Women

"Taking advantage of the natural experiment afforded by the ongoing religious transition in the Dogon, we found genetic support for the hypothesis that menstrual huts help to assure paternity. Although the world religions do not have menstrual huts, they do share common tenets that may foster cuckoldry avoidance (SI Discussion). For example, in Judaism, menstrual purity laws increase coital frequency around the time of ovulation. In Islam, paternity confusion is prevented by the Qur’an’s rule that, after divorce, a woman must wait for three menstrual periods before remarrying. The Hindu text, The Laws of Manu, admonishes against cuckoldry or “sowing in another man’s field”. Strong statements against adultery and extramarital children are found in the Bible, and, in Buddhism, adultery is a form of sexual misconduct. In preventing cuckoldry, religions use the dual strategy of social control in the public sphere (attendance at a place of worship or at a menstrual hut) and the fear of divine or supernatural punishment. In the United States, frequent church attendance and belief that the Bible is the word of God were the two most robust predictors of lower rates of self-reported EPCs. We posit that the ideological and tactical similarities between the world religions and the Dogon religion have arisen in response to the same biological pressures."

"Regression of the endometrium is usually accompained by reabsorption, but in some species as much as one third of the endometrial and vascular tissue is shed as the menses. Rather than having and adaptive basis in ecology or behavior, variation in the degree of menstrual bleeding in primates shows a striking correlation with phylogeny. The endometrial microvasculature is designed to provide the blood supply to the endometrium and the placenta, and external bleeding appears to be a side effect of endometrial regression that arises when there is too much blood and other tissue for complete reabsortion. The copious bleeding of humans and chimps can be attributed to the large size of the uterus relative to adult female size and to the design of the microvasculature in catarrhines."

"According to a recent hypothesis, menstruation evolved to protect the uterus oviducts from sperm-borne pathogens by dislodging infected endometrial tissue and delivering immune cells to the uterine cavity. This hypothesis predicts the following: (1) uterine pathogens should be more prevalent before menses than after menses, (2) in the life histories of females, the timing of menstruation should track pathogen burden, and (3) in primates, the copiousness of menstruation should increase with the promiscuity of the breeding system. I tested these predictions and they were not upheld by the evidence. I propose the alternative hypothesis that the uterine endometrium is shed/resorbed whenever implantation fails because cyclical regression and renewal is energetically less costly than maintaining the endometrium in the metabolically active state required for implantation. In the regressed state, oxygen consumption (per mg protein/h) in human endometria declines nearly sevenfold. The cyclicity in endometrial oxygen consumption is one component of the whole body cyclicity in metabolic rate caused by the action of the ovarian steroids on both endometrial and nonendometrial tissue. Metabolic rate is at least 7% lower, on average, during the follicular phase than during the luteal phase in women, which signifies an estimated energy savings of 53 MJ over four cycles, or nearly six days worth of food. Thus, the menstrual cycle revs up and revs down, economizing on the energy costs of reproduction. This economy is greatest during the nonbreeding season and other periods of amenorrhea when the endometrium remains in a regressed state and ovarian cycling is absent for a prolonged period of time. Twelve months of amenorrhea save an estimated 130 MJ, or the energy required by one woman for nearly half a month. By helping females to maintain body mass, energy economy will promote female fitness in any environment in which fecundity and survivorship is constrained by the food supply. Endometrial economy may be of ancient evolutionary origin because similar reproductive structures, such as the oviduct of lizards, also regress when a fertilized egg is unlikely to be present."

"So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not? Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event. … The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on. If we let them."

"The purpose of this study was to examine the messages conveyed in menstrual product advertisements with specific concern given to information that could be learned about menstruation and the female body by menarcheal girls. Over 200 advertisements from popular women's magazines were analyzed using constant comparative analysis. The core variable was Heightening Insecurities . The themes identified in menstrual product advertisements function to heighten insecurities in the female adolescent reader. The findings revealed that the advertisements were a reflection of the negative societal views of menstruation and, because the advertisements function to heighten insecurities, they also function to perpetuate and maintain the silence and shame which surrounds menstruation in our society."

