Arcipelago Menarca is a qualitative research project and a growing archive of anonymous first-period stories. I started it to explore how people remember menarche and how they learn to make sense of that experience through their relationships and the contexts in which they grow up.

 

What did we know before it happened? Who explained what was happening, and what words did they use? The project invites people to revisit that moment through the details that have stayed with them: a place, an object, something someone said. Fragmented memories and contradictory feelings are welcome, with room for embarrassment or fear as well as curiosity, pride and indifference.

 

Through these stories, I explore how menstrual knowledge is passed on across generations and cultural contexts, within families, at school and among peers. The explanations people received, alongside what remained unspoken, offer a way to examine expectations surrounding menstruating bodies and how menarche may change someone’s sense of self or the way others perceive them.

 

The archive grows through an anonymous form open to anyone aged 18 or over who has experienced menarche, however long ago it happened. Each account contributes to research on the social dimensions of an experience often held in individual memory: please share and take part if you can!