Let me start off this piece by clarifying that I have a deep gratitude and respect for the women who fought for the right to vote and the right to participate in careers and society alongside men. I wouldn’t be here able to talk about the menstrual cycle and the female body without the efforts of those women. (I’d probably been either burnt or hung at this point.)

Everything from working in male-dominated industries that already have a “stay tough” attitude, to the use of birth control and IUDs so that you can be tough, hide your period (and inherent femininity) and pretend you’re not a woman, originates from feminism.

The women before us worked hard to obtain equality with men in the workplace and in society; the same pay, same jobs and same positions without understanding the biological differences between male and female bodies. (This was because of the creation of the working day started by the Industrial Revolution which then sparked feminist writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (arguably the “founder” of first-wave feminism [1]), Emily Bronte and Jane Austen to encourage women to question and rebuke the traditional roles women were “forced” to adhere to — which are primarily religion based — but I’ll save that for another time.)

The female body runs on an infradian rhythm, a naturally biological cycle that lasts longer than 24hrs, like the moon cycle and the natural seasons.

This is a rhythm that honours the growth, bloom, decay and death that resides in the physical and energetical realms; a rhythm that was once revered and followed by both men and women of many different cultures, especially those from Indigenous groups who live and hold their beliefs close to the land and its seasons. This is the rhythm of the menstrual cycle, of the rise and fall of its hormones and the corresponding energies, needs and desires.

The funny thing is, there will never be any such thing as “equality”: this is a made up idea created by someone(s) who, again, didn’t understand the reality of biology (I’m fully aware that they did not have the resources to know). While many women have come and gone pledging their lives to create financial freedom for their female successors, their efforts and disregard for the natural needs and changes of their female bodies has created the illness and sickness we see today in women.

Nearly every disorder or health issue in women today, from autoimmune disorders to infertility, is directly caused by generational physical, emotional and environmental stress; this is caused by chronic stress altering genetic information which then is passed down to the next generation and the next, and so forth. This weakening of stress tolerance then causes women (especially) to be more susceptible to stress — any form — in their lifetime [2].

The idea of “equality” simply cannot exist because men have their strengths — analytical, logical, more active — and women have theirs — nurturing, higher emotional sensitivity, more risk averse — and each has their place in different areas of life. A man can separate himself from his emotions to do what must be done while a woman’s emotions signal her body if she is safe or not.

We are now in an era where we have information at the touch of our fingertips, whether in an online research paper or through an individual who has walked the path of discovery to help themself and others (this is not your average MD). Women were not included in medical research until the mid 1990s [3] (those who were operated on for the decades before this time were usually used to anatomically map the female body, not understand how her systems actually worked) and even then menopausal women were the ones researched upon the most. It has only been recently that women of all ages — from menarche to fertile years to post-partum to peri-menopause — have been included in new studies.

Now that we have this information available to us (and the experience of our own cycle to check in on), there’s really no excuse for our ignorance and ill health.

And that takes me to the Good Girl.

We’ve been raised to be Good Girls — good daughters, good students, good employees, good wives, good mothers, and good members of society, productive and successful. Overall, we’ve been raised to be good little men, whether it was a conscious effort or not.

(I hate to break it to you but the quality of your health is going to go South if you remain in the mainstream mindset of being like the guys.)

The Good Girl was raised and conditioned to abandon her female body, to disconnect from her emotional and physical needs and only be available for the needs and emotions of others. She would never show how she truly felt, nor ever speak of it; she would say ‘yes’ when she really wanted to say ‘no’; she would oblige the physical needs of men for fear of rejection, pain or death; she would wear herself thin trying to be the “perfect” girl by staying healthy, maintaining good grades, a positive attitude and a flourishing (alcohol-fueled) social life, working eight hours a day, five days a week for her financial freedom.

When it came to her health, she would believe the words of the medical professionals — “everything is normal” — even when she felt like she couldn’t keep up with her busy schedule anymore because of the fatigue that weighed her down. She doesn’t think to consider that her entire health and wellbeing is tied to the health and wellbeing of her menstrual cycle, and vice versa. This is because she’s been conditioned by the feminist narrative to leave herself behind and then most likely experiencing her stress tolerance level (i.e. allostatic load).

The average woman of today may be being haunted by the disregard for female health in their maternal heritage, but that doesn’t mean that’s it, that’s all and that’s the rest of her life.

Like I said before, now that there is information available for women to access about their inner biological workings, there aren’t any excuses left over to not be informed.

References

1. Saucy, Mark. “Review of Carrie Gress: The End of Woman.” Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 18 June 2024, https://cbmw.org/2024/06/18/review-of-carrie-gress-the-end-of-woman/. *This is a biased read, as the author has her Catholic beliefs, however it gives a few good points on the origination of feminism and the truth behind the 1970s second-wave feminism.

2. Henry Ford Health Staff. “Generational Trauma: How Stress & Trauma Can Be Passed Down to Your Kids.” Henry Ford Health, 31 Oct. 2022, https://www.henryford.com/blog/2022/10/generational-trauma.

3. National Institutes of Health. “Inclusion of Women and Minorities in Clinical Research.” NIH Grants & Funding, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, https://grants.nih.gov/policy-and-compliance/policy-topics/inclusion/women-and-minorities/guideline.