Abstract
Since first proposed in 1971, the theory of menstrual synchrony has been haunted by doubt while gaining greater public visibility. Based on a study of women living in a dormitory, biopsychologist Martha McClintock found that there was a greater synchronization in the date for the onset of menstruation among close friends and roommates. An analysis of newspapers, magazines and textbooks alongside the scientific literature suggests that the tenacity of menstrual synchrony is because of its circulation within many heterogeneous communities where the ambiguous phenomenon acquired multiple meanings. It was simultaneously heralded as offering the first evidence of human pheromones and demonstrating how behavior regulates biological processes. This history offers an untapped lens to explore the fraught relationship between sociobiology and feminism. This relationship has primarily been understood in terms of opposition, but menstrual synchrony’s reception reveals a more complicated and intertwined story about the simultaneous growth of evolutionary and feminist psychology. The history of menstrual synchrony illustrates late twentieth-century debates over ‘the social,’ when it could entail both the influence of affect-laden friendships and the biochemicals secreted from the body.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Databases used to identify stories included Proquest Historical Newspapers, LexisNexis News, the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, Factiva, Google Newspaper Archive. These archives undoubtedly do not contain every story depicting menstrual synchrony and many of these stories would have been subsequently syndicated. There are limitations in relying on print in an era when broadcast media prevailed. Menstrual synchrony certainly featured in television comedies (Rosewarne, 2012, pp. 23–25).
References
Alexander, R.D. and Noonan, K.M. (1979) Concealment of ovulation, parental care, and human social evolution. In: N. Chagnon and W. Irons (eds.) Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Organization. North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press, pp. 436–453.
American Psychological Association (1983) Martha K. McClintock: Distinguished scientific award for an early career contribution to psychology. American Psychologist 38 (1): 57–60.
Angier, N. (1995) How biology affects behavior and vice versa. New York Times 30 May: C1.
Angier, N. (1998) Study finds signs of elusive pheromones in humans. New York Times 12 March: A22.
Angier, N. (1999) Woman: An Intimate Geography. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Anonymous (1971) A human pheromone? The Lancet 297: 279–280.
Anonymous (1977) Olfactory synchrony of menstrual cycles. Science News 112 (1): 5.
Anonymous (1979) The nose knows: Language of body odors. Time 114 (3): 50.
Arden, M.A., Dye, L. and Walker, A. (1999) Menstrual synchrony: Awareness and subjective experiences. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 17 (3): 255–265.
Barash, D.P. and Lipton, J.E. (2009) How Women Got Their Curves and Other Just-so Stories: Evolutionary Enigmas. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bering, J. (2010, September 22) An ode to the many evolved virtues of human semen. Bering in Mind, Scientific American Blog Network. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2010/09/22/an-ode-to-the-many-evolved-virtues-of-human-semen/, accessed 17 December 2013.
Beyette, B. (1986) For Kinsey Director, it’s same old story. Los Angeles Times 18 May: D1.
Bittel, C. (2009) Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-century America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Bjerklie, D. and Kluger, J. (1998) Following our noses. Time 23 March: 50.
Bromley, D.D. (1934) Sanctified birth control. The Nation 139 (3612): 346–348.
Bruce, H.M. (1959) An exteroceptive block to pregnancy in the mouse. Nature 184 (105): 105.
Buckley, T. (1982) Menstruation and the power of Yurok women: Methods in cultural reconstruction. American Ethnologist 9 (1): 47–60.
Burley, N. (1979) The evolution of concealed ovulation. The American Naturalist 114 (6): 835–858.
Buss, E. (1996) Martha McClintock: Of mice and women. Ms. March/April: 31.
Carlson, E.R. and Carlson, R. (1960) Male and female subjects in personality research. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 61 (3): 482–483.
Carlson, R. (1971) Where is the person in personality research? Psychological Bulletin 75 (3): 203–219.
Cassidy, A. (2005) Popular evolutionary psychology in the UK: An unusual case of science in the media? Public Understanding of Science 14 (2): 115–141.
Cassidy, A. (2007) The (sexual) politics of evolution: Popular controversy in the late 20th-century United Kingdom. History of Psychology 10 (2): 199–226.
