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Women's menstrual cycles don't change the way our brains perform.
A new study has found no evidence to support the myth that women’s cognitive abilities change across the menstrual cycle.
The researchers looked at 102 studies covering close to 4000 women and looked at changes in everything from attention, intelligence and executive functioning to motor function, spatial ability, verbal ability and creativity.
Attitudes about and practices around menstruation often treat it like a disease that impairs women’s ability to function mentally. Women internalize this menstrual stigma. When women self-reported fluctuations in mental capacity, however, independent testing found these fluctuations were very small, even when brain imaging studies revealed shifts in morphology (that tended to be associated with menstrual pain experience), brain plasticity, or other physical strategies in our bodies are adjusted accordingly.
The authors say that while this is somewhat surprising given the physiological changes that occur across the menstrual cycle, the changes to the brain are either small enough that they don't influence performance or women compensate for these changes in ways we don't yet understand.
Men just "logicked" their way into assuming women's minds ebb and flow in the same way their bodies do.
The only time I ever instantaneously solved the conundrum in Countdown was when I was in labour! That's how laser focused and sharp my brain had become.
Right. When the entire system is driven, defined, and created by emotionally dysregulated men with zero capacity for empathy, of course they believe women to be emotionally inept. They cannot even fathom that we don’t think in the same way they do.