This post is going to put forth a bit of a philosophical hypothesis, so to speak. I want to stress that this piece is not intended to be some “girl power” or “we are all goddesses” bit. Nor is it meant to alienate or diminish men. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of western feminism, which misguidedly tries to elevate and empower women in part by diminishing, hating on, and, bizarrely or ironically, mimicking men. [1] While patriarchy is historically relevant, as a humanist that is astutely conscious of power and class politics, I know that the majority of men are presently as powerless as women in modern society. So I want to put that out there for all of my brothers and male readers.

Now back to the point of this post. A while back I was reflecting on the moon and how remarkable it was that this celestial body seems to be intimately linked to the female menstrual cycle. Despite the imposition of the Gregorian calendar, which arbitrarily gave us 30 and 31-day months (except for February), the lunar cycle—or natural planetary cycle—is 28 days long. When it is perfectly balanced, a woman’s menstrual cycle is also 28 days long. It is traditionally believed that the moon affects humans. We have all heard of people acting “strange” during a full moon. The moon appears to especially affect women. Some traditional cultures even refer to the menstrual cycle as the moon cycle.

Modern science, however, emphatically refutes the notion that the lunar cycle and female menstrual cycle may be linked. The wikipedia page on menstruation states that: “Even though the average length of the human menstrual cycle is similar to that of the lunar cycle in modern society there is no relation between the two. The relationship is [scientifically] believed to be a coincidence.”

I’m not so convinced. Continue reading →