Writing
latest article - conceptual framings of Menstruation in 20th-Century British Menstrual Product Advertising: Visible Stigma, Invisible Bleeding
This article significantly expands on the archival research undertaken as part of my PhD to offer a detailed analysis of the framing of menstruation in product advertising in British women and girls’ magazines.
The work draws on postfeminist frameworks (Gill 2007; Kissling 2006) to consider the intersection of menstrual stigma and neoliberalism. The article draws extensively on the Femorabilia Collection, part of LJMU’s Special Collections and Archives and provides detailed explanatory tables that describe and represent non-digitised archival materials.
who’s looking at who?
Bee was commissioned by National Museums Liverpool to write a short text on the concept of ‘the gaze’ in art and culture to accompany their Velasquez: National Treasures exhibition (2024).
The essay is illustrated by Lydia Hignett,
The Red Gown: Reflections on the In/Visibility of Menstruation in Scotland
This article written in collaboration with Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik and Dr Catherine Spencer reflects on the impact of the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act (2021) in and around the University of St Andrews. The piece also concludes our collaborative project where I was Artist in Residence at the University of St Andrews’ Institute for Gender Studies and Centre for Contemporary Art - as well as grappling with a project curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
challenging menstrual norms in online medical advice: deconstructing stigma through entangled art practice
Follow the link to read Bee’s article on menstrual normativity and menstrual art, published in Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics special issue, Feminist Encounters with the Medical Humanities, edited by Jana Funke and Sherri L. Foster.
Performing Periods: Challenging Menstrual Normativity through Art Practice
Bee’s PhD thesis is now available free, and open access, via the LJMU Research Repository.
Bee’s practice-led thesis explores the visual culture of menstruation from an interdisciplinary perspective rooted in art practice and autoethnographic reflection. The thesis aims to interrogate notions of menstrual normativity in anglophone culture, centring on, but not limited to art in the Global North. These notions are informed and reinforced through everyday beliefs, medical authority, advertising and representations of menstruation in art. With reference to art historical, sociological, political / cultural context and my own art and curatorial practice, the thesis proposes that menstrual art can be a powerful medium to re-frame academic, medical and everyday discussions about menstruation by revealing varied experiences of menstruation.
Obituary: Paula Rego
Bee was commissioned in 2022 to write an obituary for the artist Paula Rego. Originally published by The Conversation, the piece has appeared in a range of other publications.
How cultural attitudes to menstruation have finally started to shift
Blog post for the British Academy written with Dr Kay Standing.
Menstrual art: why everyone should
go and see it
Article written for The Conversation with Kay Standing.