Clancy, K. (2011, 16 November) Context and variation: Do women in groups bleed together? On menstrual synchrony. Scientific American Blog Network. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/context-and-variation/2011/11/16/menstrual-synchrony/, accessed 11 August 2013.
Clarke, A.E. (1998) Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Science, and “the Problem of Sex”. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Comfort, A. (1971) Likelihood of human pheromones. Nature 230 (5294): 432–479.
Corbin, A. (1986) The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cutler, W.B., Preti, G., Krieger, A., Huggins, G.R., Garcia, C.R. and Lawley, H.J. (1986) Human axillary secretions influence women’s menstrual cycles: The role of donor extract from men. Hormones and Behavior 20 (4): 463–473.
Daly, M. and Wilson, M. (1978) Sex, Evolution, and Behavior. North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press.
Davidson, J.M. and Levine, S. (1972) Endocrine regulation of behavior. Annual Review of Physiology 34 (1): 375–408.
Davis, K.B. (1929) Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-two Hundred Women. New York: Harpers & Bros.
Delude, C.M. (2003) Looking for love potion number nine: Scientists and perfumers are searching for the chemical scent that drives humans wild. The Boston Globe 2 September.
Dobell, E. (1979) New wisdom about menstruation. Redbook 152 (3): 99–106.
Doty, R.L. (1981) Olfactory communication in humans. Chemical Senses 6 (4): 351–376.
Doty, R.L., Ford, M., Preti, G. and Huggins, G.R. (1975) Changes in the intensity and pleasantness of human vaginal odors during the menstrual cycle. Science 190 (4221): 1316–1318.
Dreifus, C. (2004) A conversation with Martha McClintock: The chemistry (literally) of social interaction. New York Times 16 November: F2.
Economist (2001) The old-girl network: In praise of Wellesley. 28 April: 3.
Epstein, S. (2007) Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Fleck, L. (1979) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Fürtbauer, I., Mundry, R., Heistermann, M., Schülke, O. and Ostner, J. (2011) You mate, I mate: Macaque females synchronize sex not cycles. PLoS ONE 6 (10): e26144.
Guardian (2003) Any answers? – Are penguins Welsh? Poisonous recipes. Why women follow the same rhythm. 30 April: 18.
Ginsburg, F. and Rapp, R. (1991) The politics of reproduction. Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 311–343.
Goddard, N. and Henifin, M.S. (1984) A feminist approach to the biology of women. Women’s Studies Quarterly 12 (4): 11–18.
Gorner, P. (1998) U. of C. Researchers find evidence pheromones may influence humans. Chicago Tribune 12 March.
Gosline, A. (2007, December 7) Do women who live together menstruate together? Scientific American Blog Network. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-women-who-live-together-menstruate-together, accessed 17 December 2013.
Graham, C.A. (1991) Menstrual synchrony. Human Nature 2 (4): 293–311.
Graham, C. and McGrew, W.C. (1980) Menstrual synchrony in female undergraduates living on a coeducational campus. Psychoneuroendocrinology 5 (3): 245–252.
Halpern, C.C. and Samuelson, M. (1985) Our progress and struggles as feminists teaching biology. Feminist Teacher 1 (4): 10–34.
Haraway, D. (1979) The biological enterprise: Sex, mind, and profit from human engineering to sociobiology. Radical History Review 20: 206–237.
Harper’s Bazaar (2007) Can pheromones make you sexier? March: 306.
Harrell, B.B. (1981) Lactation and menstruation in cultural perspective. American Anthropologist 83 (4): 796–823.
Harris, S. (1971) Influence of subject and experimenter sex in psychological research. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 37 (2): 291–294.
Harris, A. (2013, 4 October) Menstrual (dys)synchrony: A cycling sisterhood? Kinsey Confidential. http://kinseyconfidential.org/menstrual-dyssynchrony-group-cycing-group/.
Hegarty, P. (2013) Gentlemen’s Disagreement: Alfred Kinsey, Lewis Terman, and the Sexual Politics of Smart Men. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press.
