A paper on the psychology of menstruation.
Introduction
Menstruation is a bodily function. It is experienced by almost all women for a large part of their adult life. Most writing on the subject is medical and is concerned with the physiology of this function, both in "normal" women, and those suffering from menstrual problems, but for most women menstruation is more than simply a physical function. It is part of their life and their identity. Women's physical and psychological being follows a cyclical pattern while that of a child and that of a man does not.
This cyclical pattern includes an interplay of feelings, mood-changes and fluctuations in self-image. Psychology and physiology weave a complex pattern together as mood changes and hormonal shifts follow each other and she responds to her experience of her body and its changes. All of this is affected by the woman's own personal psychology, and the cultural ambience of the society in which she lives.
Whilst these psychological aspects of menstruation may be seen as resulting from the physiological, this relationship is far from clear. The interplay of the physical and the emotional is a complex web in which neither factor can be entirely seen as leader. Hormones can be seen to affect mood, but the emotional climate has profound effects on the menstrual cycle.
The subject of menstruation can be explored in individual terms: the woman experiences her own menstruation in particular ways which are a combination of its physiological realities and her own attitudes. It may also be explored in the context of the wider culture within which the woman exists. Some themes which emerge seem universal, having commonality to many cultures. These themes are frequently expressed in symbolic form, as customs or rituals, myths or traditions. They may also influence our understanding of the biological facts of the process.
Menstruation becomes a many-layered metaphor. By looking at the practises and observations that surround it, we may glimpse important aspects of women's identities. We may look at the essence of what it is to be a woman, and what it is to be a man, and at the ground that lies between men and women. By rediscovering the personal meanings within the menstrual cycle, we may discover new metaphors to live by, and deeper trust in our own processes.
Experience through the Life Cycle
Most women start to menstruate between the ages of nine and eighteen, and continue until around the age of fifty. There may be breaks for childbearing, and during breast feeding. At different stages the cycle may alter. Sometimes it may seem troublesome, at others it may be hardly noticed. Until the age of menarche, when the cycles began, the girl's body had been in a more or less constant state. From that time on, the girl enters a womanhood in which her bodily and emotional processes are in a continual state of change. But this change is not random. It follows a pattern; flowing; rhythmical.
Infancy
But the experience of menstruation begins earlier. It is possible that even as babies we become conscious of our mothers' menstrual cycle. As Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove point out, the infant may well have some awareness of the cyclical effects of menstruation upon his mother. Her cycle is likely to be reestablished during the early months of its life at which time the baby experiences its mother as being extremely close, if not an extension of itself. There is likely to be an awareness of the mother's changing mood. Babies are said to react quite differently to the mother during her period. This is thought by some to result from changes in the composition of the breast milk, if the baby is still breast fed, but it is also possible that the baby is aware of other changes. Shuttle & Redgrove (1978) suggest that the baby may be conscious of the smell of the mother's menstrual blood, and may experience in it an echoing of the smell that greeted his first breath as he emerged from the blood covered birth canal.
During childhood too, the mother, generally the primary care-giver, will probably be menstruating, unless she is pregnant with younger siblings. The child may well subconsciously recognise, and even flow with her changing moods.
Childhood
At some point the girl will probably learn about menstruation. Her experience of being told will probably be complicated in psychological terms. The information she receives may be accurate or inaccurate, scientifically clinical, evasive or superstitious. It is likely to be tinged with unconscious messages from the teller, which may range from embarrassment to intimacy, distaste to pride. She may hear quite different stories from different sources. Her mother's words will be significant, but she will also receive information from friends and older women. Few girls now are taken unawares by menstruation, but this has not always been the case.
Menarche
As she grows and starts to menstruate, the girl, now woman, will continue to receive both conscious and unconscious messages from others. She will probably learn to be secretive. She will form a sense of her sexual identity, and this will be shaped by her experience of her body and its changing form. Others will react to her body and to her menstruation: partners, lovers, friends, her family. From their reactions she will modify her sense of herself.
Adult
During the years that she menstruates, the woman will experience many things that will continue to affect her attitude to her body. She may experience its ability to conceive, the growth and birth of a child, or the loss of a child through miscarriage or still birth. She will probably experience some degree of ill health or difficulty connected with her periods, or with the other processes of her sexual organs. She will almost certainly consult, and be examined by a doctor at some point. She will be surrounded by the attitudes of different groups within society. These and many other experiences will affect her sense of her adult sexuality, and her experience of menstruation.
