Female Adolescents Biology

Mnstruation is different for every girl, but women go about daily life, unless they have some sort of medical condition which causes debilitating periods. I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're asking. I go to the gym, take care of my kids/house/pets, go to school, out with friends, etc. While on mine.

As far as strength, it depends on the girl/ lifestyle. I was always outside playing, involved in sports, Doing yardwork etc. And was fairly strong. Most girls aren't really all that weak. My friends and I used to carry each other around frequently, just for fun or to prove we could.

Menstruation does not generally have meaningful gross bodily effects other than substances coming out of one's vagina. And while there is average gender differences in upper body strength there is heavy overlap. When I worked on a pig farm I could win an arm wrestling match with pretty much every guy I knew.

Women are people. Don't overthink it. If women really swooned on a monthly basis a lot of farming, laboring and generally getting the hell on with life would never have occurred.

Darkarma said:

Well I guess I should probably narrow it. Being forced to break into buildings of wood or stone make which would involve climbing up onto 2 or 3 story roof tops. While also being expected to having to deal with dealing with either killing or some how disabling rather large thug/bodyguards

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And having a period relates to this how? Being small makes climbing easier and beating people up harder, just based on physics. A knife would help with the latter.

Both a male and a female teen will have difficulty beating up large thugs/body guards. Heck, the average male would probably have a difficult time.

Veinglory, you're my hero so blunt

When I was that age, I actually did get debilitating cramps occasionally. Like, call my parents for a ride home from school so I could lie moaning in my bed waiting for either the ibuprofin or sleep to kick in.

To my awareness, this is more the exception than the rule.

As for climbing -- first, if she's smallish, she's probably got less of a body weight to arm strength ratio. Less mass to haul around. I'm thinking of how kids at the rock-climbing gym seem to have absolutely no limits, while I start to struggle on the overhangs, and my (larger) husband finds routes I can *just* manage to be almost impossible. When I was about 12 to 14, I was still arm-walking my way back and forth across the monkey bars; when I was 18, I wondered why I couldn't do it anymore.

Second, if she climbs smart, she's supporting herself with her lower body more than you might think. Say, she's climbing up the wall of a brick building. Say she sticks out a toe and wedges it between a couple bricks. She shifts her hips so that more of her body is over that foot, and that's more support from below and less strain on her arms right there.

Thirdly, anyone who spends a lot of time climbing will get stronger, more agile, more clever at managing their center of mass during a climb.

Seriously, if there's a climbing gym in your area, go visit. This is one place I don't see a lot of difference between the men and the women in ability. In fact, being short and relatively weaker is good for learning to climb -- it's been forcing me to learn finesse and strategy to get to the top of routes that taller, stronger climbers can just reach-and-muscle through.

That may have been more of a tangent about climbing than is actually helpful. Anyway, menstruating absolutely doesn't enter into it. Although i suppose, depending on what feminine hygiene aids your characters have available to them, she might find tending to things more inconvenient than we do. Modern tampons and adhesive maxi-pads are wonderful; medieval rag wraps maybe not so much.

I am not particularly athletic, so I don't know what's realistic in terms of upper body strength. As for beating up bodyguards, a weapon of some sort would probably be necessary. Some women do get debilitating periods, but most don't. You don't even have to mention her period at all.

Speaking as a woman who often has extremely painful periods, I'd advise you not to make a big thing of it. Most women don't have significant issues, and of those that do, most don't have them every month or even all throughout the period.

I may have a terrible night of leg-crampy, feeling-too-hot sleep the night before my period, and then swell in the chest and bloat around the guts, get cramps in my gut and legs the next day, but for most of the rest of the week I'm fine, just a bit bloated. At the same time, most women learn their cycle and plan around any problems. There have always been herbal teas and medicines to help women cope, which many (including me) still use today. Applying heat to the area, like with a hot water bottle, also helps. Your MC could easily go and pick up a variety of herbs to make teas with, and should by 15 know her cycle well enough to be able to plan around it if, and only if, she tends to have the odd painful day.

As to upper body strength, I couldn't say, but remember that gender differences don't exist on set lines. They are more like normal distributions like this...



You athletic, trained-from-youth female character could easily have more upper body strength than some men. And even if she doesn't, a childhood of training should at least make her better able to use the strength and agility she has more effectively than an untrained person.

I think you might be well served checking out some youtube videos of young female athletes, martial artists and sportswomen, especially in mixed gender settings, to get more of an idea.

I get fairly debilitating cramps every single time (FML!) and they were worse when I was a teen. I regularly missed one or two days of school when my periods came during the week. We're talking me, in bed, shaking and sweating, moaning, barely able to breath when the contraction was at its peak... I don't know from personal experience but I'm guessing it is not entirely dissimilar to giving birth, without the rush of happy hormones and a baby at the end of it... My sister passes out occasionally but luckily she doesn't get cramps that often and one of my BFFs spends most of her period puking but without pain so, lots of varieties.

To make this even better, mine don't respond to medication so bed and hot water bottle are the only helpful things.

Most of my friends got cramps too but they were manageable and they went on with their lives. Now I'm older, they still hurt and sometimes so bad I can't function but I'm better able to get on with things, it's a psychological thing. I'm not letting this get in my way! >_<

So it can be as debilitating as you need it to be for plot but I would say, unless you want her to break into whatever stronghold you want while dealing with terrible, gut-wrenching, scared of passing out and/or puking from the pain cramps, the more limiting factor, IMO, would be sanitary equipment. I'm assuming cloth "pads" and other primitive methods of protecting your clothes. I'm pretty sure they weren't as resistant to activity as modern day pads with the sticky backs and ultra-absorbent materials...

I hope this helps, I'm always happy to educate men on the delights of menstruation... even if you're not in pain, it's not fun.

