Attitudes towards and experience of the menstrual cycle across different cultural and religious groups

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the impact of culture on menstrual attitudes and experience by distinguishing the separate issues of ethnicity and religious cultural identity. A total of 170 women living in Britain aged 13–85 (M = 36, SD = 16) participated in the study; 76 (44.7%) were culturally Christian, 48 (28.2%) culturally Muslim and 46 (27.1%) culturally Hindu. Respondents completed the Menstrual Attitudes Questionnaire (MAQ) and Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ). MANCOVA (controlling for the language of completion) showed no significant main effects of age group (over versus under 30) and no significant interaction between age and religious group, but did show a significant main effect of religious group on both MAQ (F(10, 314) = 5.1, p<0.01) and MDQ (F(16, 310) = 3.2, p<0.01) scores. Between‐subject effects for the MAQ were significant for four of the five attitude subscales and Bonferroni t'‐tests indicated that Hindus were significantly different to both Christians and Muslims. Between‐subject effects for the MDQ were significant for five of the eight subscales. Bonferroni t'‐tests showed that whilst Muslims scored higher than both Hindus and Christians on the ‘control’ subscale, Hindus scored significantly higher on ‘pain’ than Christians and significantly lower on ‘arousal’ than both Muslims and Christians. The results are consistent with a bio‐psychosocial model of menstrual cycle experience but also demonstrate that culture should be defined not only in terms of ethnicity but also in terms of other cultural factors such as religious heritage. The similarity between Christians and Muslims may be explained by the shared roots of these faiths, in contrast with the very different beliefs of Hindus.