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Women's Reproductive Health
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uwrh20
The Period Game: Helping Girls Learn about
Menstruation?
Gilsanz, D., & Murphy, R. (2019). The period game. [Board Game]. Albany, NY:
Period Game LLC. Price: $39.00.
Margaret L. Stubbs
To cite this article: Margaret L. Stubbs (2020): The Period Game: Helping Girls Learn about
Menstruation?, Women's Reproductive Health, DOI: 10.1080/23293691.2020.1861410
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2020.1861410
Published online: 30 Dec 2020.
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BOOK REVIEW
The Period Game: Helping Girls Learn about Menstruation?
Gilsanz D., & Murphy R. (2019). The period game. [Board Game]. Albany, NY: Period
Game LLC. Price: $39.00.
In recent years, menstrual periods have indeed “gone public”(Weiss-Wolf, 2017). Yet, des-
pite increased public dialogue about menstruation, menstrual stigma persists worldwide and
hinders advancements in menstrual, and other related, health issues (Chrisler & Gorman,
2019; Stubbs, 2019). Although the challenges thwarting menstrual health may differ for girls
in the least- and more-developed countries, Sommer and colleagues (2016) asserted that, in
general, girls are unprepared and unsupported as they begin menstrual life.
In the United States, negative representations of menstruation can be found in product
management advertising (Chrisler & Johnston-Robledo, 2018) and in books about pubertal
growth that are designed for girls (Stubbs, 2016,2020). Perhaps more important is the lack
of an evidence-based menstrual education curriculum to guide school personnel and others
who create interventions that they hope will support girls as they enter menstrual life
(Sterling, 2018). The result is a hodgepodge of approaches that vary in accuracy, many of
which unwittingly perpetuate menstrual stigma.
Regardless, it is heartening that people continue to try to find ways to help girls learn
about menstruation. Two such individuals, Daniela Gilsanz and Ryan Murphy (2019), cre-
ated The Period Game to help younger girls in the upper-elementary or early middle-school
grades to learn about menstruation and, most important, to feel more comfortable talking
about it. Their product website (https://www.periodgame.com) notes:
It’s pretty much impossible to play the game without saying words like “period”and
“tampon,”making it a lot easier to talk about both in real life and empowering the next
generation to stop hiding tampons in their sleeves.
During the development phase of the game, and when it became available for purchase, it
garnered many positive accolades, which can be easily found from a Google search of the
product. I, too, applaud the effort that Gilsanz and Murphy put into the creation of this
game, and I support their hope that changing the way girls learn about menstruation can
help reduce the influence of menstrual stigma on their menstrual experiences. At the same
time, I have some reservations about it. My main concern is that, although well-intended,
the game, as do many other efforts to educate girls about menstruation (see Stubbs, 2020),
calls attention to what may be negative aspects of menstruation, certainly the opposite of
what its creators planned.
Of course, no one menstrual education strategy can, or should be expected to, cover
everything about menstruation. In this game, the creators chose to focus primarily on man-
aging menstruation by using the appropriate “protection”(i.e., the appropriate product to
use) to manage it and by getting that “protection”from a nurse in a school setting.
Menstrual management products are labeled “period protection”products. The word
“protection”signifies vulnerability, which will likely get players’attention but also, perhaps,
heighten their anxiety.
Moreover, the game includes a penalty for not having the right protection (i.e., “leaking”).
A player who “leaks”has to go to “the Nurse’s Office”and lose a turn. For example, if a
player lands on a Period space on the game board that is marked “heavy,”the player can
only continue if the player has, and can discard, two “regular”protection cards or one
WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
maxipad or super-tampon card. If a player cannot perform the action required, the player
must move to the next Nurse’s Office space and lose a turn. Also problematic is that there
are no instructions that help players judge what is a heavy or regular amount of flow or
about what protection is needed for heavy or regular flow beyond simple labeling. It is a tall
order to highlight a player’s responsibility to “protect”herself by having the appropriate
product, especially in the absence of information about the variation in men-
strual experience.
A second topic addressed by the game is Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). Unfortunately,
in many menstrual education materials, PMS is described as a cluster of negative symptoms
along with the implication that these are to be expected (Stubbs, 2020), and such is the case
in this game. These kinds of descriptions place menstrual-related changes in a disease model
(see Chrisler, 1996), as does having to go to the Nurse’s Office if players don’t have appro-
priate protection (although I admit that this is a major way girls get supplies while in
school). Further, positive premenstrual changes that have been documented by researchers
(e.g., King & Ussher, 2012) are not part of the game. Suggestions about how to manage
PMS are also offered during the course of the game. One especially problematic suggestion
for girls who feel overwhelmed by their emotions is to acknowledge them but realize that
they will pass. This presents girls with a double bind: recognize your feelings but discount
them (see Charlesworth, 2001). Finally, in most educational information about PMS targeted
to younger learners, there is rarely any discussion about how a girl might judge whether a
menstrual-related change she experiences is severe or mild (Stubbs, 2020), and that is also
the case in this game.
The topics covered in the game do represent important worries that some girls have about
menstruating: unexpected bleeding without a way to manage it in a public place, including
school; challenging physical and emotional changes that may accompany menstruation. But
this focus necessarily draws attention to these stigmatized aspects of menstrual experience.
Unintended negative messages are: that unprotected menstruation must be monitored and
avoided; that PMS is undesirable, and it should be expected and thought of as an illness. Of
course, it is important for girls to be able to manage their menstruation given its stigmatized
status. And of course, changes related to menstruating that occur may be unpleasant or
even debilitating. But these aspects of menstrual experiences are writ large in this game.
