Wellesley College

Martha McClintock published the first study on menstrual synchrony among women living together in dormitories at Wellesley College, a women's liberal arts college. Menstrual synchrony, also called the McClintock effect is an alleged process whereby women who begin living together in close proximity experience their menstrual cycle onsets (the onset of menstruation or menses) becoming more synchronized together in time than when previously living apart. "For example, the distribution of onsets of seven female lifeguards was scattered at the beginning of the summer, but after 3 months spent together, the onset of all seven cycles fell within a 4-day period." Martha McClintock's 1971 paper, published in Nature, says that menstrual cycle synchronization happens when the menstrual cycle onsets of two or more women become closer together in time than they were several months earlier.

Pascal Brackman