Menopause
Such factors may well continue to affect the way that she experiences the ending of her periods at menopause. This time may come as a relief from troubles, or with a sense of emptiness resulting from the knowledge that childbearing is no longer possible. It may be greeted as a new stage of life, or it may be brushed aside as needing minimal consideration.
These changes and processes will all contribute to the woman's sense of her sexual self, and thus of her whole identity. These effects will be both at a conscious level, and at a subconscious level. Some will come within her awareness, others will form the background against which she lives her life.
Phenomenology of Menarche
Let us consider in more detail some of the factors which come into play for the girl reaching menarche.
Firstly, there is a profound experience of change. The girl's body alters irrevocably. Her emotional and physical life takes on a new form. She has to adjust to a new sense of who she is. This change may have been anticipated, or may have come unexpectedly, but either way will, to some extent take the girl by surprise. She will know that she has crossed a threshold and cannot return. That what has been lost cannot be regained.
Secondly, the change affects the girl deeply in that it involves her sexual identity, of which she has an emerging awareness at the time when menstruation starts. Those parts of her which were most secret and most precious change beyond recognition, feel unfamiliar, not hers. Others view her changing breasts, but her menstruation remains her secret, unless she chooses to share it, or knowledge of it is forced from her.
Thirdly, the change involves the loss of blood. Such loss may be feared. Blood is the stuff of life. To bleed is to die. At a primitive level, blood is a signal for danger. Even though she is probably aware of the biological facts behind menstruation, the girl may, at a subconscious level, fear that she is injured. She may feel contaminated or dirty.
Fourthly, the girl will learn that the process which has begun in her body is one that will lead her to be able to bear children. She may start to consider her own fertility.
Fifthly, the girl will learn that other women menstruate. She may feel initiated into a society of women. A society which is bound by secrecy. She may feel special connection with her mother, sisters, or girl friends.
Sixthly, She will start to experience her life as a series of cycles. Time will be marked by months. The years of menstruating will stretch into the distance. A repeating, inevitable pattern. She may gain a sense of time that is differently defined.
Seventhly, within those cycles she will experience subtle changes of mood. An ebb and flow. Perhaps hardly within her awareness, perhaps more violent, she will feel her moods rise and sink on the tide of her cycle.
Eighthly, she may feel herself in the grip of something beyond herself. At the mercy of the cycle's inevitability, she may learn to surrender to its forces, or struggle against them. She may at times feel her body to be not her own.
Finally, menstruation is a process which involves both emotions and the body; a process which is very personal, but which carries connections with the continuance of the human race. As such it is naturally holistic. A woman has more opportunities to experience herself within her body if she can accept and experience her body's changing rhythms.
Myths and Theories
In the remainder of this paper, I will outline various theories which have been put forward by different writers and theorists which throw light on some of these diverse aspects of menstruation. Some of these sources are psychological theorists, but many draw on myth and folklore to shed light on the common experience of women. In general, there is little written in "main line" psychological theory concerning the menstrual cycle, but the world of anthropology has been less inhibited. By exploring the practices and traditions of other cultures we may uncover common themes which shed light on some of the deeply symbolic images associated with menstruation. Myths can often form metaphors for our experience, and whilst some of the ones referred to here may seem very distant from daily life, if we listen to the underlying spirit of the writing, we may often discover that the meaning speaks directly to us.
A few feminist writers have attempted to integrate psychological and anthropological ideas with women's experiences. Paula Weideger's book "Female Cycles" (Weideger 1978) broke new ground in this respect, and Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove's book "The Wise Wound" (Shuttle & Redgrove 1978) brings many important psychological and cultural themes together in one of the most comprehensive books on the subject. Many of the ideas explored in this pack are discussed in these two books.
Cyclical Changes: The Virgin and the Whore
A motif commonly recognised in feminist writings is that of the virgin and the whore. It is argued that, as a diminution of their power, women in western society, and indeed many other cultures are seen either as respectable, non-sexual, untainted beings, or as socially unacceptable, sexual, and tainted. These two opposing images have been represented by the Virgin Mary at one extreme and either the figure of Eve, the fallen woman, or Mary Magdalene, the prostitute. Interestingly, however, some traditions elevate Eve to virginal status, opposed by Adam's other bride, Lilith.
Around these two polarised images have collected a number of attributes. The virgin is, perversely, seen as maternal, madonna like. She is the attached woman, respectably centred in family and home. The whore meanwhile attracts attributes besides the obviously negative, of independence, free-thought and unattached sexuality.
The basis for this separation, it is argued, is the belief that the woman who is not attached to a domestic role of either daughter or mother is liable to create instability within society by tempting men away from their wives and duties. She is a danger to the social order, and therefore branded as a harlot and an outcast.
Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove place the menstrual cycle against this background, pointing out that this cycle has two "poles", that of ovulation and that of menstruation. Both these poles have been recognised physiologically as times of peak sexual experience for women, although the quality of sexual experience associated with each pole is said to be different.
At ovulation the sexual peak is reported to reflect a desire for connection and penetration, a receptive position. At menstruation the desire is reported to be more active, outgoing. The act of penetration in sexual intercourse, provides an opposite to the flow of menses: the reception of semen to the loss of blood. There is a meeting of opposites. Shuttle & Redgrove suggest that symbolically the pole of ovulation has been equated with the virginal aspect of woman: domesticated woman, ready to conceive and bear the man's child, whereas the menstrual pole is equated with the free, sexually creative woman. Such a woman might indeed, unshackled by the risk of childbearing, be regarded as a threatening, predatory presence. Their book is in many ways a celebration of that free, creative woman and her connections with the hidden cultures of women from many societies.
The theme of polarities is one which may also be extended into other aspects of the menstrual cycle. The cycle is, by its nature, a process of change; of circling between different extremes. Hormone levels rise and fall. The lining of the womb grows, then falls away. There is anticipation and decline. Just as the moon waxes and wanes, so we may see ourselves rising and falling with the tides of our bodies. Ovulation is the time when conception may happen. It is the time when new life may begin. Menstruation is a time of letting go. It may hold resonances of decomposition and death. Menstruation may be seen as an interconnection of constant change with a rhythmic cycle; at a psychological level it incorporates inconstancy with its opposite, constancy.
The Silence Speaks
In exploring the subject of menstruation from a psychological perspective, one is aware of a gap in the literature. Other bodily functions such as defecation, feeding, urinating and lovemaking find copious attention, but a glance through the indexes of a psychology library reveals that references to menstruation are scant. One explanation for this may be that in much analytic psychology the focus of attention is given to the very early stages of the infant's development. Another explanation for the lack of importance placed on this subject may be that many writers, being men, failed to recognise the importance of menstruation in their women clients' lives.
If we consider the importance of menstruation in the lives of most women, these explanations seem inadequate. It seems likely that other factors are at work in its failure to figure in major psychological theories. Is it possible that by keeping silence, researchers are preserving the menstrual taboo, so widespread in western culture, and acting on the same primitive fear that saw the menstruating woman as unclean and dangerous? Freud shocked the world by describing infantile sexuality. Perhaps we are still awaiting the theorist who will dare to trespass into this last area of secrecy.
Protection
In investigating the subject of menstruation in psychological terms, some attention may be paid to the means used by women to deal with the blood flow. In many ways such an investigation throws light on modern attitudes and taboos regarding menstruation.
The term "sanitary protection" itself reveals the extent to which the menstrual taboo is operational in our society. It suggests that we are dealing with a substance which is dangerous, contaminating and unhealthy; that needs to be sanitised, and from which we need to be protected. Other terms, now less common, such as "feminine towels" or "STs" seem coy and euphemistic, and suggest that what we are dealing with is not quite nice.
When we look at advertising connected with these products, we see a concern with discretion, secrecy and femininity. We are also told that we may become "free" to do a whole range of things, which our bleeding might otherwise prevent us from doing. Tampons may hide our menstruation and prevent our lives from "stopping". One might wonder whether this stress upon "freedom" in advertisements for such products actually plays to a subliminal identification in the woman of this time of the month with sexual adventurousness.
Taboo, Magic and Danger
"The menstrual taboo is universal" writes Weideger (1978, p.95). She then lists many cultures, both twentieth century and ancient which have feared the menstruating woman and sought diverse ways of restricting the damage she might cause. In some cultures it is the woman herself who holds the danger, in others the blood that is produced holds the potency. Often the woman is banished, or silenced. She is likely also to be restricted sexually. The danger she bestows seems to centre on a loss of potency for any man unfortunate enough to come under her spell, or for any object brought within her touch.
It is not hard to identify the sexual symbolism embedded in many of these practises. The mouth is frequently equated symbolically with the vagina, so the act of talking or drinking may symbolically release the flow to the environment. Thus, we may recognise the woman's enforced silence as a symbolic closing of the vagina. Likewise, when we discover that the hunter's spears, a classically phallic symbol, may be defiled by her touch, we may wonder whether it is the man's sexual potency which feels under threat.
