Let us talk about Menstruation

Have you wondered about Menstruation? You have, right? In spades. Shall we discuss a few aspects surrounding this hush-hush-whisper thing? All righty then.

Index

The Big Girls’ Secret

Don’t tell the little girls

Don’t tell the guys

The Common Dirty Secret

How much do men know?

A Bodily Function

Not different from the other two

The abdominal pains and Premenstrual Symptoms

Age Specific Problems

Why is it different from other mammals?

The Ritual Uncleanliness and Isolation

The much needed rest

The much needed hygiene

The much needed God’s Love

Cleaner than the Gods

Links and Quotes

The Big Girls’ Secret

Don’t tell the little girls

The most early memory of the topic anyone can have is perhaps the way we all searched in vain to understand what the sanitary napkin is. The Ads say it is very absorbant and after a seeing an Ad about how a girl pours ink to demostrate the “dry-weave” dryness of her pad, my granny said it was a hand-kerchief. But eventually I knew that that can’t be it. People make too much of a fuss for it to be a hand-kerchief.

I was told about it when I was 10. It was the formal “talk” with my mom and it was all about how some girls, particularly the chubby ones, may start getting it at 10 but I need not worry about it for now. She also told that if I ever saw a red stain on a girl’s dress I should discreetly tell her. And that if she does not seem to understand what it is, I should inform a female teacher discreetly. After that, from 10 to about 13 it was amusing when people tried to hide it from me as if it was a big deal. I never went out of my way to explain that I knew what they were talking about but feigned innocence. I was never told about it being considered dirty. I only knew about it being a big girls secret. Looking back I now see how mature and sensible “the talk” was when my mother told me. Even now there is not much I think I should change in my own talk with my daughter.

Not everyone is as lucky and many are not given clear information as to what it is. The rest of the information I got from a “Step into Science” book and then health columns in Women’s magazines also filled me with information. All in all, it was a long time before I even knew that some people treated women with periods like untouchables. My mother and I never discussed what the Bible says about periods. When I found some women do not take communion during their periods, I asked my mother and my mother just told me that we can not take the old testament too seriously and that was that. I myself don’t hide it behind black polyethene covers but I don’t give my daughter a full explanation either. She just knows it as a mystery thing Amma uses. I will probably do it when my daughter is 10 or 11.

But I know many girls get red faced if a girl who has not had her periods yet seems to know about it. Many know about it only when they themselves get their periods. That is silly. If I get copious amount of blood out of my ears or mouth suddenly, it would scare me out of my wits. How traumatic it must be to suddenly realise you are bleeding and you don’t know why? Why should little girls as young as 10 or 11 face this trauma? Just because their mother doesn’t get around to it? These days teachers do this task But I still believe that we should get above our shyness and have a certain level of comfort with our daughters. We should ensure that young girls get mature information from sensible adults they trust.

Don’t tell the guys

Some thing that always amused me is the way some women will bend over backwards to avoid letting any male companion know that she is having her periods whereas there are others who would go out of their way to let them know.

I know a lady who faced a particular dilemma. She had to avoid a man who was on his Sabarimala Fasting for reasons we shall discuss later. But the problem is that he should neither know she had her periods nor think of her as suddenly snubbing him. Both the thoughts, that he may realise that she was having chums and the other that he may think her as rude gave her the jitters. But as you see this cannot be resolved. It is either this or that. If you jump out of your seat when a man enters the room and rush away without greeting him, he will feel snubbed. The only other option is that the guy does not give a damn either way. Well that thought wouldn’t sit with her well either.

I have seen this happen often. A guy brings a Thripathi Laddo to office and the lady with chums avoids it with a red blusing face. She gets embarassed if he insists she takes a little prasadham, she get even more embarrased if he seems to be understanding. Well you have to give the poor guy a choice.

At the other end of the spectrum is the lady who believes that she SHOULD let some guy know. She would proudly whisper in some guy’s ear that she has “that thing”, expect that he fuss over her, bring her some snack, probably drop her home, etc. Trust me, this would not be really about getting a snack or getting a drop. It is like she believes this to be an awesome chance to play a damsel in distress. No woman is allowed to help and take her chance away from her. I admit this is a rare case, but just wanted to put this thing out for the record.

