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Source: The Conversation – UK – By Erica Consterdine, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Lancaster University

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, says that her plans to overhaul the asylum system are rooted in “Labour values”. The proposals include removing government support for some asylum seekers and limiting initial refugee status from five years to 30 months.

In a Guardian op-ed, Mahmood wrote that these values, uniting working-class communities, social reformers and immigrants are:

First, a belief in fairness: recognising that the dice are loaded against working-class communities. Second, tolerance towards others, that very British desire to live and let live. Third, a quiet but determined patriotism, for a country that is forever changing while something ineffable always endures.

But immigration has long been a topic where Labour’s values clash with one another.

The protectionist roots of the trade union movement saw foreign labour as a threat to undercutting wages and job displacement. Historically, unions adopted a highly restrictive position on immigration. At the same time, the inclusive principles of equality and representation of the working class (of which many racial minorities were part) complicated this picture.

This tension was evident in the postwar period. Labour in office presented a mix of policies including anti-discrimination race relations reforms, along with restrictive immigration legislation such as the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which sought to to block entry for Kenyan Asians despite their formal status as UK citizens.

Labour’s dilemma has long been how to defend the working class within a capitalist system. The solution to this intractable problem has always been to dampen class conflict by promoting national unity.

This has meant that patriotism and social reform have gone hand in hand, creating divisions between “deserving” and “non-deserving”. The question of who deserves welfare and support has long been part of border control. The very first immigration act, the 1905 Aliens Act, authorised the deportation of those in receipt of poor relief. Today, the condition of “no recourse to public funds” is placed on most visas.

The government’s newest proposals place a strong emphasis on deservingness through the language of “earning” a right to stay in the UK. They place new conditions on settlement, and require refugees to prove their need for sanctuary again and again.

New Labour

The equation changed dramatically under New Labour. Tony Blair’s government leant into Thatcherite neoliberalism, valuing labour market flexibility as a counter-inflationary measure. Coupled with belief in the benefits of globalisation, the Labour government enacted one of the most expansive economic immigration programmes, historically and comparatively across Europe.

The policy fit with the package of multicultural nationalism New Labour was selling. But this was an economic calculation, not a values-based one. The divisions of deserving and undeserving continued, with a discourse of “bogus” asylum seekers and a regressive policy to match: expanding immigration detention, replacing monetary support with vouchers and reducing appeal rights.

With Ukip beating the anti-migrant drum, the saliency of migration spiked. Many believed the government ultimately lost office partly on the basis of their immigration record.

Enter Blue Labour, a faction that claimed Labour was, at the heart, culturally conservative on many areas including immigration. Ed Miliband, then leader, pivoted towards a fairly logical policy for Labour within this paradigm. This policy framed exploitation as the driver of migrant labour demands, and proposed making it illegal for employers to undercut wages by exploiting workers. However, this approach didn’t cut through to voters, and was troubled by gaffes such as the “controls on immigration” mugs.

Fearing the electoral threat of Ukip, the Conservatives campaigned in 2010 on a pledge to reduce net migration. This pledge became the net migration policy, and a bipartisan consensus was formed to reduce immigration.

Jeremy Corbyn’s policy was, like Miliband’s, truer to Labour values. But it was not necessarily the inclusive picture in practice. Appealing to socialist state management and harking back to postwar consensus, Corbyn advanced the call to move Britain away from a liberal labour market, with less dependence on low-paid migrant labour.

Read more:
Why Jeremy Corbyn can’t seem to solve Labour’s immigration conundrum

Corbyn espoused a rhetoric of multicultural and inclusive politics. But his Euroscepticism was always fuelled by a rejection of neoliberal markets – of which EU mobility, he saw, was contributing. As he explained in 2017, Corbyn was against the “wholesale importation of underpaid workers from central Europe in order to destroy conditions in the construction industry”. Brexit politics dogged Labour and cut across this tension, and the party has struggled to form a coherent policy ever since.

In opposition, Labour’s policy looked potentially promising. Ahead of the 2024 election, Keir Starmer touted plans to look at immigration holistically with labour market policy. Yet since entering office, Labour’s policy and rhetoric has lurched further to the right.