Such ideas seem particularly to be present in such beliefs as that described in the following account, quoted by Paula Weideger:
In India the belief is widespread that a woman who dies during the prescribed period of her uncleanliness later lives as a ghost... The Churel (ghost) is particularly harmful to its own family, but also to others. It appears in various forms. Usually it assumes the form of a beautiful young woman and leads men astray at night, especially those who are good looking. She takes them out of their realm and into her own and keeps them there till they have lost their manly beauty. Then she sends them back into the world as grey-haired old men who find all their friends long dead. (Dingwall 1935)
In this passage the woman becomes the sensual seductress, capable of robbing the beautiful young man of his youth and virility. It is interesting to note also the links with night time and with other-worldliness, which will become apparent in other material.
There are several theories which explore the origins of the menstrual taboo. One links it to men's fear of castration, another to the fear of incest which might arise if women's increased sexual desire at the time of menstruation is given reign. What does seem apparent is that the taboo has connections both with the attribution of special, dangerous, and/or sexual powers to the menstruating woman, and with the fear of a loss of potency, or of contamination for the man who breaks the taboo.
Contamination
Thus the menstruating woman is seen by many cultures as a source of contamination to all she touches. If we consider the widespread nature of this taboo, we must look at the underlying psychological factors which may be at work in keeping it alive. Given the universality of the taboo, we may assume that such factors are at work both for the woman herself and for others in society.
One writer who offers some explanation of the processes underlying the sense of contamination experienced by some women is Melanie Klein. She suggests that there is a tendency for all bodily substances to be equated. Thus menstrual blood may, at a subconscious level, be identified with dangerous excreta. As blood is associated with injury, it may be seen as evidence of damage done to the woman's own body. She suggests that the girl supposes such damage to result from injury by her parents violent aspects in revenge for her own sadistic and violent sexual phantasies regarding them (for detail see Klein 1989 p 224). Klein's work identifies the ways in which the girl's emerging sexuality may fall prey to many such fears and phantasies, incorporating powerful, often violent feelings. Other writers such as Helene Deutsch and Melitta Schmideberg produced similar theories.
Blood
Blood has always been a potent symbol. It has represented life, passion, and kinship. It has been the stuff of alchemy, and the object of sacrifice. It has also been seen as the carrier of all that is good and bad - we speak of blood ties and of bad blood. Blood is also seen as a means of contamination. We may have "blood on our hands". Often we fear blood as a sign of disease. Some societies have taboos against the eating of blood. Blood is the substance that sustains us. It is the substance that first greeted us when we were born. It may be the substance that we are surrounded with in death, should our death be bloody.
For the menstruating woman, daily contact with blood becomes necessary during the actual period of her menstruation. She becomes familiar with its sight, feel and smell.
The Witch
The association between menstruation and witchcraft is a strong one. Pliny's description of the malevolent powers of the menstruating woman given in his Natural Histories, bears remarkable similarities to those descriptions found in medieval witch hunters manuals.
Accounts of witchcraft are full of references to blood, full moons, horned devils, and sexuality. The moon-goddess Hecate was also the patroness of witches. Witches were reputed to gain powers by moonlight, and to increase their fertility. Witches were reputed to rub their bodies with menstrual blood mixed with drugs such as belladonna in order to gain a trance-like state which gave sexual feelings and illusions of flying. Such rituals bear some resemblance to the initiation rites in which the body is covered with clay which take place at puberty in some tribal cultures. Witches were also seen as the killers and eaters of babies at a symbolic level, this too may point to menstruation, as the menstrual flow can be seen as ridding the body of the unconceived child.
The image of the witch is not a difficult one for many women to identify with at the time of menstruation, but an important aspect of it is that as a symbol it is not wholly negative. Witches as holders of secret and often healing powers may well have been the inheritors of the older fertility based goddess religions. These connections of secrecy, healing and fertility clearly hold images which we may wish to explore.
The Secret Woman
Menstruation is a well kept secret. Women rarely feel comfortable telling strangers, especially men that they are menstruating. Secrecy is a symptom of the menstrual taboo. It may also be seen as representing the special powers of the menstruating woman; the secret powers attributed to her. We may find examples in tradition and mythology which illustrate this hidden quality of women.
One phenomenon explored by Barbara Koltuv (Koltuv, 1990, ch.1) is that of the veiled woman. Linking the moon's own changing path from visibility to invisibility - its veiled presence - to the widespread practice of veiling, she gives many examples which suggest that the practise has links with the contacting of inner powers. Koltuv gives several examples of women in the Old Testament preparing themselves either by donning a veil, or by applying kohl, a practise whose origins she sees as similar, before embarking on terrifying or destructive courses of action. She sees such practises as descended from earlier female rites which were part of early Goddess, or moon, worship.