The Common Dirty Secret

I have seen women bond over their periods experience. They discuss their experiences and laugh and giggle or lament about it as the case maybe. In fact, some seem pretty excited about discussing it. Yes, there are other women who would be offended about being asked any details at all. But it appears there is a huge cultural difference here. It is discussed in Link5

How much do men know?

I have in my 10+ years of professional life never had to ask a man to buy me a sanitary napkin. I carry spares with me and there is a vending machine in the washroom and there are usually other women around me who I can turn to. All this means that I don’t have to ask for male assistance and I believe that it is a last resort. But if I do ever run out of a spare napkin and have no option of borrowing it from other women, it would not kill me to ask a male friend to please go to a pharmacy and buy one for me. I do believe I know men who are decent enough to understand that it is a small timely help and remembers what thiruvalluvar said about small timely helps. Also, I don’t mind it if the pharmacy that I buy it from has only male staff. I don’t blush. I just ask for a brand and pay the amount.

But how much to men really know? Apparently not much. See Link14 and Link15. It seems important that men are given real information and not the sort of hush hush enigma that is usually given to them. Of course there are some men who always know if their mom or sister or wife is having her periods as it is a practise to follow a ritual called seclusion. More about it later.

A Bodily Function

Not different from the other two

That is how I view my periods. That it is neither higher nor lower than the other two. We don’t roll our eyes nor do we blush when someone excuses themselves to the toilet. If someone has diarrhea, we know that they cannot travel for the time being. We don’t make a huge fuss but we don’t tell it to every other person either. A little bit of discretion, a little bit of care and some rest. I believe that there must have been beliefs and rituals and all that for these too. I don’t know what they are. But I am pretty sure it was not associated with witchcraft.

The abdominal pains and Premenstrual Symptoms

Some of the personal anecdotes include passing out with pain and loads of other ailments. Maybe I don’t feel any sympathy for the many rituals as I am personally just as fit as usual. But how common are these ailments? It seems that it has been suggested that women and girls be allowed to postpone the date of their exams depending on their periods. It sounds extreme to me. Will a pain killer not do?

I do experience PMS and am a angrier person than otherwise on the day before my period. But I am not a raging lunatic on that day. My boiling point is slightly lower. I may be irritable. This is ok as my average boiling point is usually very high. But it is often made to seem as if all women are completely, certifiably mad for about 1/5 of the month. I was once asked in a forum if I was just back from a trip to the gyneac. Unfortunately I did not save the link. It would gone to illustrate how a small disagreement in taste or opinion allows strangers to ask about the monthly cycle. Is that not just plain old misogyny? Oh well, if I talk one more word about it, people would start wondering which day of the month I wrote this on. Let us move on.

Oh wait, some people do actually have sex during their periods Link19

Age Specific Problems

I have heard the saying “The best part of your periods is that you are not pregnant and the best part of being pregnant is not having your periods”. But the scariest part is surely when the system starts its shut down process. I have heard stories of pain and key hole operations and so many things I am not even going to google about now. I will cross that bridge when I get there. But I have heard some older women mention that it is now a relief and they are happy it is all over. Let us see.

Why is it different from other mammals?

It is often stated by people who are against all this isolation and practices that it is a beautiful thing that allows human beings to exist. This has often made me wonder when did it all start. Apparently, not all mammals get periods. Only a handful of species do. The following links discuss it. Link16 and Link17 and Link18

The Ritual Uncleanliness and Isolation

Here is the main section. The traditions that so many people so strongly believe in. Women in Indian Society are asked to not touch holy things like holy books and asked not to visit temples. There are many theories about this. I will start out by saying that I do not believe most of these platitudes. But let me just list the points out here.