The values of postwar Labour’s protectionism would see the door closed to many, but would enhance rights of those that can come legally and address the structural problems of the UK labour market. Blair’s neoliberal managed migration was designed to take advantage of global wage disparities, but channelled a more positive message on migration.

The new proposals do neither. Mahmood says they are rooted in fairness – but for whom? A policy that pulls the rug from beneath long-term residents and refugees trying to build a life in the UK legally and legitimately is not fair to them. When the home secretary talks of fairness, she appears to only be referring to what the party believes citizens regard as fair, claiming that without stricter migration control, they lose trust in government.

The fallacy of that position is that immigration controls can and do bleed into citizenship regimes. The recent border controls imposed on dual citizens demonstrate this starkly, as does the crackdown on illegal immigration in the US, which has seen citizens detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Perhaps Britons think more regressive policies on migrants are fair, but opinions may change if citizens are affected.

Erica Consterdine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Home secretary says asylum overhaul is rooted in ‘Labour values’ – what are those values? – https://theconversation.com/home-secretary-says-asylum-overhaul-is-rooted-in-labour-values-what-are-those-values-277710

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sahar Maranlou, Lecturer in Law and Socio-legal Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London

Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur is an innovative feminist story set in Iran. The story follows five women and the circumstances that make them leave their lives to start anew in a garden on the outskirts of Tehran.

Written in the late 1970s, it was immediately banned on publication. Shortly after, Parsipur was arrested and jailed for her frank and defiant portrayal of women’s sexuality. This groundbreaking book is now available for the first time in English, translated by Faridoun Farrokh.

Set against the backdrop of the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran, the story deliberately shifts the lens of history away from the big politics to focus on its impact on intimate, gendered spaces. In doing so, Parsipur frames national upheaval as something lived and inscribed upon women’s bodies and interior lives.

The novel insists that authoritarianism doesn’t begin in the halls of power; it begins in the household within layered patriarchal systems that confine women’s autonomy. Parsipur’s blending of realism and magical elements unsettles conventional narrative authority and mirrors the instability of a society in crisis. The personal and the political are inseparable: women’s silences, desires and acts of refusal become subtle yet radical forms of resistance.

What makes this novel enduring is its refusal to separate the personal from the political. The magical elements are not decorative; they expose emotion that realism alone cannot capture. The garden the women flee to is not an escape from reality, but a feminist space where reality is reimagined.

The novel has sadly taken on an urgency and relevance in the face of the the US and Israel’s war on Iran. It reminds readers that foreign intervention often intensifies internal authoritarianism. By revisiting the legacy of the 1953 coup, the book encourages readers to see today’s crisis not as an isolated eruption. Instead, it is part of a deeper historical continuum, shaped by external intervention and power structures within Iranian society.

Through intimate storytelling, Parsipur invites readers to confront the cultural assumptions that have shaped women’s lives for generations. To read Women Without Men is to enter a layered narrative that is at once poetic, historical and contemporary. It bears to witness how deeply gender norms are embedded in everyday life, and how quietly, yet powerfully, women resist them.

Sexuality

In Women Without Men, virginity is an ideological construct by which a woman’s worth is regulated. Through the characters of Faezeh and Munis, we see how chastity functions as a mechanism of control long before any formal punishment is imposed.

Faezeh embodies internalised patriarchy, believing a woman’s honour depends entirely on social perception and reputation to survive. When she and Munis are sexually assaulted, the violence is overshadowed by shame.

The metaphor “watering the earth”, used by a man to describe sexual penetration, is chilling because it recasts violation as something natural and productive. It depicts a woman as if she were soil to be cultivated, rather than a person with agency.

By framing assault in agricultural terms, patriarchal language erases harm and presents male entitlement as biological inevitability, while placing the burden of “dishonour” on the woman’s body. This symbolic logic mirrors the broader Iranian legal and social framework in which virginity carries material and moral weight, reinforcing the idea that women’s bodies are sites of regulation rather than autonomy.

The Iranian Civil Code of 1931 codified male guardianship and authority in marriage and family matters. In this context, virginity becomes not only a cultural expectation but part of a larger system in which women’s bodies are governed by both family and state.

Zarrinkolah’s narrative offers one of the most unsettling critiques of patriarchal objectification in Women Without Men. Zarrinkolah is a prostitute who begins to see all of her clients as headless men. It is an attempt to “cure” this condition through an act of purification that leads her to abandon prostitution.