Another symbol from mythology and legend which may be linked to the menstrual woman is that of the holy grail. This magical goblet, filled with blood, mysteriously elusive, was the object of legendary quests. It was also an object of great reverence. Emma Jung writes of the legend of the Grail as the vessel of spiritual transformation. C G Jung equates the Grail to the alchemical melting pot, and to the uterus. It is not hard to recognise this analogy. The hidden secret part of the woman, which periodically flows with blood; the melting pot from which each of us is born, and to which each nurtures a deep desire to return.
The Male Woman
Both Freud and Jung recognise a hidden "male" element in women's psychology. Freudian theory presents the woman as fearing that she may be a wounded man, having subconscious feelings of having been castrated, and the man as having a "generalized dread" (Freud 1918/1977, p.271) of the woman's capacity to weaken him. For Jung both men and women contain within themselves qualities of the opposing gender. These qualities are likely, at least in part, to be repressed and therefore held within the repressed material which he felt formed the shadow. Within the shadow will be all those parts of the personality which are unacceptable to consciousness. Thus there may form an association between the male elements in the woman, called the animus, and other dark qualities in her personality. Thus, some Jungian theorists identify in the process of menstruation, a process which itself is not fully acceptable, a "demonic masculine component" (Shuttle & Redgrove 1978 p 107).
Menstruation is the part of the cycle at which the woman is at her darkest and most powerful. If we return to the idea of the cycle having two poles, it is at the furthest extremity from the ovulatory pole, and the possibility of conception. This is the time when a woman may be closest to contacting her shadow self and her animus.
Mythology presents us with imagery which seems to reflect this preoccupation with both the separation of, and the integration of male and female elements. Some myths seem to suggest a view of menstruation that involves integration, for example involving the coming together of sun and moon is accompanied by the shedding of blood (Shuttle & Redgrove 1978 p.106). There are several accounts in which the woman contacts a psychic lover during the time of her menstruation - sometimes represented as the moon, a dark man, or some animal such as a serpent. These too may be seen as a coming together of the male and female elements at the time of menstruation.
The symbolic embracing of the male within, it is suggested (Shuttle & Redgrove 1978, chapter 3) reflects a contacting of "male" qualities in the personality during menstruation. This may be expressed through a more independent, self-reliant experience of sexuality. Research has shown that women who masturbate are most likely to do so around the time of menstruation. (This may be a result of other sexual outlets not being available, or that it has been found to bring relief from menstrual cramps, but it does also seem to reflect the strong and independent sex drive women experience at that time.) For the woman, there is likely to be an awareness that the act of intercourse at this point in the cycle is highly unlikely to lead to conception. She is, to all intents and purposes a free agent sexually, in a way that men may feel themselves to be at all times. Emotionally too she may be withdrawn from her preoccupations with home and family, centred in her own thoughts.
In addition to this, however, the actual experience of sexual arousal and satisfaction has parallels with male sexuality. If we consider the ways in which sexual activity is experienced by men and by women, we will see that, at least in the act of intercourse, sexual energy flows inwards in the woman, but outwards in the man. Clearly this is an oversimplification, but even in non-penetrative sexual activity, a woman's experience will include a sense of the internal; of containment. In menstruation a woman experiences heightened sexual response. In physical terms this is manifested in increased clitoral sensitivity. Given that the clitoris is biologically equivalent to the male penis, being its evolutionary forerunner, the experience of sexual arousal may have an outward directionality. This directionality is also present in the actual flow of menstrual fluid from the body. Several researchers (Shuttle and Redgrove quote many examples in chapter 2 section II) describe sex during menstruation as "full of extroverted activity and urgency".
The Female Woman
Menstruation may be seen as the focus for maleness in women, but it must also be seen as the most deeply feminine process, alongside its companion processes of conception and birth.
Menstruation in most societies is acknowledged by women, but hidden from men. In our own society it is only recently that sanitary products have been allowed to be advertised on television, where the advertisement may be seen by men, and then only under strict regulation, yet women's magazines have long been full of advertisements for these products. The menstrual taboo in some cultures excludes menstruating women from contact with men, into an all female world. A world that has its own traditions and mythologies.
In Mythology we find the feminine expressed through connectedness with the moon. Commonly the moon is identified with the female. This female connection has its origins deep in prehistory. This is not surprising, given the commonality between the moon's cycle and the menstrual cycle. It is suggested by some that this connection is not coincidental and that there is a physical connection, at least in origin, between these two cycles.