The much needed rest

It is said that women in older societies had to do so much manual work that our ancestors in their infinite wisdom asked them to not to enter the kitchen and stuff. I am often reminded of the speech (Link20) by a emancipated slave woman who talked against the belief that women are too dainty to be equal to men. In this case, we all know that plenty of women work in fields without bothering about whether or not they have their periods. Women who do manual labour in constructions are not given any periods break either. Not that many people ask their domestic staff to not do manual work just because they are on their periods. If at all it is done, it is going to be all “Don’t touch the Kitchen stuff” and “Don’t touch the Prayer stuff”. Never, “Please take a rest, you deserve it.” At any rate, women should be allowed to decide if they feel too weak and are in need of a break. They should not be forced out of kitchens. They should not be given a special plate and tumbler that no man will ever touch. You really can’t claim to do all that only for the much needed rest and because you love and respect women.

I have read a blog post (I will neither link it here myself nor accept comments that link it here) where a very religious woman claimed that she wiped the furniture that women in their periods used and that she will offer them a cushion if they are not comfortable on wooden chairs. She said some religious sounding reasons and also said that she herself “practised isolation”. A name of a diety was involved. Many asked if she expressly asked women who visited her house about their periods and she denied it. She claimed that she would never do that and said that women close to her knew her beliefs and would themselves accept it. She also claimed that she was not allowed to pratice isolation in her mother in law’s place and could not do it when she lived abroad. But nothing other than practising this during her periods gave her peace and restarted this practise as soon as she could manage. This also involves men in the family who cook on those days and also I believe that she mentioned that she used to wait for her mom’s periods as they were allowed to buy cake from the local bakery.

Though I much appreciate that the family cooks for her on those days and pampers her and all that, I cannot believe that there is anything uplifting about wiping off furniture that random women in their periods use. Imagine if I am not allowed to sit in the office chairs or office bus on my periods as washing the cushions is not an option. If someone washes the items I use because I am who I am and have periods, I will feel offended and the thought that she treats her mom and sis in the same way is not going to change my feelings. Also, I am quite OK with such quarantining being done if I have a communicable disease. If at the end of today, I notice boils on my body and it turns out that I have chicken pox or measles, I will inform all my friends and ask those I visited to be extra careful. Who knows how much pathogens rubbed off me and on to the furniture? If someone wants to wash the furniture or do any precautions, let them. Better safe than sorry. But not if the fuss is about my periods. That is just plain different. That is silly. There is no scientific reason as to why this should be done.

The much needed hygiene

“There was no sanitary napkins in those times, so our elders in their infinite wisdom, blah, blah and more blah.”

This is a more acceptable reason. After all, we do feel uncomfortable if the cook had a common cold. We see the roadside kaieandi bavan dude sneeze and wonder about who is going to get sick next. Fair enough. If periods is really similar, then it is acceptable. But, this is not the case. We now know that periods is not going to contaminate anything. We know that entering the pooja area will not taint the area. Then why? What is stopping us? The hygiene reason can be accepted only if it can be proved that it taints the area and no valid proof was ever put forward. If leaking was a problem then why was the practice not abandoned about 50 years back? Oh Please.

The much needed God’s Love

Here comes the sensitive part. So many of these beliefs are actually there in the religious texts and thereby has a grip on religious people. People genuinely believe that they have “negative vibes” and should keep themselves away from holy stuff. This is extremely common and does give rise to a lot of misogyny. As women have this negative vibes going on on certain days and men do not, it is believed that there is something negative in being a woman itself. Accepting periods is important in believing that we are not in any way dirty and in anyway negative.

A belief is that the energy during menstruation goes downwards into the earth, the energy of pooja is going upwards. This can bring discomfort in the body. Link1 Is there any proof? Was this tested? Was it documented? Why is this believed? I believe that in olden days women were naturally afraid of all this bloody phenomenon and made rituals and myths to make sense of it all. This is common for all enigmas. Why does the sun rise in the east? Where does it go at night? What is the rainbow? Why does the moon experience cycles? Everything had a myth. Did we not dispense most of them and set foot on the moon and explain the rainbows with prism? But even after the world became aware of what the period really is, we persist with all this keeping away from holy stuff? From where is all this high sounding “energy” business coming?

