Women's Cyclicity in a Man-Designed World

Rhythms and cyclicity in life are natural.

They are all over, cycles and rhythms: astronomical and environmental, geological and ecological, biological and physiological, and, of course, emotional. Unfortunately, we, civilized creatures, tend to forget that.

With a surge of a ma(i)n-stream civilization, based on man's linearity and designed in man's image and likeness, as shown by the author Caroline Criado Perez in her 2019 book "Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men" (and by men, I would add), the ideal of a linear performance took over, making all of us not only blind and deaf to natural cycles and their course, but resisting them with all our might, and destroying ourselves in a process, because no amount of our opinion, motivation, or desperation can change the course of a single natural rhythm.

In a modern world, the pursuit of the ideal of ever-steady energy, steady motivation, and growing performance does not discriminate. It is quite universal.

But we need to understand one thing: what feels natural and adequate to generations of men with their testosterone 24-hour rhythm does not translate well to women, and never did.

Women, on top of the 24-hour circadian rhythm, also undergo a bigger monthly rhythm of hormonal fluctuation, which, in a domino effect, changes their attitudes and perceptions over a few days and weeks. Men's testosterone cycle fluctuates too fast, and every morning is a new beginning. And it is considered an adequate way.

And women's cyclicity, a beautiful natural rhythm, is often perceived to be inadequate by both women and men. By men, in their oblivion, by women, in their learned linearity. Why would my energy change? Cuz it shouldn't, I was told. Why would I quit? Cuz I shouldn't change directions, I was told. Why wouldn't I want to socialize? Cuz being socially withdrawn is not right, I was told.

For generations, women have lived in a paradox of experiencing their internal cyclicity, yet their learned linearity would not let them break free and belong to themselves. And here you have shame and silence and fear of being judged, even today and around the world.

Well, it is time to recognize that Women's natural cyclicity, like men’s, is not a rare thing. It is not a weird thing. It is not the inconvenience. Women's cyclicality is natural, whole, fully expected, with a pattern we can understand and predict.  

Once we understand the wholesomeness of women’s cyclicity, all the stigma and shame around the menstrual cycle start to lose their importance. We realize that the silence of our mothers and grandmothers was a social construct, an informational vacuum, and an unfortunate blind spot of a man-designed world. And it is time to see women's cyclicity for what it really is - a natural rhythm and a flow.

Written in 2024 by Evgeniia Iakovleva

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