Menstruation determining who's alpha in groups of female friends?

[JuRtLy]

My friend and I are having a discussion. She heard that in groups of girlfriends, the one who naturally leads the group, typically your alpha, is the one who menstruates first of all the girls. In addition to that, they eventually begin to menstruate around the same time.

Is any of this true?

 

[Gypsi]

It's called "menstrual synchrony" and was first studied in the 1970s I think, by McClintock. However the McClintock and many other studies can be considered flawed, and more reliable studies have failed to provide conclusive evidence one way or the other, or find it occurring in some groups of women but not others. So, scientists are also considering which scenario - women falling into the same cycles, or not - would make most sense or be most "valuable", survival wise.

All that aside, it's a phenonenon women do notice themselves.

 

[ElectricFetus]

One could suppose the nature of the contradictory evidence that it might best point toward only some women capable of synchronization.