Henig, R.M. (1982) Dispelling menstrual myths. New York Times 7 March: 64–77.
Henrich, J., Heine, S.J. and Norenzayan, A. (2010) The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2–3): 61–83.
Herz, R. (2009, 18 June) The truth about pheromones: Part 2. Psychology Today: Smell Life. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/smell-life/200906/the-truth-about-pheromones-part-2, accessed 18 December 2013.
Hinde, R.A. (1974) Biological Bases of Human Social Behaviour. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hopson, J.L. (1979) Scent and human behavior: Olfaction or fiction? Science News 115 (17): 282–283.
Hrdy, S.B. (1977) The Langurs of Abu: Female and Male Strategies of Reproduction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hrdy, S.B. (1981) The Woman that Never Evolved. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hyde, J.S. and Rosenberg, B.G. (1976) Half the Human Experience: The Psychology of Women. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.
The Independent (1996) Girls, we’re in this together. 15 November.
Jarett, L.R. (1984) Psychosocial and biological influences on menstruation: Synchrony, cycle length, and regularity. Psychoneuroendocrinology 9 (1): 21–28.
Kelleher, K. (1995) How’s that for female bonding? Los Angeles Times 10 July.
Kesterton, M. (1996) Facts & arguments social studies a daily miscellany of information. The Globe and Mail 24 September.
Kiltie, R. (1982) On the significance of menstrual synchrony in closely associated women. American Naturalist 119 (3): 414–419.
Kinsey, A.C. (1953) Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Philadelphia, PA: W. B. Saunders.
Kline, W. (2010) Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women’s Health in the Second Wave. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Knight, C. (1991) Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Knowlton, N. (1979) Reproductive synchrony, parental investment, and the evolutionary dynamics of sexual selection. Animal Behaviour 27 (4): 1022–1033.
Koerth-Baker, M. (2011) The case against synchronized periods. Boing boing. http://boingboing.net/2011/11/16/the-case-against-synchronized.html.
Lemonick, M.D. (2004) The chemistry of desire. Time 19 January.
Lewenstein, B.V. (1987) Was there really a popular science “boom”? Science, Technology, & Human Values 12 (2): 29–41.
Marsden, H.M. and Bronson, F.H. (1964) Estrous synchrony in mice: Alteration by exposure to male urine. Science 144 (3625): 1469.
Martin, E. (2001) The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Matteo, S. (1987) The effect of job stress and job interdependency on menstrual cycle length, regularity and synchrony. Psychoneuroendocrinology 12 (6): 467–476.
Maugh, T.H. (1986) Scientists sniff out a clue to fertility: Human scents may play role. Los Angeles Times 25 December: 3 and 36–40.
May, E.T. (2011) America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation. New York: Basic Books.
McClintock, M.K. (1971) Menstrual synchrony and suppression. Nature 229 (5282): 244–245.
McClintock, M.K. (1981) Social control of the ovarian cycle and the function of estrous synchrony. American Zoologist 21 (1): 243–256.
McClintock, M.K. (1983) Pheromonal regulation of the ovarian cycle: Enhancement, suppression, and synchrony. In: J.G. Vandenbergh (ed.) Pheromones and Reproduction in Mammals. New York: Academic Press, pp. 113–149.
McClintock, M.K. (1998) Whither menstrual synchrony? Annual Review of Sex Research 9: 77–95.
McClintock, M.K. and Adler, N.T. (1978) The role of the female during copulation in wild and domestic Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus). Behaviour 67 (1–2): 67–96.
Mennella, J.A., Blumberg, M.S., McClintock, M.K. and Moltz, H. (1990) Inter-litter competition and communal nursing among Norway rats: Advantages of birth synchrony. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 27 (3): 183–190.
Mesic, P. (1996) Life science. Chicago Magazine March: 86–88 and 104–110.
Michael, R.P., Bonsall, R.W. and Kutner, M. (1975) Volatile fatty acids, “copulins”, in human vaginal secretions. Psychoneuroendocrinology 1 (2): 153–163.
Michael, R.P., Bonsall, R.W. and Warner, P. (1974) Human vaginal secretions: Volatile fatty acid content. Science 186 (4170): 1217–1219.