"Archaeologically, understanding cultural behaviors surrounding menstruation is important because it can provide glimpses into gender relations and gender roles that allow us to understand the social structuring of past societies. However, it is equally important that menstruation be studied in order to personify and connect to the people of the past. As a teenager, I felt removed from the great women of history due to the elimination of menstruation from their stories. This removal is discussed often in literary circles, but it also needs to be tackled in archaeology. Menstruation is a biological continuity that has always occurred to half of the human population and there needs to be a cultural history that is representative of this reality."

"Worldwide, the amount of ethnographic and textual work on menstruation is disproportionately larger than the amount of archaeological work on the subject. While researching for my project at Deir el-Medina, I found only four published studies that attempt to identify menstruation in the archaeological record: Claassen 2011, Faust and Katz 2017, Bengtson 2017, and Crown 1985. I was not surprised by this result, as menstruation is still taboo in the western world, but the result also stems from the lack of visibility of menstruation in the archaeological record. Patricia Galloway’s “Where have all the menstrual huts gone?” rightfully points out that this is unsubstantiated assumption, one not supported by the ethnographic and textual descriptions of these practices."

"In India, the lunar calendar, possibly one of the first of its type, is still in use today ... the total for 28 days is both a menstrual and lunar cycle, with the full moon as a cosmic representation of pregnancy, and the new moon standing for the promise of rebirth. These beliefs are apparently universal, for the lunar markings found on prehistoric bone fragments are thought by many to represent women's cycles."

"How reliable is the woman's menstrual history in determining where she is in her cycle, namely that she is preovulatory? In a study by Novikova et al., they found the history of the first day of the last period to be unreliable 39 percent of the time (Novikova et al. 2007). In addition they found a wide range of cycle lengths with the first day of one period to the first day of the next to be 21 to 35 days. With a longer cycle the woman could be on day 17 of her cycle but still be preovulatory and with a shorter cycle she could be on day 13 of her cycle and be postovulatory. Although one may suspect the woman is approaching ovulation on pelvic exam with the presence of highly fertile mucus at the cervical os, it is impossible for a physician to determine whether the woman is preovulatory on a pelvic exam, in particular in a woman who has just been sexually assaulted. How reliable are LH testing and progesterone levels done stat in the emergency room in determining where the woman is in her cycle? The LH surge goes on over a twenty-four-hour period, and is usually detected by testing a first-morning concentrated urine. A random urine specimen, particularly late at night, may not detect the LH surge. In addition, serum progesterone levels are not emergency tests, and the results often are not available for twenty-four hours, even in major metropolitan hospitals, and even longer in small community hospitals. Therefore, this protocol may not have a timely progesterone level available to help determine if a woman is preovulatory in the emergency room."

"The more effective of the two post-coital methods of contraception is to induce menstruation before fertilization or implantation can take place. Many herbal recipes to induce menstruation were taught by Hippocrates, “the father of medicine,” who lived in ancient Athens 460–377 B.C.E. He had gathered his recipes from women whose traditions of medicine were already thousands of years old. Centuries later, some of these methods for inducing menstruation for contraception were published by Peter of Spain before he was made Pope John XXI in 1276. Despite their toxicity, herbs are still used worldwide in attempts to induce menstruation (Riddle, 1992)."

"RU-486 is properly called an 'abortifacient.' Because it is a drug that can induce a menstrual period after the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, it can terminate a woman's pregnancy in its earliest stages."

"In the developing world, menstrual regulation is still a crucial strategy to circumvent anti-abortion laws."