Zarrinkolah’s journey isn’t a simple redemption, but a reconfiguration of subjectivity. By shifting from being seen as nothing more than a body to recognising herself as a person with her own thoughts, emotions and agency, she disrupts the cultural logic that renders women’s bodies interchangeable and morally policed. Her withdrawal from prostitution is not a return to purity, but a refusal of the system that defined her solely through male consumption.

The stillness of marriage

Farrokhlaqa’s story reveals the psychological and social confinement of marriage. Her marriage was a “32-year-old habit of not moving”. Patriarchal expectations have infected her, and she has become self-policing. She does not need to be actively restrained; she restrains herself. However, she no longer experiences her lack of freedom as oppression but as natural and inevitable.

Her response to widowhood is not retreat but a shift from passivity to agency. She purchases the garden, transforming inherited wealth into spatial autonomy, creating space for “women without men”. Her liberation is, therefore, negotiated by unlearning the stillness marriage imposed. Through her, Parsipur suggests that domestic patriarchy is sustained not only by law but by cultural perceptions that normalise women’s obedience to husbands.

The garden functions as a feminist counter-public sphere outside patriarchal governance. Within its walls, women work, speak and rest without male supervision. Iranian women’s groups have created similar spaces of solidarity, which were fragile yet transformative. They demonstrated that collective awareness could exist even within repressive conditions before and after the Islamic Revolution.

Parsipur does not allow the garden to become utopia, however. The women do not remain there, most return to Tehran and reenter life. Liberation cannot survive in isolation from society, Parsipur tells us. This narrative choice mirrors Iranian women’s rights history: reforms have emerged through resistance, reversal, and renewed struggle – not through escape.

Women Without Men is not simply a novel about five women seeking refuge in a garden. It is about freedom, embodiment and the struggle for equal dignity. Shahrnush Parsipur gives us women who question, transform, challenge and resist.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Sahar Maranlou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Women Without Men: a novella that tells the history of Iran through women’s bodies – https://theconversation.com/women-without-men-a-novella-that-tells-the-history-of-iran-through-womens-bodies-276250

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Wenge Xu, Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction, School of Computing, Birmingham City University

Self-driving cars are very much a reality and no longer a vision from science fiction. In the UK, automated vehicles (AVs) such as self-driving shuttles are already being tested on public roads.

Self-driving taxi services are expected to launch in 2026, and the Automated Vehicles Act is scheduled for implementation in 2027. This act establishes the legal groundwork for driverless cars to operate on Britain’s roads.

As these vehicles move from research labs to our streets, one question becomes critical: how will they communicate safely with the people around them? Researchers and designers have proposed installing equipment on the vehicles called external human–machine interfaces. These are designed to help driverless vehicles signal their behaviour to pedestrians and other road users (cyclists, wheelchair users and human drivers).

The driverless vehicles would employ pulsing lights around the vehicle, text displays showing the car’s intentions, and auditory cues that announce forthcoming actions, such as “I’m stopping” or a truck-like reversing sound.

However, much of this research still overlooks people with disabilities, including pedestrians with hearing loss. When accessibility isn’t built in from the start, the resulting designs often fail. So how can this be improved?

There are many examples of where current driverless vehicles fall short. Text-only displays may appear universal, but they can be less accessible for people whose primary language is sign language. They are also inacessible to blind people. Auditory cues, such as hums or droning sounds, could help the blind, but are difficult or impossible to detect for many people with hearing loss – even those with hearing aids.

Speech-based cues, meant to help people with low vision, can unintentionally introduce new risks. Hearing loss can distort speech, so a message like “I’m stopped” may be heard only as “stop” – completely altering its meaning.

One size fits all

Driverless vehicles are not inherently unsafe for deaf and hard of hearing people – the challenge lies in a design process that assumes a universal, one-size-fits-all approach. Historically, communication interfaces in regular vehicles have been built with an assumed “typical” hearing pedestrian in mind.

When accessibility becomes an afterthought, communication becomes unreliable, and the systems meant to increase safety may end up excluding the people who need them most. Technology alone cannot solve this problem.

Only thoughtful, inclusive design can. Our research shows that combining visual (pulsing lights and a text display) and audio (speech) cues can significantly increase trust and support safer decisions for pedestrians in general. But much more development is needed to ensure these communication interfaces are equitable for all people with special needs.

