The way out of this pseudoscientific prison was through data-driven science. The majority of her research subjects did not require bed rest during menstruation, and those who reported extreme pain during their periods often suffered from an underlying condition. As an undergraduate in the 1890s, Clelia Duel Mosher conducted her own investigation into the validity of functional periodicity, interviewing fellow students about their menstrual cycles. “A new and more limited view of menstruation must come,” she wrote in 1911. But because Western scientists for so long stigmatized menstruation, and excluded input from female physicians who might have been more willing to study periods and other functions of female biology, science got a late start collecting quality data on menstruation.

Source: New York Times July 12, 2021 19:02 UTC