El peso del tabú, del estigma y de la ignorancia en la producción de conocimiento médico-científico sobre la menstruación

This article shows that the stigmatizing cultural view of menstruation affects the production of medical-scientific knowledge about this phenomenon and that, concomitantly, medical-scientific knowledge reinforces the taboo and cultural stigma that weighs on menstruating bodies. The roots of the idea of ​​menstruation as an essential defining attribute of femininity and of the characterization of the feminine as inferior in natural and social terms in medical, protoscientific and Western scientific discourse are exposed. The role of feminist epistemology and menstrual activism is characterized in pointing out androcentric and sexist biases in the production of medical-scientific knowledge that reinforce and reproduce these discriminatory meanings about menstruating bodies. Reasons are offered in favor of including the concept of “active production of ignorance” to this field of analysis in order to strengthen our understanding of the epistemic mechanisms that are at play in the medical-scientific reproduction of menstrual taboo and stigma.