"Crosses her knees and wags left leg to rhythm. Type of by-words: a two-hundred-forty-two word area of the commonest pubescent slang fenced in by a number of obviously European polysyllabics. Sighs a good deal in class. Let me see. Yes. Now comes the last week in November. Sighs a good deal in class. Chews gum vehemently. Does not bite her nails though if she did, this would conform better to her general pattern — scientifically speaking, of course. Menstruation, according to the subject, well established. Belongs at present to no church organization. By the way, Mr. Haze, her mother was —? Oh, I see. And you are —? Nobody’s business is, I suppose, God’s business. Something else we wanted to know. She was no regular home duties, I understand. Making a princess of your Dolly, Mr. Haze, he? Well, what else have we got here? Handles books gracefully. Voice pleasant. Giggles rather often."

"Their anger in darkness turning, unreleased, unspoken, it's mouth a red wound, its eyes hungry...hungry for the moon."

"Males or females that are unclean through running issue, and a woman after childbirth, must in addition bring a sacrifice, because their uncleanness occurs less frequently than that of women in their separation. All these cases of uncleanliness, viz., running issue of males or females, menstruations, leprosy, dead bodies of human beings, carcases of beasts and creeping things, and issue of semen, are sources of dirt and filth."

"Girls in the USA receive mixed messages about menarche: menarche is traumatic and upsetting-but act normal; menarche is an overt symbol of sexual maturity-but also a mysterious, secret event. Girls I interviewed reported another-dualism in their menstrual education. They perceive a clear distinction between two kinds of menstrual knowledge: scientific knowledge about the anatomy and physiological functioning, and what they termed `realistic', pragmatic knowledge about managing the lived experience of menstruation. Using methods of critical, feminist analysis, I examine social texts of menstrual socialization, including girls' conversation about their menstrual education; their mothers' discussions of the preparation for menstruation that girls received; and instructional materials presented in their health education classes, to discuss the communication and the silences of contemporary menstrual socialization, and to suggest possibilities for transformative language and action to teach girls about menstruation in ways that can help mend dualisms."

"Three central contributions to the understanding of reproduction came from ‘’Blood Magic’’. First, it definitively challenged the image of a universal taboo which operated in the same way in all societies. Second, it argued persuasively against the idea that menstruation was marked because it was always linked to female subordination, based on associations with nature, the domestic, or the undervalued. Third, with nuanced case studies it demonstrated how menstrual fluids could be used in empowering ways, in love magic, in specially esteemed forms of cooking, in establishing and coordination a ritual calendar, and in providing images of creation and transformation. That volume did not, however, veer into the New Age fashion of glorifying menstruation, eclipsing mention of its reported dangers, or purging cultural associations with death, disease, and loss (cf. Owen 1998). Since menstrual bleeding is both a sign of continued fertility and of the failure to conceive in a particular month, its regulation is of great importance to female reproductive health, and a recently published volume (Van de Walle and Renne 2000) brought together work on the medical history of menstrual regulation and the “native science” of female fertility, especially its relation to herbalism. Many herbs were used as both emmenagogues (to bring on menstruation) and abortifacients (to terminate pregnancy), and the fundamental ambiguity about the purposes for which they were employed seems to have been an important element of their popularity."

"A number of polls have cited women’s opinions about the frequency of preferred menstrual bleeding. Some polls suggest that up to half of women may prefer a menstrual frequency of “never”, although the acceptability of amenorrhea has cultural determinants and varies widely. An international study involving women in Nigeria, South Africa, Scotland, and the People’s Republic of China found that most women dislike menstruation, and in all of the countries studied except the People’s Republic of China, most women expressed a willingness to try a contraceptive method that induced amenorrhea."

"Suppression of menstrual periods to provide relief of menstrual-related symptoms has been used in a variety of medical conditions since the availability of steroid hormone therapy. This option has gained legitimacy through its use in treating symptoms, but is now being used more frequently by women for personal preference. A recent Cochrane review of trials comparing 28-day and extended cycles found comparable contraceptive efficacy and safety.1 The review found overall discontinuation rates and discontinuation for bleeding problems to be similar. Extended cycling resulted in improved headaches, genital irritation, tiredness, bloating, and menstrual pain."

