What do Periods have to do with the Feminine Genius?
By Anna Wilgenbusch
When I was 13, I knelt beside my bed, praying that I would not get my period.
“I think you’re calling me to be a nun,” I told Jesus, “so please just do not make it come.”
It was that point in middle school when girls mysteriously disappeared to the nurses clinic and whispers about who had “gotten it” spread like quiet tumbleweeds through the locker room.
At the time, I considered the menstrual cycle to be a burden that came along with motherhood, which I would have no use for if I was not going to have children. In fact, I thought that I could serve God better if I did not have the inconveniences and pains that accompany the cycle, which my friends were already complaining about.
Surrounded as I was by secular sources of entertainment and culture, it’s easy to see why I thought that. Much of today’s dialogue around the period portrays it as a function to be manipulated (read: birth control) rather than an order to be revered. Periods are spoken of as another one of those messy bodily functions that must be contained and controlled.
Advertisements describe feminine products as liberating, as though periods are a mere inconvenience to a woman’s other activities. A culture of “fitspo” and “gym bods” has compromised many women's natural cycles through over-exercise, an emphasis on leanness, and disordered eating. Although the menstrual cycle is a key indicator of health, many doctors are unconcerned about the absence of a woman’s period, especially if she is an athlete.
It seems as though we have totally lost the capacity to reverence the cycle as a revelation of the femine genius. But our faith teaches that the human body — male and female, considered both apart and together — is an impenetrably beautiful revelation of God’s love. That God intentionally created the female body with the menstrual cycle ought to give us pause. God did not design the reproductive organs as something superfluous (unlike the appendix- but we’ll have to wait until heaven to interrogate God about why in the world we have that one). God designed women with the menstrual cycle because the cycle is an essential sign of a woman's capacity for physical and spiritual motherhood.
The nerdy stuff
A couple years ago, a CT scan revealed that I have osteoporosis (very significant bone loss) due to years of missing my period due to an eating disorder and excessive exercise. I was shocked. I had thought that not having a period was a benefit to my athletic career, not something that put me at 500-700% greater risk for a stress fracture.
Bone loss is only one of the litany of health consequences that accompany a missing period.
There is a bit of a distinction here: both birth control or hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA) may cause a missing period, but do not necessarily cause the same health consequences. HA occurs when over-exercising, low body fat, and disordered eating coalesce to cause low estrogen, resulting in the cessation of the cycle. The cycle may also be disrupted by birth control, which tricks the body into believing it is pregnant in order to prevent ovulation.
In either case, the effects of suppressing one’s cycle are severe. The more irregular a woman's cycle is, the greater her risk for future cardiovascular disease. As in my experience with HA, a deficit of estrogen and a lack of essential nutrients causes bones to reabsorb themselves and prevents new bone growth, causing osteoporosis or osteopenia at a young age. The bone mineral density for a young woman with only six months of HA is equivalent to a 51-year-old woman. While the estrogen replacement in birth control prevents direct bone loss, birth control cannot undo the effects of undereating on the bones (add this to the list of things for which doctors prescribe birth control as an ineffective bandaid).
Not only does a lack of menstruation present serious physical consequences, but it also has troubling physiological effects. Brain imaging research has revealed that a woman’s hippocampus, a region of the brain crucial for social connections, increases in size with ovulation. This means that women who do not ovulate are more likely to feel anxious, depressed and perfectionistic. This may lead to, or deepen, maladaptive coping mechanisms to deal with these pressures. On top of this, research shows that the effects on the hippocampus when menstruation ceases may cause an increased proclivity to socially isolate and dissatisfaction with relationships. Cue the downward spiral.
Interfering with menstruating also changes who women are attracted to. When fertile, she is attracted to more masculine features. However, if a woman's cycle is suppressed, she will instead be attracted to men with more feminine features. She will also be attracted to the scent of men with similar genetics, which is an evolutionary disadvantage, while normally-cycling women can detect and are attracted to men with genes that are more compatible.
Women who miss their periods because of HA or birth control miss out on important benefits of having a cycle. In addition to bone growth and the shedding of dead cells from the ovaries (which could otherwise accumulate there), women’s ability to use both sides of their brain increases. A woman also feels and looks more attractive when ovulating, and her face actually becomes more symmetrical! In short, women who are naturally ovulating feel and look more attractive, have better markers of health, and are more likely to be attracted to a man who will make her happy. Suddenly the bloating and cramping are just a piece of the picture.
