If you live with a lot of women, will your menstrual cycle be synchronized? Find out what Science has to say about this myth.
There is an old theory that states that when many women live together, their menstrual cycles synchronize. It is the theory of cycle synchronization.
She states that there is an exchange of pheromones – substances responsible for the chemical communication of living beings, animals – between women when they are very close. The theory states that this causes them to menstruate at the same time.
The theory of menstrual cycle synchronization is reinforced by the many reports heard out there. Are you going to tell me that you’ve never heard someone say that when they lived with their mother, or friends, their menstrual cycle was synchronized?
Or more, don’t you have the impression that when you see a friend for a long time every day, you don’t have the impression that they start menstruating on the same days? Does this really happen?
Menstrual cycle
Alexandra Alvergne, is an associate professor of Biocultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford, and has studied the subject. She claims that this is nothing more than a great popular belief.
“As human beings, we always like emotional stories. We want to explain what we observe through something that is meaningful. And the idea that what we observe is due to chance or random is not that interesting,” she said.
Alexandra sought to look for evidence in a study carried out by researcher Martha McClintock, carried out in 1971, and published in the scientific journal Nature.
Martha’s article, which believes that the exchange of pheromones between women causes the synchronization of menstrual cycles and is an evolutionary issue, is responsible for the dissemination of this concept.
After all, does it exist or does it not exist?
The theory dealt with an evolutionary female strategy of mutual cooperation. It was basically an attempt to put an end to the idea of a harem.
If women had synchronized cycles, the fertile period would also coincide, meaning that a single man would not be able to procreate with all of them at the same time. This study emerged in the 1970s, with feminism emerging as a social movement.
Alexandra Alvergne states that she discovered that ‘society’s values’ are often hidden behind hypotheses. And from a feminist point of view, the idea of mutual cooperation between women against male domination is attractive.”
Dozens of other searches on the subject have been done, and the result is always the same: synchronization does not exist.
Did you like this article? You might also like this one: 10 common questions, myths and truths about the subject
Source: BBC