Milam, E.L. (2010) Looking for a Few Good Males: Female Choice in Evolutionary Biology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Milam, E.L. (2012) Making males aggressive and females coy: Gender across the animal-human boundary. Signs 37 (4): 935–959.
Millett, K. (2000) Sexual Politics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Money, J. and Ehrhardt, A.A. (1972) Man and Woman Boy and Girl: The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ms (1994) The many faces of feminism. July/August: 33–64.
Murphy, M. (2006) Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Murphy, M. (2012) Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Neelakantan, K.A. (1972) The natural scents. Times of India 5 March: 8.
O’Connor, A. (2009) Always Follow the Elephants: More Surprising Facts and Misleading Myths about Our Health and the World We Live In. New York: Times Books.
O’Leary, V.E. (1977) Toward Understanding Women. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
Paige, K. (1973) Women learn to sing the menstrual blues. Psychology Today 7 (4): 41–46.
Parkes, A.S. (1976) Patterns of Sexuality and Reproduction. London: Oxford University Press.
Parkes, A.S. and Bruce, H.M. (1961) Olfactory stimuli in mammalian reproduction. Science 134: 1049–1054.
Parlee, M.B. (1973) The premenstrual syndrome. Psychological Bulletin 80 (6): 454–465.
Parlee, M.B. (1974) Stereotypic beliefs about menstruation: A methodological note on the moos menstrual distress questionnaire and some new data. Psychosomatic Medicine 36 (3): 229–240.
Parlee, M.B. (1975) Psychology. Signs 1 (1): 119–138.
Parlee, M.B. (1982a) The psychology of the menstrual cycles: Biological and physiological perspectives. In: R.C. Friedman (ed.) Behavior and Menstrual Cycle. New York: Marcel Dekker, pp. 77–100.
Parlee, M.B (1982b) Menstrual cycles and behavior. Ms September: 126–128.
Parry, V. (2005) Calendar girls. The Guardian 25 August.
Pettit, M. (2012) The queer life of a lab rat. History of Psychology 15 (3): 217–227.
Pettit, M. (2013a) Becoming glandular: Endocrinology, mass culture, and experimental lives in the interwar age. American Historical Review 118 (4): 1052–1076.
Pettit, M. (2013b) The Science of Deception: Psychology and Commerce in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Prescott, H.M. (2011) The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Preti, G., Cutler, W.B., Garcia, C.R., Huggins, G.R. and Lawley, H.J. (1986) Human axillary secretions influence women’s menstrual cycles: The role of donor extract of females. Hormones and Behavior 20 (4): 474–482.
Rabinow, P. and Rose, N. (2006) Biopower today. BioSocieties 1 (2): 195–217.
Reinisch, J. (1984) The Kinsey Report: Menstrual Synchrony Studied. Pittsburgh Press, 6March 1984, p. B7.
Rensberger, B. (1986) Pheromones discovered in humans; substances help regulate female reproductive cycle. The Washington Post 18 November.
Richter, C.P. (1965) Biological Clocks in Medicine and Psychiatry. Springfield, MA: C. C. Thomas.
Rogel, M.J. (1978) A critical evaluation of the possibility of higher primate reproductive and sexual pheromones. Psychological Bulletin 85 (4): 810–830.
Rosen, R. (2000) The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America. New York: Viking.
Rosenblum, L.D. (2011) See What I’m Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses. New York: W. W. Norton.
Rosewarne, L. (2012) Periods in Pop Culture: Menstruation in Film and Television. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Ruble, D.N. (1977) Premenstrual symptoms: A reinterpretation. Science 197 (4300): 291–292.
Russell, M.J., Switz, G.M. and Thompson, K. (1980) Olfactory influences on the human menstrual cycle. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 13 (5): 737–738.
Sanders, S.A. and Reinisch, J.M. (1990) Biological and social influences on the endocrinology of puberty: Some additional considerations. In: J.M. Reinisch and J. Bancroft (eds.) Adolescence and Puberty. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 50–62.
Schank, J.C. (2001) Menstrual-cycle synchrony: Problems and new directions for research. Journal of Comparative Psychology 115 (1): 3–15.
