Women's experiences of oppression and resistance in menstruation, childbearing, and mothering processes

This study aims to address the relationship between women's experiences in menstruation, childbearing (pregnancy and childbirth) and mothering processes, and the patriarchal ideology and the capitalist system. In this direction, it questions how women experience menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and mothering, the pressure elements in these experiences, and whether they can (or cannot) struggle with this pressure directly or indirectly. In this study, which is based on the methodological principles of feminist research, in-depth interviews were conducted with 21 women. By using the feminist methodology that aims to understand the women's experience and to question the power relations in these experiences, it has been analyzed that menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth, which are seen as biological processes, are social and cultural constructions beyond being biological. The transformation of mothering into the institution of motherhood as a process built by starting with menarche has been evaluated. The women body and its social construction, which is discussed from a sociological perspective contrary to the field of medicine and health, has been analyzed in the context of patriarchal relations. The most obvious element why menstruation, having children and mothering cause pressure on women is the social meanings attributed to these processes and the experiences determined and directed through these meanings. While discussing how women's understanding and experience of these processes are controlled and suppressed by the patriarchal ideology and the capitalist system; experience, oppression and struggle dimension were resolved with the relation of patriarchy.