A huge shift in religious belief is that people used to be afraid of God. God is Love and God is kindness and all things positive, but people were scared of him and that was that. People did not question why God wanted to treat women any different during periods. Now the “God is love” explanation is very strong in all religions. Now girls do ask if God does not love them during those days. If they are not God’s Children on those days. This is because now religious leaders encourage teenagers to ask questions about their religion as not allowing teenagers to ask questions may make them rebelious and convert to other religions. This is something all religions try to reduce.

“Additionally, a menstruating woman is not dirty, but rather from a legal perspective, she is ritually impure for the duration that she is menstruating.” Link7

This is the sort of contradictory explanations given to women who question the practise. God loves you, but you are ritually impure. What is this ritual? If it is not for God and God is accepting you unconditionally then who is this ritual for? Please note that I have picked a Muslim example but similar platitudes exist in all religions. Repeated explantations that God loves us and God accepts us is given, but we should not cook for men who are going to embark on pilgrimage. Why?

It is not enough to say God does not want us to touch holy books. Why does God not want us to do it? An explanation I could accept is that it is similar to being sweaty. It is disrespectful to visit a place of worship after an hour at the gym and not bathing afterwards and having periods is similar. This is the best explanation that I ever came across. But this is still a platitude. If the sweat came because the fan in the place of worship stopped working, would you run home to bathe or continue your worship? Having periods is similar. That is all. Take a bath. Use a new napkin and do what you usually do.

Cleaner than the Gods

The above point that people want to make their own religion super-sweet and accepting has given rise to another belief. This is a rare explanation. It is the belief that women are purer than the Gods. So we should not go to temples and steal God’s thunder. Seriously?

A menstruating woman was so pure, that she was worshipped as a Goddess. The reason for not having a woman go into a temple is precisely this. She is a living Goddess at that time.

So why not make offerings and sing songs in praise of women during their periods. Why do women not wear even flowers? Ok, why not eat prasadam? If this is for real I am sure there will be great poetry from the sages and poets about their Goddesses. Can we have some good proof that our ancestors, both male and female, believed this?

Here, when a girl first bleeds, the cloth into which she bleeds is safely kept aside by her mother and gifted back to her when she gets married. This cloth is believed to be so powerful that it will protect the girl and her family from poor health and other ills.

DANGEROUS stuff. Think of the extent of pathogens a menstrual cloth will contain by the time she gets married. This explantation does not make me feel “WOW, I am a goddess”. It makes me sick. But the person who wrote this article admits that she kept away from scientific facts and went by the spirit of the practice. What is the spirit of this practice anyway? There is no point in trying to find ever interesting ways to validate something rather find the facts. (The author herself made painstaking research, I am talking about the person who originally spinned this yarn) The human mind is creative. It can find innovative explanations to answer intrusive questions. An answer should not be evaluated based on how clever it sounds but based on actual verifiable facts.

I do believe that these menstrual huts that she talks about may have had its benefits and advantages and that they are not willing to let go of the practise. They may be very poor and they may have joint families and this may give privacy. I don’t know. But proper education and better living condtions can be a greater thing for them. But when highly educated women are willing to buy that they are emitting negative vibes. How will these women be any different.

The Links and Quotes

Here is a set of links and the lines I find quoteable. Please note that clicking on the title will open the real link in another window or tab.

 

1) Unearthing menstrual wisdom – Why we don’t go to the temple, and other practices

“What is pure, we don’t touch. And what we don’t touch, we call it a Taboo. She (a menstruating woman) was so pure, that she was worshipped as a Goddess. The reason for not having a woman go into a temple is precisely this. She is a living Goddess at that time. The energy of the God or Goddess which is there in the murthi (idol) will move over to her, and that (the idol) becomes lifeless, while this (the menstruating woman) is life. So that’s why they were prevented from entering the temple. So it is exactly the opposite of what we think.”

“The energy during menstruation goes downwards into the earth, (at the puja table, offerings, altar), the energy is going upwards. This can bring discomfort in the body.”

