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Yet, Author Weideger suggests that many of the troubles attributed to menstruation can actually be traced to the taboo. The idea is not new. Some 50 years ago, Anthropologist Margaret Mead observed that in Samoa, where the menstrual taboo is mild, discomfort during periods is slight. The idea of severe cramps and pain, she wrote, "struck all Samoan women as bizarre when it was described to them."
Now younger feminist researchers are making the same point. Some argue that the Dalton data merely show that many women have absorbed the mythology of the menstrual taboo. Others challenge the interpretation of the data. For instance, Barnard Psychologist Mary Brown Parlee points out that stress can hasten a period; therefore, many menstruating women who do poorly on exams may be victims of stress, not menstruation. Concludes Parlee: "We believe that hormonal change brings certain sensory change, but there is no scientific proof that the hormones make any difference in a woman's behavior."
Three women psychologists at Pennsylvania State University found no significant difference in the amount of stress reported by eleven men and 22 women (half of them on the Pill) over a 35-day period. Psychologist Barbara Sommer of the University of California at Davis reports that 29 women she studied had increased positive feelings around ovulation time, but no increased negative feelings before menstruation.
Pittsburgh Psychologist Randi Koeske contends that the culture created and now reinforces the stereotype of premenstrual irritability by overlooking women's positive feelings and focusing on negative ones. Her advice to women: "Learn to identify premenstrual physical changes as irrelevant to emotion." Some women add several pounds of fluid because of hormone changes. If so, says Koeske, "Say 'Water retention makes my tear ducts feel full,' not 'I am depressed and about to cry.' "
In a questionnaire study of 298 unmarried women, Psychologist Karen Paige of the University of California at Davis found that religious traditions had an influence on menstrual troubles. Among Jewish women, those who accepted the biblical ban on sexual intercourse during menstruation generally had the worst periods. Catholic women who saw motherhood as their goal had more menstrual troubles than Catholic women who were willing to pursue careers and childless marriage. Similarly, in a door-to-door survey of 1,000 men and women in northern California, Psychologist Paige found that those who celebrated the role of wife and mother were most likely to accept the menstrual taboo. Her conclusion: "Adherence to menstrual taboos should decrease as the importance of the family and woman's role as child producer decrease."
Cultural Cure. Statements like that have raised suspicions that the menstruation issue is just one more doctrinaire attack by working feminists on women who are housewives and mothers. "All we know for sure," says Psychologist Pauline Bart of the University of Illinois Medical School, "is that cultural expectations play a role in many menstrual problems. Beyond that it's all cloudy."