Women’s experiences of embodied poverty – perspectives on menstruation, reproductive health and the relationship with the body
What kinds of experiences do Finnish women have of period poverty? What kinds of reproductive health challenges do women who have experienced poverty face? And how does women’s experience of poverty manifest through their relationship with their bodies?
Through these questions, this study seeks to explore what poverty related to the female body looks like. The focus is on women’s own experiences, with the research data consisting of individual interviews with Finnish women of different ages.
Data will be collected between autumn 2025 and spring 2026. Women of different ages who have experienced poverty/financial hardship and its effects on their bodies are welcomed to participate in the study. PARTICIPATE IN THE STUDY HERE (in Finnish) or contact the researcher via email: saara.m.polonen@utu.fi
Overview of the study
Poverty is embodied – it affects the body and is felt in the body. Poverty is also experienced through one’s gender. For women, embodied poverty may appear, for example, as a lack of financial resources to visit a gynecologist or to purchase suitable menstrual products. It may also manifest in not being able to take care of one’s appearance or body in the way one would wish. However, there is very little research in Finland on the embodied dimensions of poverty as experienced by women.
This study explores Finnish women’s* experiences of poverty in relation to the female body. Poverty related to the female body can be understood as poverty linked to the body’s physical characteristics, bodily care, and the subjective experience of the female body. In this study, poverty related to the female body is examined through menstruation, reproductive health, and women’s relationship with their bodies. The study is particularly interested in how poverty is reflected in women’s management of menstruation and reproductive health, as well as in caring for the external body and in conceptions related to the body.
The research data consists of individual interviews with Finnish women of different ages who have experienced poverty/financial hardship. Data will be collected between autumn 2025 and spring 2026. The study aims to broaden the understanding of poverty and its embodied dimensions in women’s lives across different life stages.
The study is conducted at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Turku, in the discipline of Social Work. The responsible researcher is doctoral researcher Saara Pölönen. The research is funded by the Kone Foundation.
*The target group of this study is women, by which is meant individuals who were assigned female at birth and who identify as women. This definition is based on the aim of the study to examine embodied poverty from the perspective of both the biological female body and the lived experience of womanhood. However, poverty related to the female body can also affect individuals who do not belong to the binary gender system. Thus, poverty related to the female body is a diverse phenomenon that can manifest in different ways in different people’s lives.