But if a menstrating woman who is sensitive to absorb all types of energies around her is in the middle of a group that is eating…. This is probably the reason why menstrating women were told to stay away from others and eat seperately

“In most cultures in India where menstruation is celebrated, it accompanies food restrictions and preference for specific types of food during menstruation. ”

“In Manipur, we interacted with a doctor who narrated to us the story of the rituals practiced during a woman’s first period. Here, when a girl first bleeds, the cloth into which she bleeds is safely kept aside by her mother and gifted back to her when she gets married. This cloth is believed to be so powerful that it will protect the girl and her family from poor health and other ills.”

“On the other hand, the same potent power of menstruation was interpreted negatively in Jharkhand, where people were afraid of finding a menstrual cloth strewn around. It is believed in Jharkhand that menstrual blood is very powerful and can be used for black magic and therefore, women should be very careful about destroying this cloth after use.”

“While interacting with a village elder, he revealed some interesting aspects of why the menstrual seclusion practice began among the early He said that the Gollas, being shepherds, were primarily nomadic in nature. The men travelled with the sheep, sometimes for months together, in search of work, and food for the sheep. When they returned, they were naturally eager to have sex with the women, without a thought about the woman’s current condition (whether she was menstruating or pregnant).”

“Since the women were not willing to let go of this practice and since the government was discouraging the use of menstrual huts, menstruating women were forced to be out on the streets. They had to bathe, change their menstrual cloth and do all ablutions out in the open. The women clearly said that even if the men in the community tell them to discontinue the practice, they will not let it go – such was their strongbelief. They pleaded us to help them build menstrual huts.”

2) Does Religion Punish Women for Menstruating?

“Muslim women are prohibited from fasting while menstruating. ”

“Fasting isn’t the only one of Islam’s main tenets that’s off limits to women during that time of the month; the five daily prayers are similarly banned, as well as reading from a copy of the Quran and stepping into a mosque, depending on who you ask. ”

““I see it as a sort of holiday”, one of my friends told me. “God understands what we’re going through, so he gave us a break during that time of the month.” While I see her point, the “holiday” argument doesn’t add up for me.”

“Muslims are offered the option of not fasting during the holy month if they’re traveling or ill. Menstruating women are not given the option for a free pass; they’re ordered to take leave. ”

3) Scripture in Context – Menstruation And Intercourse During Menstruation Explained

“This highlights an important factor when dealing with people, i.e. it is not good to shake every-bodies hand when you meet them. Today, it is hard to know if a person is on a period because they are unlikely to tell you, but it is something to be aware of.”

“If you are a woman reading this you can see how important it is to remain holy at all times, and not to hug and touch people when you know that you are having a period. You should also not panic if your period lasts more than 7 days, just remain faithful and pray and you will be okay.”

4) Does menstruation make a woman unclean?

“In the face of so many lasting misunderstandings let it be clearly stated that, according to our Catholic belief, menstruation is a meaningful bodily function that does not in any way involve sin. A woman who is in her monthly period is, in God’s sight as holy and sacred as always, and the menstrual cycle should in no way prevent her from visiting a Church, attending Mass, receiving communion or any other sacrament. ”

“After a long discussion with the Rabbis of his time on questions of ritual cleanliness (see Mark 7,1-13), Jesus clearly taught his disciples that the only things that make us unclean are sins which proceed from the evil intentions of the heart. No external, physical realities can make us ‘unclean’ in God’s eyes.”

5) Why the hell can’t we talk about them?

A woman talks about the western obession of NOT talking about periods.

“As a childless 42-year-old who started her periods young, I have been bleeding for a quarter of my life for 30-plus years, with a variety of ever-evolving symptoms from passing out via great tranches of pain to glassy, lobotomised exhaustion. ”

“Karen Houppert, author of The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation (1999), notes the dearth of research on periods in general: “When the experts do focus their attention on menstruation, it’s to emphasise its pathology: premenstrual syndrome. While studies on healthy women are hard to come by, studies on angry, depressed and unreasonable women fill the pages of professional journals.” ”