So, whilst some women may experience menstruation as the time of being in touch with their "maleness", for many it is a confirmation of their femininity. The identification between femininity and menstruation becomes apparent if menstruation ceases, at menopause or through a health problem. Many women report a sense of no longer being properly female, of losing their "womanliness".
The Bi-sexual Woman
In looking at analytic theories about women's psychology, and important theme is that of complementarity. Freud identified within the woman both active and passive sexual impulses, placing a superior value on the latter. Helene Deutsche saw in the act of intercourse both the desire to regain the lost penis, but also the desire for the child.
At menstruation we may see a coming together of male and female aspects of women; a wedding of opposites. Independent sexuality with aspects of fertility. The woman is put in touch with both her potential for childbearing and her non-pregnant state. She may feel both the need for separation and the need to connect.
The previous section referred to the connection between the female and the moon. This connection with the moon is an ambiguous one. Whilst the sun is almost always seen as a male figure, the moon is sometimes seen as male and sometimes as female. At times represented as Lord of the Women, their spirit lover, and at others as the Great Goddess. Such ambiguity reflects the complex male/ female aspect of the menstruating woman. The bringing together of animus and anima.
The Wounded Woman
The most obvious aspect of menstruation is that the woman bleeds. Bleeding is generally recognised as a sign of injury, and as the blood emerges from the gash in her body, the woman may suppose that she is terribly wounded. Stories are frequent amongst our mother's generation of young women's horror at that first sight of blood. Unwarned of this inevitable change, they were frequently startled, convinced that they had somehow sustained a terrible internal wound.
Analytic writers including Melanie Klein, Helene Deutsch and Melitta Schmideberg variously view the girl's reaction at menarche to be to connect the flow of blood with injury; either confirmation of a castration, the forfeiture of the possibility of bearing a child, retribution for having indulged in clitoral masturbation, or the result of having, in phantasy, experienced sadistic sexual intercourse with her father.
Klein also suggests that the girl links the unpleasant internal physical sensations which she experiences during her menstruation with the introjected violent objects - her violent parents.
The linking of sexuality, violence and blood by the process of menstruation become a source of anxiety, which may emerge in a fear of being sexual, and in variously interpreted senses of being injured. From this view point, menstruation may be seen as representing for the woman a final and dreadful confirmation that she is not male. Her penis has been destroyed, and the gaping wound now bleeds.
Whilst not all women will recognise the literal phantasy of castration, the symbolic injury to female power as represented by the menstrual flow has parallels in the banishment experienced under the menstrual taboo. Most women can identify with the sense of injury and loss at some level.
The myth of the castrated woman is not confined to modern psychology. Several cultures, including those of New Guinea and Malaya have mythologies which see the origins of woman in the castration of a male. Menstrual blood is seen as symbolic of this original castration. Paula Weideger (Weideger 1978) suggests that the menstrual taboo itself derives from the male fear of castration, in that the sight of the woman's bleeding genitals might put the man in touch with his own fear. Such an explanation, she suggests, is supported by the emphasis in many cultures on a loss of potency in men who break the menstrual taboo.
Productivity and Creativity
The menstrual cycle is the clearest outward representation of a woman's inner processes of fertility. Whilst we may be aware that ovulation is the time of conception, for most women it is menstruation that reminds them of their ability to conceive, to fall pregnant and to give birth. When we slip too far into believing that we have only our careers to work at, menstruation reminds us of that other inner world. The connection with the universally female world of childbearing. Like a body clock, quietly ticking through the months, our menstruation marks the time of our fertility.
Helene Deutsch, a member of Freud's circle wrote of mothering as a central part of women's sexuality. Deutsch saw the basic conflict underlying the processes of women's sexual and reproductive cycles as being between narcissistic self-love and motherly love of other (Sayers 1991). In mothering she saw both echoes of the woman's own experience of being mothered, and her desire to give birth to and nurture a child. She saw intercourse as recaptivating the early experience of feeding at the mother's breast - the vagina sucking the penis, another illustration of the link between mouth and vagina in psychological terms. For her, menstruation signified the loss of the baby. This sense of continued loss, she saw as part of the motivation for continued intercourse.
Thus, menstruation is a symbol of fertility, but a signal of non-conception. As the latter, it may be greeted with relief or despair, depending on the woman's desire to conceive or not to conceive. Shuttle & Redgrove suggest that menstruation is not solely concerned with the production of physical children, but also with the production of "mental children". The evolutionary shift from the oestral cycle, as experienced by most animals, to the menstrual cycle.In the oestral cycle, the animal is only likely to be sexual receptive at the time when the animal ovulates, or is "on heat". At this time there may be a show of blood, an indication of sexual availability. The menstrual cycle on the other hand is accompanied by sexual receptivity which is present at almost all times, and peaks at a time when conception is unlikely to take place; at menstruation (which also involves a show of blood). So sexual energy must have a function that is not directed towards conception. One possibility is that it is a bonding force within society, allowing communities to develop, and releasing the creativity on which human culture is based. This is the libido which Freud suggested underlay all the achievements of human civilisation.