The physical reveals the spiritual
Science reveals that disrupting the cycle not only disrupts a woman’s physical health, but also disrupts how she interacts with the world. But women are, as Alice Von Hildebrand writes in The Privilege of Being a Woman, “a linchpin of human life.” By causing a function of her body to cease to function, HA and birth control have the potential to affect all of society. If you mess with maternity, every level of society will be affected.
“All women without exception are called to become mothers,” writes Hildebrand. The cycle is not just important for women to become mothers – it is essential to her womanhood. This means that even women who become religious sisters, who exercise a spiritual motherhood rather than a physical one, ought to hold their periods as an essential sign of their capacity for spiritual motherhood. Simply put, the cycle reveals maternal capacity, physically and spiritually, for every single woman.
But…. periods suck
I can almost hear my little 13-year-old self objecting: “but all my friends complain about their period… couldn't I be a more effective sister if I did not have to deal with it?”
I wish I could go back and tell her three things.
Firstly, yes, periods can be uncomfortable, but that's ok. They can be transformed into a monthly school for learning how to gracefully grapple with suffering.
Genesis tells us that a post-lapsarian (i.e., after getting kicked out of Eden) woman's life-giving capacity is marked by suffering. “In pain you shall bring forth children,” God tells the woman after the fall. The entrance of sin into the world also marks the entrance of pain into motherhood.
This relates to the second point I would tell my little self: women have a special ability to carry suffering. Pause for a moment to consider that no woman accompanied Jesus to the transfiguration, but they rather accompanied Him to the cross. The fact that a woman, since mankind was first cast out of Eden, must labor in pain to bring about new life, prefigures the resurrection. Yes, your period is a sign of the resurrection. Just as women suffer to give life, so too Christ suffered to give eternal life.
It is no coincidence that the Fathers of the Church have referred to Christ’s suffering as a kenosis, an “emptying.” For what is sacrificial love if not a radical emptying of oneself for the other? And women have the privilege of this Christ-like kenosis to be built into her very biology, as her uterus prepares for new life every month and rhythmically empties itself.
Lastly, I would just gently tell her that even if she could “do” more as a sister without a cycle, that’s not the point of religious life (shout-out to eight years of discernment for teaching me that one). Religious sisters are not defined by what they do, but rather by who they are: the spouse of Christ. And her cycle, which is a manifestation of her capacity for spiritual motherhood, is an essential part of her identity as Christ’s spouse.
Wait, Mary had a period?
The spiritual significance of menstruation is perhaps best illustrated by the Virgin Mary. Prior to embarking upon this article, I had not thought deeply about the fact that Mary had a period. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit Himself cooperated with it when Christ was conceived. Yes, in perhaps the first Divine revelation of NFP, Mary was ovulating at the time of the incarnation.
God’s very conception into this world was subject to the rhythm of the female body. But rather than this being a remote theological insight, I think this ought to inform how I speak about the menstrual cycle, both in my own internal dialogue and socially with other women, who might share my complaints.
I’m not saying we should simply white-knuckle our way through that time of the month. No, we need to recognize the cross that we are being asked to carry (whether it is physical, emotional or spiritual pain) and unite it to Christ anyway. But I do think that this is perhaps an area in which most of us could use a little examination of conscience.
I don’t want to leave you in theoretical-theology-land, so here are a few practical questions I would encourage you to sincerely sit with:
Do I resent my body for its maternal capacity?
Have I intentionally tried to suppress my period through using birth control, engaging in punishing exercise routines, or failing to nourish my body (in its physical and emotional needs?)
Do I contribute to a dialogue among women that bashes the female body rather than reveres it?
In moments of suffering that may have arisen this month, have I united them to Christ or allowed them to pull me into negative self-talk?
Have I joined in Mary’s fiat when the Lord has invited me to exercise my unique capacity for motherhood, either physically or spiritually?
Sister, your capacity for motherhood is blessed. It is the refrain that nuns have repeated fifty-three times over when rosaries are prayed in the monastic silence of convents and which we repeat in the domestic silence of our cars and showers and homes and apartments: “blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”