"Menstrual suppression to provide relief of menstrual-related symptoms or to manage medical conditions associated with menstrual morbidity or menstrual exacerbation has been used clinically since the development of steroid hormonal therapies. Options range from the extended or continuous use of combined hormonal oral contraceptives, to the use of combined hormonal patches and rings, progestins given in a variety of formulations from intramuscular injection to oral therapies to intrauterine devices, and other agents such as gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonists. The agents used for menstrual suppression have variable rates of success in inducing amenorrhea, but typically have increasing rates of amenorrhea over time. Therapy may be limited by side effects, most commonly irregular, unscheduled bleeding. These therapies can benefit women’s quality of life, and by stabilizing the hormonal milieu, potentially improve the course of underlying medical conditions such as diabetes or a seizure disorder. This review addresses situations in which menstrual suppression may be of benefit, and lists options which have been successful in inducing medical amenorrhea."

"Plato was aware that divination is something inferior that pertains to the non-rational soul. The main point is that they [clairvoyants] name their illnesses, especially chronic nervous disorders that are not yet fully developed. Also, rheumatism, toothaches, yield to magnetism. Remarkably, it seems to have an effect on the maladies of menstruation. The somnambulists especially know how to specify these disorders and it is easy to admit that they discover deficiencies. They describe these conditions, but in an entirely ordinary manner, not in the manner of one who understands anatomy. Then they indicate the remedy for their disease."

"As more companies bought into the idea, the week of placebo pills was here to stay. Doctors liked that they made explaining the instructions to women easy. Women liked having one fewer thing to remember about their birth control. Few questioned why women on the pill should be having a “period” at all. Today there are a small handful of options that reduce or eliminate monthly bleeding: Seasonale, a form of the pill sold in packets of 84 active pills and seven placebos that make it so bleeding happens just four times a year, became available in 2003. In 2007, the F.D.A. approved Lybrel, the first oral contraceptive to provide continuous active pills, with no breaks for withdrawal bleeding. Doctors agree that a menstrual cycle can be a useful indicator of overall health, and yet it still isn’t necessary. When Dr. Lori Picco’s patients ask if they can skip the inactive pills, she says she tells them to go right ahead. “It’s completely fine — there’s no medical concerns,” says Dr. Picco, a gynecologist at Capital Women’s Care in Washington and a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “Honestly, I would think people would want to do it all the time.”"

"To Strassmann and others in the field of evolutionary medicine, this shift from a hundred to four hundred lifetime menses is enormously significant. It means that women’s bodies are being subjected to changes and stresses that they were not necessarily designed by evolution to handle. In a brilliant and provocative book, “Is Menstruation Obsolete?,” Drs. Elsimar Coutinho and Sheldon S. Segal, two of the world’s most prominent contraceptive researchers, argue that this recent move to what they call “incessant ovulation” has become a serious problem for women’s health. It doesn’t mean that women are always better off the less they menstruate. There are times—particularly in the context of certain medical conditions—when women ought to be concerned if they aren’t menstruating: In obese women, a failure to menstruate can signal an increased risk of uterine cancer. In female athletes, a failure to menstruate can signal an increased risk of osteoporosis. But for most women, Coutinho and Segal say, incessant ovulation serves no purpose except to increase the occurrence of abdominal pain, mood shifts, migraines, endometriosis, fibroids, and anemia—the last of which, they point out, is “one of the most serious health problems in the world.” Most serious of all is the greatly increased risk of some cancers. Cancer, after all, occurs because as cells divide and reproduce they sometimes make mistakes that cripple the cells’ defenses against runaway growth. That’s one of the reasons that our risk of cancer generally increases as we age: our cells have more time to make mistakes. But this also means that any change promoting cell division has the potential to increase cancer risk, and ovulation appears to be one of those changes. Whenever a woman ovulates, an egg literally bursts through the walls of her ovaries. To heal that puncture, the cells of the ovary wall have to divide and reproduce. Every time a woman gets pregnant and bears a child, her lifetime risk of ovarian cancer drops ten per cent. Why? Possibly because, between nine months of pregnancy and the suppression of ovulation associated with breast-feeding, she stops ovulating for twelve months—and saves her ovarian walls from twelve bouts of cell division. The argument is similar for endometrial cancer. When a woman is menstruating, the estrogen that flows through her uterus stimulates the growth of the uterine lining, causing a flurry of potentially dangerous cell division. Women who do not menstruate frequently spare the endometrium that risk. Ovarian and endometrial cancer are characteristically modern diseases, consequences, in part, of a century in which women have come to menstruate four hundred times in a lifetime."