Moreover, potentially negative or worrisome menstrual experiences can be presented more
neutrally and in the context of more positive views of menstruation, for example, as a vital
sign of health (Stubbs, 2020).
Finally, from a practical perspective, I found the written directions that come with the
game to be quite dense and difficult to implement, even after I viewed the video instructions
provided on the product website (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Iu5a8BLwU). Many
variables influence play: colored marbles; a deck of cards featuring products and ways to
manage PMS; “wild”cards that can be played to advantage at various points in the game;
ways to swap places, trade cards, and make others move forward and back. On the website,
a parent or instructor is encouraged to play with the girls. This is a must in terms of logis-
tics, but I would recommend that the adult have great deal of practice with the particulars
of the game.
Adult facilitators should also be prepared to help girls identify the variations of menstrual
flow and learn how to determine if menstrual cycle-related changes are severe or mild. They
should be ready for further discussion about the many topics mentioned in a small booklet
included as a resource for both them and players in the game (e.g., basic information about
menstrual periods, product information, Toxic Shock). Much of this information begs for
more detail, for example, the description of irregular periods as common in the first 2 years
2 BOOK REVIEW
post-menarche (see Hillard, 2014, for important information to the contrary). Also begging
for more discussion are topics such as sexual intercourse, which is simply named as the pro-
cess by which fertilization of an egg occurs or not, and the notion that tampons will not de-
virginize girls.
In sum, my major concerns about this game center on its focus on the stigma of menstru-
ating without protection and its representation of PMS as an expected (and negative) part of
menstrual-cycle experience within the perspective of an illness. Almost nothing positive
about menstruation is mentioned. Other comments about the complexity of how to play the
game are relevant but, frankly, not as important.
Despite of my concerns about it, this product has its strengths. It is well designed artistic-
ally. The management product choices highlighted do alert players to product variations.
Especially notable is that one of the products featured as a game piece is a menstrual cup.
In most menstrual education materials, cups are not often or only briefly mentioned. To
me, what’s best about the game is that it offers girls an opportunity to talk about some parts
of menstrual experience out loud, together, with more comfort. A revised introduction to
the game could tout this purpose as way of encouraging girls to participate in the broader
campaign to reduce menstrual stigma. To address some of the concerns I have discussed, a
revised introduction could also include mentioning positive aspects of menstruation (e.g., as
a sign that one’s body is developing in a healthy way, and suggest that, like any new experi-
ence, it might take some getting used to). The introduction could affirm that girls might
have questions about the process and note that playing this game addresses two of these: it
can help girls who wonder how to manage menstruation, especially in school, and how they
might feel during a period. In addition to a revised introduction, changes could be made to
the directions, or in the accompanying informational booklet, which I encourage these moti-
vated and creative designers to undertake in a second edition.
References
Charlesworth, D. (2001). Paradoxical constructions of self: Educating women young women about menstru-
ation. Women & Language,24,13–20.
Chrisler, J. C. (1996). PMS as a culture-bound syndrome. In J. C. Chrisler, C. Golden, & P. D. Rozee (Eds.),
Lectures on the psychology of women (1st ed., pp. 107–121). McGraw Hill.
Chrisler, J. C., & Gorman, J. A. (2019). The menstrual cycle: Attitudes and behavioral concomitants. In J. M.
Ussher, J. C. Chrisler, & J. Perz, (Eds.), Routledge International handbook of women’s sexual and repro-
ductive health (pp. 55–69). Routledge.
Chrisler, J. C., & Johnston-Robledo, I. (2018). Woman’s embodied self: Feminist perspectives on identity and
image. American Psychological Association.
Hillard, P. J. (2014). Menstruation in adolescents: What do we know? And what do we do with the informa-
tion? Journal of Pediatric & Adolescent Gynecology,27(6), 309–319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpag.2013.12.001
King, M., & Ussher, J. M. (2012). It’s not all bad: Women’s construction and lived experience of positive
premenstrual change. Feminism & Psychology 23(3), 399–417. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353512440351
Sommer, M., Caruso, B.A., Sahin, M., Calderon, T., Cavill, S., Mahon, T, & Phillips-Howard, P. A. (2016). A
time for global action: Addressing girls’menstrual hygiene management needs in schools. PLOS Medicine,
13(2), e1001962. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001962
Sterling, E. W. (2018, November). Menstrual education in the United States: Opportunities for improvement
and barriers to change. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Public Health Association, San
Diego, CA.
Stubbs, M. L. (2016). A developmental perspective on adolescents’reproductive self-care. Women’s
Reproductive Health,3(2), 100–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2016.1196083
WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH 3
Stubbs, M. L. (2019). Pubertal development and menarche: Physiological and developmental considerations.
In J. M. Ussher, J. C. Chrisler, & J. Perz (Eds.), Routledge International handbook of women’s sexual and
reproductive health (pp. 13–27). Routledge.
Stubbs, M. L. (2020). Learning about what’s“down there”: Body image below the belt and menstrual educa-
tion. In C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, & T-A. Roberts (Eds.), The
Palgrave handbook of critical menstruation studies (pp. 233–251). Palgrave MacMillan.
Weiss-Wolf, J. (2017). Periods gone public: Taking a stand for menstrual equity. Arcade Publishing.
Reviewed by Margaret L. Stubbs
Chatham University
MStubbs@chatham.edu
ß2020 Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2020.1861410
4 BOOK REVIEW
