As much as we'd like to blame Anchorman for making this viral, the fact is that there are people out there who are curious about what happens when women who go camping during their periods. And does that make them a shining red beacon for bears to come and attack?



Thankfully, we have University of Illinois Anthropologist Dr. Kate Clancy to explain all this. The good doctor is somewhat of a "period expert", as she literally studies periods and their role in human history. In a fascinating column for Scientific American, she explains that scientists have already found that periods don't attract all bears in a groundbreaking 1991 study's called "Reactions of black bears to human menstrual odors". Fascinating.

So why does society seem so fascinated about what happens in the wilderness during our periods? As Dr. Clancy notes, such misgivings aren't based on actual wildlife attraction to or aversion of human menstruation. Periods only caused problems for women in the wilderness if they're part of a tribe that relies on hunting and gathering for food, or if that tribe happened to follow a culture that excluded women from hunts because of the idea that periods makes them somehow "unclean".

Hopefully this will finally settle the matter once and for all. So feel free to go camping with your big box of tampons, because the bears probably don't give a shit.