Menstrual taboos persist despite evidence too feeble to justify them
Evidence
A doctor from the Cher region pointed out to me that women in that situation are banned from going into the mushroom beds. The question as to whether there is any basis for these preconceived ideas is still discussed today. Dr. Binet’s only fact supporting them is an observation by Schink (cited by Vignes). Schink supposedly saw flowers wilt in an indisposed servant’s hands; yeast cakes made by this woman supposedly rose only three centimeters instead of the five they usually rose. In any case, these facts are pretty feeble and poorly established when considering the importance and universality of the obviously mystical beliefs they come from.
— Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 420
Categorization
QUESTION: Worth chasing: what is the actual scientific literature today on menstrual blood and yeast/flower effects — is there any real biological basis at all?
XREF: Connects to Douglas’s Purity and Danger on pollution taboos rationalized after the fact. — connects to: Incest taboos and menstruation prohibitions both express man’s fear of feminine fertility — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 339; Menstrual blood was ambivalent in matriarchal societies—both destructive and beneficial.; Menstrual contamination beliefs survived into modern industrial practice and law — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 336 (+2 more)