This Is Your Brain On Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society

by Kathleen McAuliffe

Our brains are also prone to viewing primary disgust elicitors like blood and semen as agents of evil. In many cultures, a woman who has been raped is treated like a sinner. She is tarnished, sullied, no longer virtuous or to be valued. No man will be with her because she has been corrupted by another man’s crime. The fact that women menstruate has further stoked the flames of misogyny, for this “bad blood” is often seen as God’s curse, proof of their inferior moral status. In many cultures, menstruating women are confined to separate quarters so as not to contaminate others. Orthodox Jews are prohibited from sitting on a chair that a menstruating woman has occupied. Hindus must bathe and change their clothes if they come in contact with women in this “impure” state. Even in more secular pockets of the world, many couples—both men and women—believe it is wrong to have sex when a woman has her period.