The Science of Stephen King

Margaret White can be described as very religious and her skewed view of the female body and blood are partially based on this. Views of menstruation in religions and cultures vary throughout the world. According to Hippocratic texts from the fifth century BCE, “only female bodies are subject to being overstrained and overfilled due to the excess fluid that accumulates in their inherently soft flesh, and the act of menstruation is a mechanism that releases woman’s intrinsic surplus.”8 The Bible claims in Leviticus 15:19 that “whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will be ceremonially unclean for seven days.” Other cultures viewed menstruating women as powerful or sacred including indigenous people in North America who believed menstrual blood had the power to destroy enemies and the people of ancient Rome who thought a menstruating woman could help crops flourish.

Carrie is told to “plug it up” by her tormentors in the locker room shower that fateful day, but how have women handled menstruation in the past? Assumptions have been made about women using strips of ragged cloth that were rewashed in place of modern-day pads. Ancient tampons were made of papyrus or wooden sticks wrapped with lint. Not until the late 1800s is there documentation of a product being on the market for women to use during their monthly cycles. The Hoosier sanitary belt was a contraption that was held on around the waist. Washable pads could be purchased that attached to the underwear-like device. The first commercially available tampon was produced in 1929. Just like Carrie, women throughout the centuries have felt a sense of otherness when it comes to menstruation.

The Ishango Bone may have been used as an early period tracker.

In the week leading up to a period, an increased sensitivity to allergens, paired with a lower-than-normal lung capacity, causes between 19 and 40% of women with asthma to experience premenstrual asthma.10

Speaking of menstruation, there is a theory that the first calendar on Earth was created by a woman. The Ishango Bone dates back to between 25,000 to 20,000 BCE and was discovered in 1960 in Zaire. The bone appears to have tally marks on it that document a lunar cycle. American educator and ethnomathematician Claudia Zaslavsky said:

Now, who but a woman keeping track of her cycles would need a lunar calendar? When I raised this question with a colleague having similar mathematical interests, he suggested that early agriculturalists might have kept such records. However, he was quick to add that women were probably the first agriculturalists. They discovered cultivation while the men were out hunting. So, whichever way you look at it, women were undoubtedly the first mathematicians!11

This bone, then, could be considered the world’s first period tracker! Is it true that periods sync to the lunar calendar in some way? There are theories, particularly in Wiccan and nature-based faith communities, that women can sync their menstrual cycles to a full moon and gain restorative powers. A year-long scientific study, though, found that there is no link between lunar phases and the menstrual cycle.12

Another prominent theme in Carrie is the effect that Margaret’s parenting has on her daughter. An ultra-devout Christian, Margaret White expects her daughter to be pious, chaste, and obedient. What strain does this type of existence put on children? According to a 2008 study, children who grew up in very religious households felt a sense of duty to follow in their parents’ footsteps when it came to religious beliefs and practices.13 Richard Dawkins, a biologist from Oxford, believes that growing up in a religious household could be compared to child abuse. He claims, in relation to the sexual abuse suffered by some children in the Catholic church, that “the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.”14 Not all scientists agree, though. A study featured in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that religion is linked to better overall health and well-being. They concluded that those who attended religious ceremonies regularly were 12 percent less likely to have depressive symptoms and 33 percent less likely to have sexually transmitted infections. The study also found that 18 percent of self-identified religious people reported high levels of happiness and those who meditated or prayed were 38 percent more likely to volunteer in their communities.15