"Then he started his period. one week in bed. two doctors in. three painkillers four times a day.And later a letter to the powers-that-be demanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks a year. I see him now, his selfish pale face peering at the moon through the bathroom window. The curse, he said, the curse"

"In both developed and developing regions of the world, properly trained midwives, public health nurses, and comparable health and auxiliary personnel can conduct procedures early in pregnancy under adequate supervision. An advantage of their involvement may be their ability to provide a higher quality of pre- and post-abortion care and counseling than a busy physician can offer, thereby securing better and perhaps more confidential overall patient management. They already play an important role in fertility control, including menstrual regulation to which the earliest abortion is analogous."

"In societies where women might have their period only every two years or so because of frequent pregnancies and long breastfeeding, there might be fewer negative associations with menstruation, says Alma Gottlieb, professor of anthropology and gender and women's studies at the University of Illinois and author of Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation. "Yurok, a native tribe from the northwest coast of the United States stratified by class, had a group of aristocratic women who saw their periods as a time for purifying themselves," she says. As many women living in close proximity do, this group had their periods at the same time each month. "They were on a shared menstrual cycle and did a series of rituals during the cycle that they said was a period of their most heightened spiritual experience." The Rungus women from Borneo, she says, are pretty blasé about their periods. "They don't say it's pure, they don't say it's polluting," says Gottlieb. "It's just a bodily fluid that needs to be evacuated. They don't make a big deal of it." Among the Ulithi women of the South Pacific, she says, breastfeeding women join menstruating women in huts, along with their children. "It's kind of a party atmosphere." The huts can be a torturous experience for women in some places, but "there are many other variations on the theme," she says. In some parts of Ghana, West Africa, young girls sit under beautiful, ceremonial umbrellas when they begin menstruating. "The family would give her gifts and pay her homage," says Gottlieb. "She is celebrated like a queen." For the Beng women of Ivory Coast, Gottlieb found that male-imposed restrictions on menstruating women come with a more positive twist. "An older man, a religious leader in the local religion, told me menstruation is like the flower of a tree. You need the flower before the tree can fruit," she says. "That's a very different ideology than the ideology of sin, dirt, pollution.""

"[I]t's hard to find a society, a religion or a part of the world that does not find some way to make women feel dirty, guilty, unworthy or dangerous because of their monthly cycle. "Menstrual taboos are so widespread, they're almost a cultural universal," says Beverly Strassmann, evolutionary anthropologist and biologist at the University of Michigan who studies menstrual taboos. Yet there are exceptions: societies that treat menstruating women with respect. The negative associations with menstruation are well-known. Women may be prohibited from sexual intercourse, banned from places of worship or segregated in special huts. Various theories about the widespread prohibitions and restrictions range from false beliefs that menstrual blood carries toxic bacteria to fears that the blood triggers castration anxiety in men to beliefs that the smell of the blood disturbs animals and interferes with hunting."

"Only a handful of countries in the developing world permit midwives to perform aspiration abortion (Cambodia (Long 2001) and South Africa) or paramedics to carry out ’menstrual regulation’ procedures (Bangladesh). In many countries, national policies limit access to medical abortion by restricting its prescription and provision to certified physicians (Yarnall 2009)."

"Why have eunuchs sore and ulcerated legs? Is it because this is also characteristic of women, and eunuchs are effeminate? Or, while this is true, is the cause in women as well this, that the heat has a downward tendency? (Menstruation shows that this is so.) So neither eunuchs nor women grow thick hair, owing to the presence of copious moisture in them."