The evolutionary change from oestrus cycle to menstrual cycle implies that sexual libido became available for something other than the perpetuation of the species by the reproduction of offspring. That 'something other' is the enhancement of shared sexual experience between individuals. An act of sex became this rather than the simple impregnation of the female. From the appearance of the menstrual cycle, therefore dates all the evolutionary developments which have been seen as specifically human: viz. the development of mentality, symbolism (a mental child is a symbolic child), recognition and valuing of the individual and social organisation. (Shuttle & Redgrove 1978, p.136)
The Free Woman Discovering Creativity
Thus an important theme in many of the writings on menstruation is that of creativity. This creativity, whilst connected with the literal productive potential, is also detached from the immediate possibility of conception. It is suggested that the time of menstruation is the time when the woman feels furthest from her connections with mothering, partner or home. It is also the time when she is said to be closest to her inner wisdom. To the forces which in turn connect her with the powers of nature and magical forces. This view places menstruation as a time apart, when the woman may discover her inner creativity and energy, unhampered by worldly attachments.
Time Out:: An Altered State
The idea of the time of menstruation as "time out" is one that appears in many societies. The word "period" may reflect the sense that this is a time that has some separation from the rest of life; that "time of the month". Whether the woman is entering a menstrual hut, abstaining from sexual contact, not attending synagogue, or refraining from washing her hair, she is demarcating this time as different. As a time when special rules prevail. As a time of withdrawal from at least some of society's norms.
This withdrawal may be imposed from outside. We have already seen that the menstrual taboo frequently demands that women behave in particular ways during the days when they bleed. But some writers contend that the impetus to withdraw does not come from outside. That the need to be separate, to meditate, to enter an altered state comes from within.
"This introversion, a going inside one's Self and withdrawing.... can be a time of great self-healing, creativity and spirituality. A time of women's mysteries. A woman can retreat and work at what is needed for the next turn of the wheel." (Koltuv, 1990 p.13)
Such a sense of withdrawing has been linked to mythology surrounding the ancient moon goddess, Ishtar, and her worship. Ishtar according to legend descended into the underworld in search of her son/lover. This account of a woman's descent into the underworld is echoed in the stories of Demeter and Euridice. A recurrent theme in ancient mythology, the woman's cyclical movement between worlds seems a universal symbol, as does the other-worldly wisdom and powers which that movement permits.
The need to withdraw during menstruation is reflected in the increased need for sleep felt by many women, particularly pre-menstrually. It has been recognised that sleep deprivation tends to make pre-menstrual problems worse. It appears that part of this need at least is for increased dream time. Time for the unconscious to offer its images to the receptive mind. The connection between menstruation and dreaming is strong in some tribal cultures, where dreams are valued more highly than in our own. In particular dreams at menarche are seen as a guide for life.
Return to the Earth: Menstruation as a Loss
The theme of loss inevitably links itself to the menstrual cycle. In medical circles the term "loss" is often used euphemistically to describe the flow of blood. At a practical level blood leaves the body. The woman may feel it slipping from her, and will see certainly it.
But menstruation is also a loss in more deep symbolic terms. It is the evidence that pregnancy has not occurred. It may be felt as the loss of a longed for child, or of fertility. This may be both at the conscious level, where conception was desired, but may also be present on an unconscious level at other times. Helena Deutsch suggests that for the girl reaching puberty, menstruation represents a double loss, representing both castration (loss of the penis) and loss of the possibility of having a child (in that the girl subconsciously assumes that she has been internally damaged, and can no longer bear a child.) Melanie Klein confirms similar findings from her work. (Klein 1989 p.226)
Many mythological references are made to the connection of menstruation and death; a menstruating woman has been said to induce miscarriage in animals or lead to the failure of crops. Menstruation is also connected with decline and death; the journey into the underworld of Ishtar of Demeter. So for some women menstruation may hold images of bleeding, time passing and death.
Rites of Passage
Menarche, or the commencement of menstruation, is rarely marked in our culture by any more than an embarrassed acknowledgement. Many women's early memories of menstruating are of fear, confusion and lack of information. In the last generation the lucky ones were those who were forewarned.
