying WPR thinking:

King indicates her interpretation of WPR in the comment: “What a policy proposes to do, reveals what the creators assume is problematic (needs to change).” I have said something similar on numerous occasions. Here is my version of this argument in the 2016 book with Susan Goodwin titled Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice (p. 16): 

“The WPR approach starts from a simple idea: that what we propose to do about something indicates what we think needs to change and hence what we think the ‘problem’ is”. 

A distinction here is that King targets “what the creators assume is problematic”, whereas I do not mention “creators”. A more substantive point is that both the quote from King and my 2016 comment fail to make the step from competing “views” of the “problem” to how the “problem” is produced as a particular form of problem. In my Keynote address for the 2022 Karlstad International WPR Symposium, I specify that the first key premise of WPR is: “Policies (and other practices) produce(enact or constitute) ‘problems’ as particular sorts of problems” ( Welcome to the WPR Network! | Karlstad University (kau.se).

This distinction is an important one. To talk about what someone assumes is problematic (King) or what we think needs to change (me in 2016) keeps the whole analysis at the level of conjecture. By contrast, to refer to how a “problem” is produced as a particular sort of problem means that the analytic target becomes the ways in which problem representations shape lives and worlds. In line with a performative perspective, problem representations are “the practices through which things take on meaning and value” (Shapiro 1988: xi) rather than impressions of “problems”. This distinction comes up for discussion in the sections on both McAllister et. al and Koskenniemi (below and next entry).

Insights generated: 

King uses her understanding of WPR to offer important insights into the politics surrounding menstruation. I offer a few examples. She notes how in the Global North and the Global South, the policy “solution” to the “problems” of “period poverty” and “Menstrual Hygiene Management” typically involves “access to free disposable period products”. With this “solution”, the “problem” is represented to be “(unmanaged) periods”: 

“This, unfortunately, frames periods and female bodies as the problem rather than the government policies and societal gender inequalities that directly contribute to increasing poverty, especially amongst women and girls, or the fact that most schools (and workplaces) are not fit for people who menstruate, or the huge profit margins involved in the sale of expensive disposable period products (and other products subject to ‘pink tax’).” 

As another example, the “solution” of “menstrual leave” and “menopause leave policies” positions the healthy female body as the “problem” rather than “inadequate work environments” which “penalise rest breaks or the uptake of sick leave”. King is not saying that either free menstrual products or “menstrual leave” are undesirable reforms but that it is important to see what such interventions problematise and what they leave in place. 

ARTICLE 2:

McAllister, J., Amery, F., Channon, M. and Thomson, J. 2025. Where is menstruation in global health policy? The need for a collective understanding. GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH
2025, VOL. 20, NO. 1, 2448272 https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2024.2448272

Brief Summary:

McAllister et al. target “how menstruation actually is understood at present within global health policy”. They describe WPR as “an approach to critical frame analysis” that offers “competing constructions” of menstruation “as an issue” (Abstract). The goal is to produce a “collective understanding” of menstruation. The authors produce a useful Table outlining the dominant (menstrual hygiene management (MHM), menstrual health) and sub-dominant (menstrual rights, menstrual (in)justice) “framings” of menstruation. They proceed to analyse the policy texts (defined broadly) of important international organisations to see which of these “framings” are endorsed currently.

Materials used: 

Table 1 in the article lists the large number of “documents analysed by organisation”. These include policy statements and guidance notes from WHO, UNICEF, UN Women and CSW [Commission on the Status of Women], UNFPA, UNESCO and the World Bank. Alongside these more conventional sources used in WPR studies, McAllister et al. add “websites (including video), press releases and shorter statements produced by these organisations in relation to key events” (p. 6). The article thus illustrates both how WPR can be applied to a large number of texts and also how it can be applied to material beyond the boundaries of its original development. Marshall (2012) explains at some length how she performed a WPR analysis of the World Bank’s “multimodal” and “hypertextual” webpages in her study of “disability mainstreaming”, extending the forms of material available for use. 