"When the menstrual purgations appear in the wives, their husbands should not approach them, out of regard to the children to be begotten. For the Law has forbidden it when it says: “You will not come near your wife when she is in her separation” [Lev. 18:19]. Nor, indeed, let them have relations when their wives are with child. For [in that case] they are not doing it for the begetting of children, but only for the sake of pleasure. Now a lover of God should not be a lover of pleasure."

"The two great sources of the opposition to Birth Control are found in the purely selfish motives of the religionist who wishes his people kept in ignorance of Birth Control and its methods so that they will beget children and yet more children for the glory of God and the Church, and the capitalistic exploiter of labor who is afraid of a diminution in the cheap labor supply."

"Do what you will, and give me delight, but on your life have a care to let no drop reach me."

"How a gentleman ... could make a practice, in the very moment of unutterable ecstasy, of withdrawing from the arena, is more than I can conceive."

"“Well, birth control’s easy. The first thing you have to know is that it doesn’t work.” “What?” “Not consistently. No matter how careful you are, every time you play hide-the-salami with the boys, you’re running the risk of ending up with a belly full of consequences.” “But—” “Contraceptive spells are never entirely reliable. That’s because their power comes from the Mother, and the Mother wants children. Each cantrip has its loophole, every fetish its flaw. Ultimately, contraception is just a way of luring you into playing her game.” “You mean that sooner or later it’s going to fail me?” “That’s not what I said. It works well enough for enough of us that the rest will take their chances. But the odds are never going to be as good as you’d like them to be. There are no guarantees.”"

"There are three classes of people who have always been objectors to any form of birth control, and who have always opposed any measures which would enable parents to have children by choice rather than by chance. These are, first, the war leaders; second, the church leaders; and, third, the leaders in the commercial world who have wanted cheap labor."

"Yes, yes — I know, Doctor," said the patient with a trembling voice, "but," and she hesitated as if it took all of her courage to say it, "what can I do to prevent getting that way again?" "Oh, ho!" laughed the doctor good naturedly. "You want your cake while you eat it too, do you? Well, it can't be done... I'll tell you the only sure thing to do. Tell Jake to sleep on the roof!"

"Birth control is the first important step woman must take toward the goal of her freedom. It is the first step she must take to be man’s equal. It is the first step they must both take toward human emancipation."

"Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion."

"The difference between human beings and other species is that only human beings practise birth control."

"The command 'Be fruitful and multiply' was promulgated according to our authorities, when the population of the world consisted of two people."

"I fucked her once, but I minded my pullbacks. I sware I did not get it."

"This New Machine as a sure Defence shall prove, And guard the Sex against the Harms of Love."

"The only remedy against hunger is reasonable birth control."

"It is true that the queen does not have a political sphere of action, but she has a large domestic sphere of action. Her excellence befits her for the education of her sex, the supervision of children in their first years, in the household manners, the provisions to the poor and the sick (particularly of those of her sex), the tasteful decoration of the house, the arrangement of family celebrations, and the establishment of the courtly activity according to law."

"Passed the pub that saps your body And the church who'll snatch your money The Queen is dead, boys And it's so lonely on a limb"

"The insuperable objection to monarchy is that the king or queen is elevated, and respect is accorded, for no reason other than birth ... No one who believes either in the claims of merit or in the pursuit of equality can defend the system."

"There is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy and there is no Queen of England."

"QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not."

"As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He in all, and especially in these sweet words where He saith: I IT AM. That is to say, I IT AM, the Might and the Goodness of the Fatherhood; I IT AM, the Wisdom of the Motherhood; I IT AM, the Light and the Grace that is all blessed Love: I IT AM, the Trinity, I IT AM, the Unity: I am the sovereign Goodness of all manner of things. I am that maketh thee to love: I am that maketh thee to long: I IT AM, the endless fulfilling of all true desires."

"Sure I love the dear silver that shines in your hair, And the brow that's all furrowed, and wrinkled with care. I kiss the dear fingers, so toil-worn for me, Oh, God bless you and keep you, Mother Machree."