In contrast some cultures mark menarche with ceremonies that celebrate the transition from childhood to womanhood which it represents. Such ceremonies are often elaborate, and may involve secret rites, known only to women. Indeed in some cultures male initiation rites imitate menstruation by cutting the genitals to produce a flow of blood.
In psychological terms, menarche seems to represent a transitional stage, but also a confirmation of earlier fears which the girl may subconsciously hold regarding her internally injured state. (For example, the ideas of Melanie Klein, quoted earlier.)
No Period
Most women have known the anxiety of waiting at some point. The absence of what was expected. Sometimes there is a justified fear of pregnancy; the horrifying possibility of an uninvited visitor within. Other times it may be the hope that pregnancy has occurred and the fear that it has not which cause the anxiety. But there are times when pregnancy is not a possibility.
At those times fear may also be present. Perhaps an irrational fear that somehow pregnancy has occurred, even though the rational mind knows this cannot be so. Sometimes a more general fear that something is wrong. Perhaps some terrible illness, or a "blockage". Such fears echo the fears described by Klein and others, that menstruation is a symptom of internal damage. But in them there is a sense of being out of favour with the rhythms of the body. To lose that regularity not only raises the possibility that something is amiss, but also that one is out of favour with the powers of nature.
Menstruation is a symbol of woman. The woman who does not menstruate may feel less than woman. It may be that she is too old. Menopause brings its own tide of losses. An ending of the fertile years. It may be that she is too young, or that by starving her body she has forced it back into a pre-pubescent state. She is not yet ready for the initiation of menarche; to become a sexual woman.
Many writers highlight the connection between women and nature, and particularly the role of the menstrual cycle in this. Women are cyclical, and Nature too is filled with examples of cyclical rather than linear change. Women's cycles can be likened to the cycles found in the tides or the seasons, or the cycle of birth and death itself. Indeed, menstruation is a part of that cycle, with its key role in the process of birth.
"At a basic biological level, women are different: We have a moon cycle. We are capable of carrying within ourselves, and of giving birth and nourishment from our own bodies. This is the miraculous transformative aspect of women. This inner moon cycle, or menstrual cycle, affects our energy, our ideations, our emotions, and is the matrix of our very nature..... It is an ever present essential inner gyroscope. A fact of life. When you reach up, or in, and grab hold of a horn of the moon you have access to the deepest level of Self." (Koltuv,1990 p.5)
This connectedness with mystical experiencing of nature has received much attention recently amongst women's groups and feminist writers. Its expression through interest in early religious ideas, which were concerned with processes fertility, productiveness and the earth, provides many images, which, whilst they may seem remote from many women's experiences, hold images which can provide useful metaphors in understanding our psychology. This paper has already referred to some of the material on the goddesses Ishtar, and Demeter, who were both seen s fertility goddesses. Such stories link the seasonal processes with the woman, and the cyclical changes she experiences.
Inside and Out
Menstruation forms a bridge between the inner and outer world of the woman. It flows from the hidden parts of her body, which may be seen as the very centre of her femininity. Such a connecting of inner and outer worlds seems to parallel the other dichotomies described in this paper.
Menstruation bridges a number of worlds; the physical and the psychological, the medical and the mythological, the male and the female.
Symbolically too we have seen how the menstrual cycle may be thought of as a rising and sinking; a going down into the underworld of inner thoughts and processes; a visiting of the dark places. Menstruation is an experience of order within change. Among all the influences which it has upon women, this direct experience of order within life, of natural process must be one of the most deeply held. The woman is a microcosm of the world. Within her body she feels the changes which she sees outside her. She feels the growth of life, and its decay. She touches immortality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Recommended Reading
ASSO, D 1983. The Real Menstrual Cycle Wiley & Sons, Chichester.
HARDING, E 1955. Women's Mysteries Rider, London
KOLTUV,B 1990. Weaving Woman Nicolas Hays, Maine
SHUTTLE, P & REDGROVE, P, 1978. The Wise Wound Paladin, London
WEIDEGER, P, 1978. Female Cycles The Women's Press, London
Other Works Referred to
DINGWALL, E, 1935 (ed) Woman, An Historical, Gynaecological, and
Anthropological Compendium. vol III, Heinemann, London.
FREUD S. 1918. The taboo of virginity. In Penguin Freud Library vol 7. (pp. 265-283). London: Penguin 1977.
KLEIN, M, 1989. The Psychoanalysis of Children Virago, London
SAYERS, J, 1991. Mothering Psychoanalysis Hamish Hamilton, London
P.C.J. Brazier
1992