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Blood, Bread...and Menstrual Synchrony? |
Now we turn to a book making an even greater claim than 40 years’ worth of
menstrual synchrony, and that is poet Judy Grahn’s “Blood, Bread and
Roses: How Menstruation Created the World.” Grahn suggests the
following “early human” scenario:
“Acquiring
an externally based mind required early humans to connect to something outside
of themselves as a frame of reference, to connect physically; and this was
accomplished when the females evolved a menstrual cycle capable of synchronous
rhythm, or entrainment. Entrainment is the quality of two
similarly timed beats to link up and become synchronized in each other’s
presence. Nondigital clocks behave this way, and so do drums.17
This quality of interactive rhythm, being not mechanical, applies as well to
the periodicity of menstruation [...]”
“This
unique cycle in correspondence with the cycles of an outside body, the waxing
and waning of the moon far beyond the surface of the earth, taught humans to
see from outside of their animal bodies, and to display that knowledge
externally, in physical culture. The menstrual mind became externalized
because females were forced to teach its perspective to members of the family
who did not menstruate. Males, in learning the pattern, greatly extended
it, rearranged it, demonstrated their comprehension one further step, and
mirrored back to the females: an ongoing dance of mind between the
genders. The consequences of the menstrual/lunar correspondence is what
has divided us, for good and ill, from the other animals.”
--
pg 13-14, “Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World,”
Judy Grahn, 1993
There is an extraordinary, and intriguing, argument being made
here. This argument starts from a certain interpretation of the behavior
of “nondigital clocks…[and] drums,” which is then generalized to “the
periodicity of menstruation.” In this interpretation, the “entrainment”
(i.e., synchrony) of nondigital clocks and drums is “not mechanical.”
But is that true? Researchers Wiesenfield, Schatz and Bennett at
the Georgia Institute of Technology recently conducted an experiment with pendulum
clocks (i.e., “nondigital” clocks) and “laser monitoring that records the
pendulum swings for computer analysis[1].” Based on their results, they concluded that the
motion of the pendulum swings caused “imperceptible” motions in the platform to
which the clocks were attached, which in turn caused the synchrony (or more
properly, “antisynchrony”) of the pendulum swings themselves. This
confirmed Dutch astronomer and physicist Hugyens’ suggestion, way back in 1665,
“that the swinging of the pendulums somehow cause the platform to move
“imperceptibly.[2]”
In short, “this quality of interactive rhythm,” as Grahn puts it, is mechanical
after all. Therefore, to argue from mechanical synchronization (or, to
put it another way, coupled oscillation of a mechanical nature) to putatively
pheremonal synchronization (that is, coupled oscillation of a pheremonal
nature) is not valid. Pendulum clocks, drums and menstruation
cannot all be lumped together in one grand category of synchronous phenomena.
Which is not to say that “one grand category of synchronous phenomena”
doesn’t exist: In her article, “Huygens’s Clocks Revisited,” writer Erica
Klarreich tells us:
“The Georgia Tech team is now trying to extend its
mathematical analysis to formulate a single law that would apply to all coupled
oscillators and predict under what conditions they will become synchronized or
antisynchronized. “It looks as if there is a mathematical principle that
would be equally valid in all these cases…[3]”
But, just as more than 300 years have passed since the synchronization
of pendulum clocks had first been observed, it may be another 300 years before
any “theory of general synchrony” is formulated, and where menstruation will
fit into it, is anybody’s guess.
Now let’s take a look at what Strassmann has to say about the
“menstrual/lunar correspondence” suggested by Grahn:
“It has been postulated that menstrual synchrony is caused by
the lunar cycle, but reports conflict on whether menstrual onsets predominate
during the full moon (Cutler et al., 1987), the new moon (Law, 1986), or
are random with respect to lunar phase (Gunn et al., 1937; Pochobradsky,
1974). Dogon villagers did not have electric lighting and spent most
nights outdoors, talking and sleeping, so they were an ideal population for
detecting a lunar influence. None, however, was found (Strassmann,
1997).”
It’s interesting to note that Grahn makes frequent references to Dogon
beliefs and customs in her book; the same Dogon (a people in Mali, West
Africa), in which Strassmann found no lunar influence on menstrual synchrony;
nor, in fact any menstrual synchrony at all. To be fair, “Blood, Bread,
and Roses” came out in 1993, and Strassmann’s paper in 1997. But this
highlights the point that menstrual synchrony research, far from being “over
and done with,” is an ongoing field of inquiry, requiring a willingness to engage
with new information as it emerges.
It’s also worth noting that both females and males produce reproductive
fluids – as well as a number of other bodily fluids. Why not try
rewriting the above passage, substituting “seminal” for “menstrual,” or perhaps
even using “urinal.” In Grahn’s book, she delves into the menstrual
mythologies of numerous cultures – why not see what kind of seminal mythologies
exist, or even “urinal” mythologies.
Both Twilfong and Grahn use menstrual synchrony as a way of interpreting
the distant past and understanding the origins of human culture, giving
importance, and even centrality, to menstruation. Click here for an example from this curator of using menstrual
synchrony to look back less than half a century.
[1] “Out of Time: Researchers Recreate
1665 Clock Experiment to Gain Insights Into Modern Synchronized Oscillators,”
John Toon, September 8, 2000
http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/PENDULUM.html
Michael Schatz: E-mail: michael.schatz@physics.gatech.edu
Kurt Wiesenfeld: E-mail: kurt.wiesenfeld@physics.gatech.edu
[2]
Ibid.
[3] “Huygens’s Clocks Revisited,” Erica
Klarreich, July-August, 2002, Science Observer
http://americanscientist.org/Issues/Sciobs02/02-07sciobsclocks.html