This gap between technological promise and lived experience reflects a broader pattern. Even though the Automated Vehicles Act aims to improve accessibility, most research in this area in this area still neglects people with special needs, including those with hearing loss.

If we want driverless vehicles to create more accessible streets – and not merely introduce new barriers – then people with special needs must be included in research, design and policy from the beginning.

Drawing on a series of user studies, we offer several practical recommendations to guide industry, researchers and policymakers toward a safer, more inclusive driverless car ecosystem.

Manufacturers should include diverse populations in the design and evaluation of their vehicles. We found that pedestrians with hearing loss may experience external human–machine interfaces differently from hearing people. Designers cannot fully anticipate the potential risks unless they inclusively involve user testing groups.

People need to understand not just that a vehicle exists, but what it intends to do. Displaying the vehicle’s “state”, such as “stopped”, and transitions, such as “slowing down”, helps pedestrians accurately judge the situation and feel more assured.

Combining audio and visual cues increases trust, acceptance and perceived safety. No single mode of communication is effective for everyone, but together, they offer back-ups and clarity.

Relying on just one type of visual cue is risky – lights, text or icons can fail in certain conditions. Providing combined visual information helps ensure that if one fails, another still supports pedestrian understanding.

Urban soundscapes can interfere with with audio cues, especially for pedestrians with hearing loss. Studying external human–machine interfaces in realistic environments is essential for ensuring they work when it matters.

Vehicle manufacturers must work with hearing aid and cochlear implant manufacturers to help ensure that audio cues are distinguishable, rather than confusing.

In many cases, barriers to inclusion arise not from technology itself, but from a lack of awareness or consultation. When people with special needs are excluded from design decisions, systems are built on assumptions rather than lived experience.

When they are actively involved, however, we are a step towards an inclusive and equitable future. Driverless vehicles have the potential to make our roads safer for everyone. But that future depends on purposeful, inclusive design choices today.

If developers, policymakers and researchers commit to engaging with deaf and hard of hearing people, along with others, we can help create streets that are safer, more accessible and more equitable for all.

Wenge Xu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How driverless vehicles can be made safer for deaf and hard of hearing people – https://theconversation.com/how-driverless-vehicles-can-be-made-safer-for-deaf-and-hard-of-hearing-people-277648

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simon Mabon, Professor of International Relations, Lancaster University

A report in the Washington Post the day after the Iran war began suggested that Saudi Arabia and Israel had both lobbied Donald Trump to attack Iran. The Saudis swiftly denied that they had pushed for war.

In the days since, as Iran lashed out in retaliation, Saudi Arabia came under attack. An Iranian drone hit the US embassy in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and an oil processing plant at Ras Tanura was targeted. Two people were killed on March 8 after a projectile fell on a residential area in Al-Kharj city, near an airbase used by the US military.

My academic and civil society contacts in Saudi Arabia expressed deep scepticism of the idea that Saudi Arabia had pushed the US to bomb Iran. The attacks go against everything that the Saudis have been doing for the past few years, when long-simmering tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia had begun to thaw.

Heated history

Iran and Saudi Arabia have a long and complex history. Saudi Arabia is an overwhelmingly Arab, Sunni state, while Iran is a mainly Persian, Shia state.

Tensions between the two rivals came to a head in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Iran’s new leader, Ayatolloh Ruhollah Khomeini, began to criticise the Saudis, saying they were unfit to be the custodians of the two holy places of Islam, Mecca and Medina. That antagonised the Saudis, who tried to diminish the credibility of the new Islamic Republic

Iran then began to provide support to groups across the region who wished to change the status quo, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. For the Saudis, this attempt to undermine regional order fuelled the antagonism.

In the early 1990s, after the death of Khomeini, more political space opened up and tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran eased. But after 9/11 and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, relations deteriorated. Iraq descended into a civil war, with Iran and Saudi Arabia supporting different groups in the conflict.

By 2010, diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks revealed Saudi King Abdullah had repeatedly pushed the US to strike Iran’s nuclear capabilities, urging the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake”. In 2016, the two countries cut off diplomatic relations after an attack on the Saudi embassy in Iran following the execution of a Saudi Shia cleric.

