“It Just Adds More Fuel to the Weak Woman Fire”: Perimenopausal “Excuses”, Feminist Dilemmas, and the Politics of Menstruation Tracking Apps

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Perimenopause is often marked by unpredictable bodily changes. This unpredictability sits in tension with dominant cultural discourses that valorise self-discipline, control, and health optimisation. In this context, menstruation tracking apps are promoted as tools for self-management through bodily surveillance, reinforcing a “mythical norm” of bodily control and stability. Using cooperative inquiry, within a poststructuralist feminist framework, we explored how 24 perimenopausal people in Aotearoa New Zealand discussed their menstruation tracking app use. We asked: how is feminism evoked in people's talk about using menstruation tracking apps to manage their perimenopause, and how does this shape their subjectivity and practice? We focus on two feminist dilemmas related to gender, embodiment, and technology that were produced in participants’ accounts. The first, hysterical stigma versus hysterical truth, captures the tension between wanting to acknowledge the embodied challenges of perimenopause and how this acknowledgement risks evoking sexist constructions of the hormone-driven “monstrous feminine”. To resolve this dilemma, participants turned to menstruation tracking apps, orienting to the technology's promise of bodily control through self-knowledge. However, this created a second dilemma: Tracking as supportive care versus stigmatising surveillance. Here, menstruation tracking apps represent a cruel optimism, promising credibility and care, while in practice, participants found themselves rubbing up against tracking labour and stigma. In highlighting these dilemmas, we contribute to an emerging literature on how menstrual-tracking technologies can constrain, rather than expand, the possibilities for more affirmative understandings of perimenopause.