Chinese Medicine and the Anthropology of Menstruation in Contemporary Taiwan

Abstract

Structured interviews with 54 Taiwanese women reveal three frameworks used in interpreting menstruation: biomedicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and popular Buddhist teachings concerning menstrual pollution. Age and class influence women's preferences in ways that only partially reflect traditional‐modern dualisms. Although it does not challenge the prestige of biomedicine, Chinese medicine provides an alternative to Western‐style medicalization of menstruation, while pollution beliefs are positioned within a discourse on social decency, seen as religious piety or symbolic cleanliness. Although most women did not criticize the negative images of female gender embedded in any approach, they interpreted them to serve their convenience and protect their sense of dignity. They represented themselves as making choices as individuals. These findings modify models of Chinese women as simple victims of the culture's symbolic construction of menstruation as polluting, as well as questioning stereotypes of biomedicine as an unproblematic force for their liberation. Chinese medicine emerges as a symbolically multidimensional contributor to Taiwanese Chinese menstrual beliefs and practices.