Schrader, A. (2010) Responding to pfiesteria piscicida (the fish killer) phantomatic ontologies, indeterminacy, and responsibility in toxic microbiology. Social Studies of Science 40 (2): 275–306.
Schultz, D.P. (1969) The human subject in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin 72 (3): 214–228.
Scott, J. W. (1991) The evidence of experience. Critical Inquiry 17 (4): 773–797.
Setchell, J.M., Kendal, J. and Tyniec, P. (2011) Do non-human primates synchronise their menstrual cycles? A test in mandrills. Psychoneuroendocrinology 36 (1): 51–59.
Shuttle, P. and Redgrove, P. (1978) The Wise Wound: Menstruation and Everywoman. London: V. Gollancz.
Skandhan, K.P., Pandya, A.K., Skandhan, S. and Mehta, Y.B. (1979) Synchronization of menstruation among intimates and kindreds. Panminerva Medica 21 (3): 131–134.
Smart, R.G. (1966) Subject selection bias in psychological research. Canadian Psychologist 7 (2): 115–121.
Steinem, G. (1978) If men could menstruate. Ms. 7: 110.
Stern, K. and McClintock, M.K. (1998) Regulation of ovulation by human pheromones. Nature 392 (6672): 177–179.
Strassmann, B.I. (1997) The biology of menstruation in homo sapiens: Total lifetime menses, fecundity, and nonsynchrony in a natural-fertility population. Current Anthropology 38 (1): 123–129.
Strassmann, B.I. (1999) Menstrual synchrony pheromones: Cause for doubt. Human Reproduction 14 (3): 579–580.
Toronto Star (1986) More sex, please … . 24 November: C1.
Trevathan, W. (2010) Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives: How Evolution Has Shaped Women’s Health. New York: Oxford University Press.
Trevathan, W.R., Burleson, M.H. and Gregory, W.L. (1993) No evidence for menstrual synchrony in lesbian couples. Psychoneuroendocrinology 18 (5–6): 425–435.
Trivers, R.L. (1972) Parental investment and sexual selection. In: B. Campbell (ed.) Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, 1871–1971. Chicago, IL: Aldine, pp. 136–179.
Van der Lee, S. and Boot, L.M. (1955) Spontaneous pseudopregnancy in mice. Acta Physiologica et Pharmacologica Neerlandica 4 (3): 442–444.
Van Tassell, E. (1980) Textbook sexism: Sexism in college biology. Science for the People 12 (1): 16–19.
Viterbo, P. (2004) I got rhythm: Gershwin and birth control in the 1930s. Endeavour 28 (1): 30–35.
Webster, B. (1976) New science is exploring the ways animals use odors and secretions to communicate. New York Times 10 June.
Weideger, P. (1976) Menstruation and Menopause: The Physiology and Psychology, the Myth and the Reality. New York: Knopf.
Weller, A. and Weller, L. (1992) Menstrual synchrony in female couples. Psychoneuroendocrinology 17 (2–3): 171–177.
Weller, A. and Weller, L. (1997) Menstrual synchrony under optimal conditions: Bedouin families. Journal of Comparative Psychology 111 (2): 143–151.
Wilson, E.O. (1963) Pheromones. Scientific American 208 (5): 100–114.
Wilson, E.O. (1975) Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Wilson, H.C. (1987) Female axillary secretions influence women’s menstrual cycles: A critique. Hormones and Behavior 21 (4): 536–546.
Wilson, H.C. (1992) A critical review of menstrual synchrony research. Psychoneuroendocrinology 17 (6): 565–591.
Wilson, H.C., Kiefhaber, S.H. and Gravel, V. (1991) Two studies of menstrual synchrony: Negative results. Psychoneuroendocrinology 16 (4): 353–359.
Yusoff, K. (2013) Insensible worlds: Postrelational ethics, indeterminacy and the (k)nots of relating. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 31 (2): 208–226.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pettit, M., Vigor, J. Pheromones, feminism and the many lives of menstrual synchrony. BioSocieties 10, 271–294 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2014.28
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/biosoc.2014.28