The Alpha Female
by Glenn Grant
It was a winter evening at Palmer, late enough for most of the crew to be asleep. The sky had been overcast for weeks and the gloom was settling into every corner of the station. I lit a fire in the galley wood stove and huddled in the softest chair, waiting for it to warm the room. After a few minutes a friend wandered into the galley, made herself a cup of tea, and sat across from me. We talked.
Outside the window the clouds parted and a full moon emerged. Moon beams shot down like spotlights to illuminate icebergs, and patches of open water sparkled in the night. It was beautiful, and unexpected. I commented that I had not known the moon was full.
She said, "I knew."
That made me think.
Men tend to live their lives without regard to "biorhythmic" cycles. Male monthly hormonal trends, if there are any, are drowned under the pressures of poor nutritional habits, stress, denial, and the wash of testosterone that colors their perceptions. One day is pretty much like the next, and if their bodies change slightly at a certain time of the month, they have no reason to think about it.
Women, on the other hand, are much more aware of such things. Or at the least, their monthly cycles are not so easily ignored. Menstrual cycles. The Moon. Women. Other women. How many were there on station? Not too many, a half dozen or so. All living in the dorms, working together.
A question bubbled to the surface. I didn't know how to ask it, but it would not be denied. I knew women discussed such things among themselves, girl-talk. But for a guy to ask something like this was, well, not... To hell with it, I had to find out.
"Uh," I said. Good beginning. "The women on station. I'm curious. I've read that when women work closely together their monthly cycles begin to sync-up. Do you know..."
She finished the question for me. "Does it happened here? Yeah." There was an implied Didn't you know? at the end.
The moon was still bright. There was a long, quiet pause in the conversation.
She broke the silence. "I was just talking about that with --", indicating one of the other women on station. "She's really pissed-off because her period is all screwed up." I had caught part of that conversation in passing, but had not thought anything of it. A lot of little bits and pieces were coming together.
When researchers study wolves, for example, the lead female wolf is called the alpha female. The alpha male leads the pack, and mates with the alpha female. This is natural for wolves, but the same traits in human social structures could make it a touchy issue. Suddenly a new layer of the station's social dynamics came into focus.
"Do you know who they're syncing-up with?" Another sensitive question that was really none of my business. And somehow I already knew the answer.
There was another long pause in the conversation. The fire crackled and the wind picked up outside, tearing the clouds apart and making the flag snap.
"Yeah. My period is the only one that hasn't changed." She said she hadn't mentioned it to any of the other women. She found it somewhat embarrassing, and thought they might give her a hard time about it. After seeing how much the menstrual disruption irritated one of her co-workers, I could understand her concern. There was no obvious reason why they should sync-up rhythmically with this particular woman; the choice was made by nature, without regard to the workforce hierarchy or overt social standing.
I was awestruck by the implications of this. Within a relatively short time, and with only small hormonal cues, the entire female population of the station had synchronized menstrual cycles, biologically electing one woman as the alpha female. Did the same thing happen to the men? If so, how would anyone know it?
It's probably a good thing that male monthly cycles, if they exist, are invisible. I could foresee troublesome social pressures at isolated stations if there was an obvious alpha male, naturally-selected rather than socially nominated. Still, was there any way to determine which man was the alpha male even if the physiological changes were absent?
I thought about it some more.
She finished her tea and said she was going to bed.
And I knew who the alpha male was.