An era of rapprochement

Ever since a deal struck in 1945 between US President Franklin D Roosevelt and the Saudi King Abdul Aziz Al Saud on an aircraft carrier, Saudi Arabia has relied on the US for its security.

But after an attack using Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles in September 2019 against oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Saudis became worried that they couldn’t rely purely on the Americans. The Houthi rebel group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but subsequent investigations by the UN said they were not involved.

Iran denied allegations it was behind the attacks. The US did deploy air and missile defence forces to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the attacks, but the muted response still led to a dramatic change in Saudi Arabia’s approach to regional politics.

At the same time, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) realised that if Saudi Arabia wanted to enact its domestic reforms, in particular the ambitious Vision 2030 transformation, the country needed investor confidence and – crucially – regional stability. That meant a move away from comments, such as those by MBS in 2018, likening Iran’s supreme leader to Hitler.

A softening of Saudi rhetoric on Iran began, and back channel dialogue opened up. Then, in April 2021, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran sat down in the Iraqi capital Baghdad for talks, followed two years later by a Chinese-brokered normalisation deal signed in Beijing.

The two countries reopened embassies and started diplomatic initiatives, expressing joint statements in support for each other and carrying out joint military drills. All of this pointed to a thawing in relations – until the new Iran conflict began.

Iran conflict

With the arrival of a US armada in the Gulf in recent months, the Saudis and their Gulf neighbours would have expected another attack on Iran was imminent. But they don’t want a destabilised Iran.

Iraq in 2003 after the fall of Saddam Hossein experienced a terrible, violent period of instability that did not improve the region’s political, social or economic conditions, or encourage investment – all things the Gulf’s leaders hanker after. The US killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khameini in the hope that it would facilitate some type of peaceful transformation will seem like a huge gamble to Gulf leaders at a delicate time in their political trajectories.

If the perception in Iran is that Saudi Arabia has been pushing for war, it could start to pull the US and Saudi Arabia closer together. There is some anger from the Saudis too, however, that the Americans have not done more to protect them. A Saudi analyst told Al Jazeera that America had abandoned it. While Gulf states have very advanced hardware, they have small militaries, and will be now worried about their own security, and about being drawn into a long regional war.

With the future of Iran still deeply uncertain, and very real potential for prolonged instability on their doorstep, Gulf states will be carefully weighing their next move. Whatever happens, Iran’s decision to bomb its neighbours will make it very difficult to rebuild the sort of the trust that had been cultivated over recent years.

This article is based on an interview Simon Mabon gave to The Conversation Weekly podcast, published on March 5.

Simon Mabon receives funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Henry Luce Foundation. He is a Senior Research Fellow with The Foreign Policy Centre

– ref. Why it’s unlikely that Saudi Arabia wanted the US to bomb Iran – https://theconversation.com/why-its-unlikely-that-saudi-arabia-wanted-the-us-to-bomb-iran-277687

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sally King, Visiting Fellow in Menstrual Physiology, King’s College London

Social media has a habit of turning health topics into viral trends. The latest example is “period scooping”, a term circulating widely on TikTok that promises a way to manage or even shorten menstruation.

The idea sounds intriguing, even empowering. In reality, it reveals how much confusion still surrounds periods.

The term “period scooping” is being used to describe several different practices. One involves consciously contracting pelvic floor muscles while on the toilet or in the shower to push out menstrual fluid that has collected in the vaginal canal. This is not new and it is not dangerous. Many people have discovered it themselves over time. But it does not shorten a period, it merely reduces its flow for a short while. Menstruation is the shedding of the womb lining, a process driven by hormonal changes. What happens in the vaginal canal cannot stop or speed that up.

More concerning are posts that frame “scooping” as washing out the vagina with water, a shower head or soap. This is essentially douching, a practice that research has repeatedly linked to infections such as bacterial vaginosis and thrush, and to more serious complications like pelvic inflammatory disease and premature births. The vagina maintains its own protective environment, including an acidic pH and a balance of beneficial bacteria. Introducing water or soap disrupts this system and increases the risk of infection.

Read more:
Just don’t douche – what your vaginal biome can tell you about your health and pregnancy

There are also videos encouraging people to insert fingers or pipettes to remove menstrual fluid. Again, this is not a new behaviour but it is unnecessary and carries risks if fingers or pipettes are not clean, or products such as hand moisturiser or soap are introduced internally.

