There are many cultural aspects surrounding how societies view menstruation. Different cultures view menstruation in different ways. The basis of many conduct norms and communication about menstruation in western industrial societies is the belief that menstruation should remain hidden. By contrast, in some indigenous hunter-gatherer societies, menstrual observances are viewed in a positive light, without any connotation of uncleanness. In most of India, menarche is celebrated as a rite of passage.

A menstrual taboo is any social taboo concerned with menstruation. In some societies it involves menstruation being perceived as unclean or embarrassing, inhibiting even the mention of menstruation whether in public (in the media and advertising) or in private (among friends, in the household, or with men). Many traditional religions consider menstruation ritually unclean, although anthropologists say that the concepts 'sacred' and 'unclean' may be intimately connected.

The terms menstruation and menses are derived from the Latin: mensis, lit. 'month', which in turn is cognate with the Ancient Greek: μήνη, romanized: mēnē, lit. 'lunar month', and the roots of the English words month and moon.

According to anthropologists Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb, cross-cultural study shows that while taboos about menstruation are nearly universal, and while many of these involve notions of uncleanliness (ritual impurity), numerous menstrual traditions "bespeak quite different, even opposite, purposes and meanings." In some traditional societies, menstrual rituals are experienced by women as protective and empowering, offering women a space set apart from the male gaze and from unwanted sexual or domestic pressures and demands. In other words, the idea of the seclusion of the menstruation hut may be perceived as banishment of the woman seen to be impure and taboo, or as a welcome space and time free of the usual daily chores: isolation versus retreat.

An instructive example is provided by the anthropologist Wynne Maggi, who spent years living in the peasant society of the Kalash people of the Chitral District in northwestern Pakistan. She describes the communal bashali (large menstrual house) as the village's 'most holy place', respected by men, and serving as women's all-female organizing centre for establishing and maintaining gender solidarity and power. Also see the interview conducted in Period Matters with Kalash women where they describe themselves as being 'free' to make choices, and having the opportunity to rest during their period. According to one body of cultural evolutionary scholarship, the idea that menstrual blood marks the body as periodically sacred was initially established by female coalitions in their own interests, although later, with the rise of cattle-ownership and patriarchal power, these same beliefs and taboos were harnessed by religious patriarchs to intensify women's oppression.

Metaformic Theory, as proposed by cultural theorist Judy Grahn and others, places menstruation as a central organizing idea in the creation of culture and the formation of humans' earliest rituals.

Menstruation in synchrony with the moon is widely assumed in myths and traditions as a ritual ideal. The idea that menstruation is—or ideally ought to be—in harmony with wider cosmic rhythms is one of the most tenacious ideas central to the myths and rituals of traditional communities across the world. One of the most thoroughgoing analyses of primitive mythology ever undertaken was that of the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who concluded that, taken together, the indigenous myths of North and South America expressed men's worry that, unless women's periods were carefully monitored and synchronised, the universe might descend into chaos.

In Aboriginal Australia, the supernatural being known as the 'Rainbow Snake' has been interpreted as, among other things, an indigenous way of conceptualising the ideal of synchronised tidal, lunar, menstrual and seasonal periodicities whose overall harmony (it is believed) confers spiritual power and fertility.