“Christianity associates the menstruating woman with the curse brought down by original sin. Across other religions, she may be considered sacred, powerful, magically imbued, with the ability to cure, and/or subject to strict prohibitions regarding sex, food, worship, diet, dress, bathing and social interaction, even singing. ”

“These superstitions are by no means confined to non-Western societies. My great-grandmother was not immune to the notion that a bleeding woman could turn milk. And as late as 1878 the British Medical Journal printed the opinions of physicians who believed that menstruating women could cause bacon to become rancid. ”

“One cannot help feeling that, if men had periods, they would be associated not with avoidance but with bravado, bragging and so much macho competition over the gore. ”

“Girls across cultures view menarche as a negative experience and report being horrified, frightened, confused and embarrassed by it.”

“Suggesting that menstruating women are unclean is a way of saying that women are unclean, period, if you’ll forgive the pun.”

6) Period Police

A hostel in Madurai has been forcing students to maintain a public register of their menstrual cycle. This is to prevent premarital sex and to ensure that teenage girls do not go astray. Link

7) Islam’s Perspective on Menstruation:

“Additionally, a menstruating woman is not dirty, but rather from a legal perspective, she is ritually impure for the duration that she is menstruating. This has legal consequences and not spiritual consequences. As such, she is instructed by Allah to stop certain forms of worship, and every second that she obeys these commands, it is worship if done for Allah’s sake.”

8) Actual Direct Quotes from the Bible

A look at menstruation through the ages in 15 fascinating facts

“But, before the 19th Century, doctors didn’t realise periods were even linked to ovulation. They thought women needed to bleed to cool their emotional, hysterical natures.”

9) Speaking of Traditions: The author gives clear explanation about not only Theetu but also Madi and other exclusive terminology

“I refused to be isolated even as a 15 year old and if that made their gods angry, I was willing to face the consequences. But my sister in law told me how she had to sleep in the bathroom on ‘those’ days because they lived in a small house and there was no extra room where she could be kept isolated. As a teenager she spent those days in fear of cockroaches and rats that had a free run of the bathroom. That made my blood boil. I am not sure if God was happy with her family for treating her like that on her most vulnerable days. Enough said about my thoughts on the practice of isloating mensturating women.”

“There is something seriously lacking in your tradition if it needs fear and authority to keep it alive and if it falls flat on its face when faced with rational examination. Such traditions should be questioned and it is ok to discard them if they make no sense in the world we are actually living in.”

10) On Logic, Faith and Women’s Bodies

11) So Called Brahmin Aacharam

12) Have a Happy Period

13) What is Theetu?

14) There will be blood

“One of them knows a guy who thought women could choose to begin bleeding the way people choose when to go to the bathroom. One time, when she mentioned something about needing to find a tampon, he asked her why she couldn’t just hold it in.”

“The men had largely picked up snippets of knowledge from female family members and, later on, girlfriends, but by and large were still fuzzy on the basic mechanics of the female reproductive system. ”

15) What men think about menstruation

“When I was a little kid, my teenage sister explained to me that she had become a woman. This meant that for one week out of the month, I had better do exactly what she tells me. I would never know exactly when that week would be, so for my sake, she lovingly suggested I play it safe and stay out of her way. Because during that week, she would be going through a natural change that happens to all grown adult women and she wouldn’t be able to control her rage. So, largely, I did what my older sister told me, because it was obvious that she was a werewolf. ”

“Are there really men who wrinkle their noses in disgust about the most natural thing in the world? Who are these men? Salem witch trial judges? I just can’t believe they exist. Men who are physically repulsed by a woman’s monthly cycle are not having sex. It’s part of the deal. If the man you’re dating is insensitive about your period I’m willing to bet he’s insensitive about a lot of things. Don’t judge him because he acts like a spoiled brat when your body does that thing that allows the human race to survive. Judge him because, and I think I’m guessing correctly here, he’s a fully rounded jerk.”

“Most of the time, I’m unaware that a girlfriend is experiencing “PMS” unless she tells me. That is your hang up, not ours. I’ll be honest, too. It’s not like men aren’t moody. I’m pretty sure I man-struate four weeks out of the month. I am one emotionally bouncy bloke. The idea that men are uniformly stoic and women are basket cases is hilariously wrong. Being nutters isn’t a man/woman thing.”