Applying WPR thinking:

As mentioned, McAllister et al. (2024) describe WPR as an “approach to critical frame analysis”. Having spent some time in an earlier Research Hub entry distinguishing WPR from CFA (Critical Frame Analysis) (30 Dec. 2024), it is useful to consider how McAllister et al.’s position on WPR has eventuated. I take responsibility for this confusion. However, I need to explain that my thinking on WPR has developed over time. I have always described it as a “work-in-progress”. Hence, you should not be surprised if the theoretical stance has evolved. Indeed, because this is the case, it is important to read more recent work (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016) rather than relying on my earlier publications. 

McAllister et al. (2024: 6) draw heavily on my 1999 book, Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems (Sage). I quote them at some length to indicate how the 1999 book develops a constructionist argument: 

“Bacchi’s critical approach understands that policy problems and solutions are not objective entities, already existing in the world, but rather socially and discursively constructed. In Bacchi’s words, ‘every policy proposal contains within it an explicit or implicit diagnosis of the ‘problem’ (1999, p. 1). She argues that ‘we need to shift our analysis from policies as attempted ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’, to policies as constituting competing interpretations or representations of political issues’ (1999, p. 2).” 

I have highlighted the words “competing interpretations or representations”. Clearly, this position reflects an interpretive paradigm. Also, it is a position that I have moved away from. My Keynote Address at Karlstad (link attached above) noted a shift in WPR from constructionism to performativity. Questioning the earlier 1999 focus on problem representations as “perceptions” or “interpretations”, I state: 

“Problem representations, it is now argued, are not perceptions but performatives. Through their proposals policies shape ‘problems’ and hence alter the existing order to a certain degree. The analytic task becomes identifying the shapes imposed on ‘problems’, where these come from and how they affect lives and worlds.”

I hope you can identify the theoretical shift here from competing interpretations of “problems” to the performative impacts of problem representations. In the latter view, problem representations are not (just) interpretations; they are interventions with “real-world” repercussions.

McAllister et al. (2024: 11) move towards a more performative stance by drawing on what they describe as the “further analysis” prompted by WPR:

“Bacchi’s WPR critical frame analysis urges further analysis. If the above [referring to MHM; see above] is the dominant framing, what is left unproblematic in this representation? What is left unsaid around menstruation? Can the ‘problem’ be conceptualised differently?” 

Pursuing these questions, the authors zoom in on important silences: “the absence of a life course perspective; the lack of attention paid to menstrual related illnesses and conditions; the lack of an integration with SRHR [Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights] approaches; and questions of environmental justice”. 

Insights

By outlining four “framings” of menstruation, McAllister et al. make it easy to consider the issues at stake. They also set the groundwork for establishing health and hygiene as a dominant framework. Drawing on Question 4 on silences in WPR, they identify key dimensions of the issue that tend to be ignored. I highlight a few of these. 

Firstly, the focus on adolescent girls and education means that issues for older women, such as peri/menopause, and transgender and non-binary people, are particularly invisible. …

Secondly, the above policy analysis highlights little discussion of pain or menstrual related illnesses. 

Finally, there is an absence of thinking about environmental issues 

The authors’ stated goal as the need for a “collective understanding” of menstruation follow the kind of analysis they offer. It would be useful to take this goal as a proposal in the WPR sense of the term and to then ask how such a proposal (to find a collective understanding) represents or constitutes the “problem”. The promise of WPR – to take commonsense and turn it around, with an emphasis on power relations – could be illustrated through this exercise.

In the next entry I look in some detail at the contribution by Koskenniemi on the situation in Finland. I discuss this article because it provides an opportunity to clarify where a WPR analysis takes us. 

References

Bacchi, C 1999. Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage.

Bacchi, C. and Goodwin, S. 2016. Poststructural Policy Analysis: A Guide to Practice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Marshall, N. 2012. Digging deeper: The challenge of problematising “inclusive development” and “disability mainstreaming”. In A. Bletsas and C. Beasley (eds) Engaging with Carol Bacchi: Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, pp. 53-70. Available as free download from University of Adelaide Press website.