Darkarma said:

The problem lies in I know upper body strength is not exactly a female attribute in grown women, much less a young adolescent of the same sex. What would be the typical limits of someone who was from essentially birth raised in an athletic and physically dangerous environment for a Venice like city.

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If you want to see what a small female is capable off then you should look at gymnastics videos, particualrly the bars, you'll get an indication of what a girl can do with her body. Also have a look at the floor displays, some of them are damn spectacular.

If she's trained and agile then she is going to be capable of a lot more than the average female.

And how debilitating would a menstruation be during physically stressful situations such as traveling, marching, burglary?

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Honestly, and I can only speak from my own experiences here. There is a weepy period a couple of days before a period comes, where everything is a little off and I tend to cry for no reason. My moods are weird and everything around me feels a little off centre.

During my actual period the first day cramps are horrific and I just want to lie down somewhere quiet. I have no energy at all. Not only that, but my lower back hurts too - something to bear in mind.

After the cramps stop, even when there's still bleed, it's not really a problem and you can get on with life just fine. You might be a bit more tired than normal, and you worry about leaking, but other than that, life is the same.

Darkarma said:

I admit ignorance on the subject described above. Probably doesn't help that my one main female friend was rather debilitated by them.

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Yeah, that's the thing. Never act like they must be no big deal for every woman, either. I have endometriosis, and I swear my periods would knock a Viking down with the pain.

However, even I can usually take a handful of pain meds and do what I've got to do. Codeine and muscle relaxants, though. I've had doctors try suggesting Motrin (male doctors only, and that makes sense in this case). It's kind of unreal how badly it can hurt!

On the meds, I still puke. I probably wouldn't have chosen to be a warrior or anything, since it does come up fairly frequently

The climbing should be no problem as long as there are also footholds. She'll just use her legs and core more than many men would. Pullups and that sort of thing may be a problem, depending on her body type, and if she has to carry things at the same time.

shaldna said:

If you want to see what a small female is capable off then you should look at gymnastics videos, particualrly the bars, you'll get an indication of what a girl can do with her body. Also have a look at the floor displays, some of them are damn spectacular.

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I was going to suggest the exact same thing.

I think for things like climbing, the increased flexibility that most females have, combined with her low body weight, would probably make her better equipped for the task than most men. You don't need to be super-strong in your upper body in order to pull only your own body weight around, and her increased flexibility would let her use her legs way more. If she's carrying heavy tools or loot around, it might be more of an issue, just as a burden:body weight ratio.

And depending on how small she is, you could look into delayed menarche (not getting her period) or at least irregular periods due to low body fat. It's pretty common in elite gymnasts. But you could also probably just not mention her period... it's pretty often glossed over in fiction.

For fighting, she'll need to have specific techniques that take advantage of her abilities and diminish her weaknesses, and I think you'll have to decide where on the 'realism' spectrum you want your story to fall. I know that I'm getting a bit tired of reading about tiny women beating up strong, trained men; it just doesn't ring true to me, in most circumstances. But I see it frequently enough that I assume others must disagree, so I guess it's your call.

I agree with Captcha. If she's lean, she might have very light, very rare periods. Essentially you could make this a total nonissue (haha, non-issue!), to a mild inconvenience, to complete debilitation based on the needs of your story.

This is the second thread in a day that's made me gnash my teeth because it implies being female makes one so "weak" they can't even do the most basic things, such as climb, or pull a bow.

"Women's work", as it were, in a medieval setting would have involved a lot more physical labor than it does in the modern world. Lifting, bending, scrubbing, hauling water, beating your laundry on a rock, everything done by hand or the strength of your own back, these were not "weak" tasks.

My mother was 5'3, 130lbs, and she tossed 80lb hay bales around like they were nothing. She was also an avid rock climber.

Scaling a wall takes skill, and is a lot more evenly matched between the sexes then, say, arm wrestling.


The period thing would depend on the individual. At seventeen mine were nothing more than a messy inconvenience. Cramps were rare, and it didn't hold me back in the least.

Darkarma said:

I rather it happen in a thread than my manuscript due to ignorance. I've tried to supplement with research but finding said knowledge seems oddly lacking. I thought a forum full of people who have real life experience would be rather more likely to correct any inaccuracies may I have. Having the knowledge doesn't mean I know how to apply it properly and to what degree.

My apologies if that's what it sounded like I was trying to imply however.

Again my thanks to everyone who has responded.

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No worries.

I didn't mean to sound like I was angry with anyone, especially since they were asking for the purpose of learning more.
It's just one of those misconceptions that is so prevalent it makes me beat my head against the wall in frustration every time I see it.

Since it's fantasy, why apply the nitty gritty details of the real world to it?

Also worth suggesting... you're 25, presumably you know some women. Parents, friends, coworkers, students, other relatives, etc. Do you know no women other than your friend with the terrible periods you could ask about things like body strength? No athletic women you know, or even just sufficiently slim, petite women?

Just saying, you could get way better information from people you know, who will be able to go into depth more and talk in more detail with you, than from us internet people.

Others have answered the strength issue, so I'm just going to tackle the menstruation one.

Yes, some women have debilitating cramps. Yes, some women get emotional because of the hormones. The thing to keep in mind here is...unless these things are somehow important to the plot, you'd be better off not putting them in your manuscript. Mentioning that your character experiences these things, when it's not central to the plot, is likely going to have your female audience getting very upset with you.

Women menstruate; it's a basic fact of life. Calling attention to it is going to be taken as implying that women are somehow weaker than men because they menstruate. (The female body is very politicized, by both men and women. If your intent is not to dive into that, then you're better off just backing away.)

And as someone said, you're writing a fantasy novel. There's no reason why women in your world might not have evolved differently, and menstruation doesn't exist.