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“Don’t wet your head, it’s bad!” “Don’t make mayonnaise that cuts!” “Don’t touch the plants, they will wither!” They were phrases that might be heard (even today) when women had the menstruation.
Although now it may sound anecdotal to us, or even make us laugh, for centuries many women believed these statements at face value. Some date back to Roman times, according to Pliny the Elder in his “Natural History”, and for generations and generations they were transmitted orally from mothers to daughters, or from grandmothers to granddaughters.
The worst of the matter is that they implied a normative system of behaviors referring to what might and might not be done during menstruation.
What’s more, they threatened that if you skipped the ban you put your own and others’ health at risk.
menstrual taboo
That menstrual blood is related to fertility in women and appears cyclically (“rule”) has caused it to be surrounded by myth, gender stereotypes and social and cultural connotations. Most, truth be told, negative, associated with dirt and impurity.
For a long time, menstruation was a source of shame, something that was hidden, of which it was better not to talk. Such was the menstrual taboo that many girls had their menarche (first period) without prior knowledge of what it was. And that 1 out of 4 people in the world has a period every month between 2 and 7 days, which would mean that each woman would have a period for 7 years of her life. Menstruation was “the most invisible of the invisible”, promoted by the androcentrism of science.
That allowed many myths to remain in the collective imagination for centuries. The most widespread misconceptionrepeated in many parts of the world, is the idea that the minimal contact with water during the days of menstruation can be detrimental to the health of the menstruating woman.
According to this myth, the water “cut off” menstruation causing the unexpelled blood to rise to the head, producing a kind of “brain numbness” with dire consequences: dementia, stroke, stroke… “Look at Fulanita, who took a shower with her period and she went crazy”, was repeated as an example. Hence the prohibition of bathing and, above all, of getting your head wet during menstruation.
mayonnaise can be cut
Another quite popular myth considered that menstrual blood was impure and, consequently, it altered what it touched. It was also argued that, since women were attacked by animals more frequently (lizards, sharks and tigers among others) while menstruating, they should stay away from the rest. That is why some ancient rituals menstruating women were moved to the highest parts of the house and even to shacks on the outskirts of towns. In fact, this practice is still common in Nepal (although it has been outlawed since 2005).
The belief that menstrual blood was toxic was taken to the extreme. To the point that, in some Spanish rural municipalities, menstruating women were forbidden to participate in the slaughter of the pig, sow and touch the plants and even enter the cellars. They said that if they touched the containers that contained wine, it would turn into… vinegar!
And what regarding the fear of cutting mayonnaise? It seems that the origin might be in the mistaken belief that menstruation produced a state of heat in the body, which prevented the raw egg from binding well to the oil.
Although training and knowledge have banished all these myths, they continue to exist in the collective ideology in some places and communities. As many euphemisms are also perpetuated to refer to it, in addition to norms of behavior during menstruation in the family or social sphere lacking any scientific basis.
Studying, analyzing and eliminating them with health education strategies will prevent them from producing inequalities and discrimination in girls, adolescents and women.
Alicia Botello Beautiful. Professor in the Department of Nursing and researcher in the group “Women, well-being and citizenship”, University of Seville.
This article was originally published on
The Conversation.
