Likelihood for rape tied to menstrual cycle?

I think we can all agree that rape is bad. But apparently according to evolutionary biologists, a woman's reaction to rape depends on where she is in her menstrual cycle. Really?

Take that in for a minute.

Apparently women are genetically disposed to fighting back more against rape when they are ovulating, and less likely when they are at other times in their cycle. This seems like a slippery slope to me, and a justification for rape rather than what it is claiming to be, and evolutionary study. If we believe that rape happens for reasons other than the rapist being a rapist then how can we blame rapists that rape when a woman is ovulating. She is just in her most fertile period, and so he is just following his evolution, right?

Wrong.

 As human beings we have evolved a little something called reason. This means that unlike our ancestors, who probably did forcibly mate with their female counterparts we can CHOOSE NOT TO. That's right folks, rape is not a product of evolution at this point, but a choice that human beings make. There are lots of different reasons that people choose to rape other people (women do some raping too), but they all come down to a choice that a person makes. We have the ability, unlike other animals, to rise above our biology and instinct and make decisions. That is what makes us human. That is what makes us civilized. That is why we can exist. Human beings have by far the highest capacity for reason, and jugement.

All in all, I think we need to stop looking at weird biological reasons people rape, and instead look at the people themselves, and perhaps the culture surrounding them. I am not an expert on rape, but I do know that even though our cycles DO put off different pheremones, and DO (to a certain extent) change our physiology, biological processes probably have little to do with the act of rape, and certainly can't be used as a justification.

Obsolescence?

The Moon Inside You is a documentary by Diana Fabianova about menstruation and what it means. I have not seen this, but the trailer looks amazing! (Unfortunately, the other clips on the website are not in English.)

What stood out to me in the trailer is the brief discussion about periods being/becoming obsolete. Thanks to modern medicine, it is now possible to eliminate having a period at all. One of the [male] doctors in the trailer asks out loud, "Is menstruation natural? Is menstruation normal?"

The question of it being natural or normal doesn't sit right with me. What would be unnatural or abnormal about it? To me, it seems much more unnatural to load yourself up with synthesized hormones.

I'll be honest, the idea of having no period freaks me out and I have difficulty accepting that it could be healthy. But, I also recognize that as someone who has relatively drama-free periods (negligible cramping, very predictable timeframe, no outrageous hormonal mood swings), I don't have as much to dread. Not that I get head-over-heels excited about it, but I actually kind of like having my period.

I can see why women would want to skip their periods, but I feel like some of that dread comes from our culture. If you see your period as embarrassing or disgusting, why wouldn't you want to escape all of that? But if we as a culture just saw it as something that happens without all this negativity, do you think there would be such a push to get rid of it? Perhaps I would feel more comfortable with discussing the idea of eliminating menstruation if there wasn't so much unfair cultural baggage to unpack around it.

I think it's Karen Houppert in her book The Curse that compares menstruating to having a runny nose. When you have a cold, stuff comes out of your nose, you get a Kleenex, you take care of business, and that's that. It's the same as having a period. Stuff comes out of your vag, you deal with it, even if it's not necessarily sexy or exciting or glamorous, and life goes on. I can't imagine there ever being a movement for medication to eliminate boogers, questioning whether or not they were normal.

Victorian Menses

I have been taking a Victorian Literature course this semester, and this quote appeared right after I was asked to contribute to this blog:

"Arabella approached the time when in the natural course of things she would have to reveal the the alarm she had raised [of being pregnant] had been without foundation" (Thomas Hardy Jude the Obscure p64)

I realized that this was the first time in the entire class that menstruation was mentioned, and even then, more alluded too. The Victorian Era was a time of repression in general, and it made me wonder about what menstruation was thought of at the time. This kind of goes along with my final project for the class and I thought I would share my findings with all of you.

I have done a mild amount of research, and have so far come up with a big fat nothing, so I guess really what I'm saying is:

Thank you Thomas Hardy for having the guts to say SOMETHING about menstruation.

As a side note, Jude the Obscure is Hardy's last novel, and it was considered quite racy (it's not by today's standard) and I have a feeling that part of the raciness was this allusion to menstruation. You would think with the emphasis on science brought about by the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species the Victorians would be a little more up on scientific things like the fact that women have a monthly cycle, but they didn't really like to talk about anything in too much depth.