Bettina Bildhauer is Professor of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews (UK). She has researched medical, artistic and social views of menstruation in the Middle Ages and has published on this at length in her monograph Medieval Blood (2006, 2009). Her core argument is that menstruation was often seen as polluting and uncontrollable, marking women’s bodies and identities as less coherent and integral than men’s. She is the lead researcher on the RSE Ending Period Poverty project. This project grew out of the UK-wide Menstruation Research Network: https://menstruationresearchnetwork.co.uk/, which she is also part of.