16) What is the evolutionary benefit or purpose of having periods

“Females of other species of placental mammal undergo estrous cycles, in which the endometrium is completely reabsorbed by the animal (covert menstruation) at the end of its reproductive cycle. Many zoologists regard this as different from a “true” menstrual cycle. Female domestic animals used for breeding – for example dogs, pigs, cattle, or horses – are monitored for physical signs of an estrous cycle period, which indicates that the animal is ready for insemination.

“One assumption some people might make is that that is just the way mammalian reproduction works. This isn’t true! Most mammals do not menstruate — they do not cycle their uterine linings, but instead only build up a thickened endometrium if fertilization occurs, which looks much more efficient. Of the mammals, only most primates, a few bats, and elephant shrews are among the lucky animals that menstruate, and as you can see from the phylogeny, the scattered diversity of menstruating mammals implies that the trait was not present ancestrally — we primates acquired it relatively late.

17) How do other primates deal with menstruation and in what ways is it different from human menstruation?

“But the thing to remember is that in the past, and even in some other ‘natural fertility’ groups today, women would typically get married at a much earlier age and spend most of their adult lives either pregnant or breastfeeding, both of which cause what’s known as “secondary amenorrhea” (no periods), so they would actually have way fewer periods over the course of their lifetime than we experience. When a female primate ovulates, odds are she’ll also mate with one or more males and become pregnant. Think about it – it’s not like non-human primates (in the wild) have access to birth control. And, like I mentioned above, the entire time a primate is pregnant and lactating she also is not menstruating since both are metabolically draining on the mother. Infant primates aren’t fed jars of mushy baby food or given bottle formula, either, so they pretty much have to rely on mom’s milk until they can possibly begin to find food on their own — especially since food sharing is pretty darn rare in other animals. All of this means that primate babies end up nursing for what would seem to us like a really long period of time. By the time a baby primate is weaning and its mum can ovulate and mate again, odds are she’ll also have a line of eager males waiting in the wings to start the whole cycle over again, thus preventing menstruation. ”

“So, as you can see menstruation is not something that would pose a huge problem for most non-human primates because it would be a relatively rare event.”

18) Why do women have periods?

“In 1993, a very different hypothesis about the function of menstruation captured popular media attention. Margie Profet, then at the University of California Berkeley, suggested that menstruation’s function is to “defend against pathogens transported to the uterus [womb] by sperm”.

Instead of saying that it is women that are dirty, she said that it is men who are dirty. We need to flush out the dirtiness of men in order to reduce our chances of venereal disease. Profet’s idea quickly fell down for lack of evidence. For instance, it predicts that there should be more disease-causing organisms in the womb before menstruation than after. But this wasn’t borne out. ”

“Great apes do it too. Menstrual bleeding is easily detectable in chimpanzees and gibbons. However, gorillas and orang-utans bleed less copiously, so menstruation is only visible on closer inspection. Other primates, such as tarsiers, may also menstruate, but there is little hard evidence.”

“Other than our close relatives, menstruation also evolved independently in two other groups: some bats and elephant shrews.”

“Menstruation is also rare in human societies that don’t use any form of contraception. There are a few such “natural fertility” populations even today, and women in these societies spend most of their reproductive life either pregnant or breastfeeding. Among the Dogon, a natural fertility population in Mali, Strassmann has found that women have about 100 periods over their lifetime. This was probably fairly typical for much of our species’ history. By contrast, most modern women have 300-500 periods. “What we are experiencing, as part of our evolution, is very unusual,” says Strassmann.”

19) Sex during period

“Having sex on your period is absolutely safe. The myth that it’s dangerous originates largely from religious texts. Many people wrongly believed that women were “dirty” or “unclean” while menstruating, and for this reason, contact with menstruating women was limited or forbidden entirely. In fact, some religions still adhere to these practices; however, medically and secularly speaking, there is no reason not to have sex on your period.”

20) Ain’t I a woman? by Sojourner Truth

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? ”