What is striking is that these trends are emerging at a time when there are more effective menstrual products than ever. Menstrual cups, period underwear and reusable pads allow people to manage heavy bleeding, exercise and even swim without leaking. The persistence of “hacks” suggests a gap in education rather than a lack of options.

The same goes for other viral claims. Some influencers promote drinks made with lime juice, salt or spices as a way to shorten periods. This is physiologically impossible and so, unsurprisingly, there is no scientific evidence supporting such claims.

The menstrual cycle is governed by hormonal signals between the brain and ovaries over an average of four week cycles. Food and drink cannot abruptly interrupt this process. A healthy diet can reduce inflammation over time and may help with symptoms such as pain and heavy bleeding, but no food, drink or even medication can stop a period immediately.

Similarly, some social media influencers may claim that you must have a monthly period to stay healthy. This is misleading. Hormonal contraception can safely reduce blood loss and pain, with some methods eventually stopping periods for several months or years. For some people, particularly those with anaemia or endometriosis, this can be extremely beneficial. Periods can be a sign of overall health in certain contexts (elite sports training, or in recovery from anorexia or other health conditions), but they are not biologically required every month.

Another trend seems to take a more positive approach, celebrating menstrual blood as something powerful and even applying it to the skin as a face mask. Menstrual fluid does contain stem cells, and scientists are studying them for potential use in regenerative medicine. The womb sheds and rebuilds tissue every cycle without scarring, a process that fascinates researchers. But rubbing menstrual fluid directly onto the skin cannot deliver anti-ageing effects. The skin acts as a barrier, so these cells cannot penetrate to where they would have any biological impact.

Where this research does hold real promise is in healthcare. Menstrual fluid may eventually help diagnose conditions such as endometriosis or cervical cancer through simple testing. Biobanks are already collecting samples to support this work. Scientists are also exploring how these unique stem cells might aid wound healing or tissue repair. These developments are still in early stages, but they highlight how valuable menstrual fluid could be if not subject to societal taboos and stigma.

Menstruation itself is rare among mammals. Only about 1.6% of species experience it, among them some primates, a few bats, the spiny mouse and the elephant shrew. In humans, menstruation is thought to be linked to a protective reproductive strategy. The uterine lining prepares itself in advance for pregnancy and may help filter out embryos that implant abnormally or invade too aggressively. If fertilisation does not occur, that lining is shed as menstruation. Yet despite its biological significance, it remains surrounded by myths and misinformation.

Menstrual ignorance and stigma shapes behaviour. Feelings of shame about smell, discharge or infection can push people toward harmful practices like douching. Lack of education means many learn about their bodies through social media rather than reliable sources. Even medical training has historically paid limited attention to menstrual health.

Read more:
Menstrual health literacy is alarmingly low – what you don’t know can harm you

Better education from an early age would change this. Teaching children that menstruation is normal, not something secret or shameful, would help dismantle myths before they take hold. It would also make it easier for people to seek medical advice when they need it.

Social media can play a positive role by opening conversations and challenging taboos. But it should not be the primary source of health information. Many viral trends are designed to capture attention or sell products, rather than provide evidence based guidance.

Menstruation is not dirty, and it is not a problem to be hacked. It is a protective biological process that still holds great scientific potential. Treating it as normal rather than something weird or shocking would be a better starting point than most viral trends.

Strange Health is hosted by Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt. The executive producer is Gemma Ware, with video and sound editing for this episode by Anouk Millet. Artwork by Alice Mason.

If you’ve got a question about a viral trend or video you’ve seen and you’d like us to delve into the science behind it in a future episode, please email us at strangehealth@theconversation.com.

Listen to Strange Health via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Sally King is the founder of Menstrual Matters, a non-profit online platform about menstrual health and associated rights issues. She previously received funding from the ESRC for her doctoral research into PMS. She is a visiting fellow in menstrual physiology at King’s College London and an unpaid elected board member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR).

– ref. TikTok’s period scooping trend shows how little we still understand about menstruation – https://theconversation.com/tiktoks-period-scooping-trend-shows-how-little-we-still-understand-about-menstruation-277075