The myth of the PMS is nothing but a vestige of the deeply patriarchal mentality that saw women as overtly emotional and fragile creatures who were controlled by their unpredictable and uncontrollable physicality. This is self-evident to anybody but those who have bought into the myth. Here, however, is scientific proof:
“The idea that any emotionality in women can be firstly attributed to their reproductive function — we’re skeptical about that,” Dr. Sarah Romans told me, skeptical said with audible restraint.
She and eight other researchers at the medical school at the University of Toronto published a review last week in the journal Gender Medicine that looked at all of the clinical research they could find to date on PMS with prospective data. Their conclusion was that the articles, in aggregate, “failed to provide clear evidence in support of the existence of a specific premenstrual negative mood syndrome.”
Romans isn’t saying that the mood symptoms we attribute to PMS aren’t real and common. But she is saying that those symptoms are culturally over-attributed to the menstrual cycle.
By pure chance, I recently found myself at a discussion board where different methods of contraception were talked about. The board scared me, to be honest.
“I went on the pill and became very emotional.”
“I went off the pill and became a total psycho bitch.”
“I never was on the pill, so why am I so psychotic and emotional?”
After 20 pages of comments about women’s uncontrollable emotions, I was beginning to wonder if I was even female. Then I saw the following comment which was a breath of fresh air on that uncontrollably emotional discussion board:
“I went on the pill and it made me fat and angry. So I went off the pill and realized that I was simply a fat bitch.”
It’s time to let go of the culturally constructed myth that women’s physiology has anything to do with uncontrollable emotions:
“PMS has been called a culture-bound syndrome in North America, and there are huge cultural differences in terms of how readily that explanation is reached for.” There aren’t, to her knowledge, cultures where a notion of PMS isn’t a consideration.
I know at least one such culture. When I was growing up, nobody heard we were supposed to have PMS or anything of the kind, so nobody had it. Then American companies started importing their menstruation-related medication and paying for endless ads aiming to convince us that we had to start suffering from these invented syndromes as soon as possible.
Clarissa's Blog 
I never viewed PMS as causing uncontrollable emotions. The fact is though, it clearly affects, to one degree or another, pretty much every woman I know personally.
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Read the article. PMS does not exist.
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Of course, one article confirms what you have known all along, it doesnt exist. I will remember to tell that to all the women who tell me it does.
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Please read what you are commenting on, OK?
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>>>The review doesn’t discount the organic nature of cyclic moods, but it does suggest that hormonal fluctuations related to the menstrual cycle aren’t definitively or regularly to blame. And “when there is a menstrual cycle tie-up,” Romans explains, “it’s actually perimenstrual — the premenstrual (3-5 days before menstruation) and the menstrual phases together — not purely premenstrual.”
This seems to be saying that the feelings associated with PMS are biologically based, but it’s more complicated than people believe.
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I am inclined to believe this article. We are indoctrinated to believe that women go crazy before or during the period since early childhood. I recall a scary children’s book in which the mother turned into a dragon once per month. No wonder that we will are all prone to remember the times when we had a bad mood or a headache at that time of the month. Humans are always looking for patterns even if none exists.
I have the impression both men and women are very eager to keep this myth alive. It is an excuse for women to show their suppressed anger once per month, and excuse for men to believe that women are not really to be taken seriously and also that they “don’t mean it” if they yell at them once per month (hint: they mean it).
About the pill: I have now changed the pill 5 times and each time I freaked out because I came across such forums. I myself found absolutely no difference in my mood with different pills.
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“I have the impression both men and women are very eager to keep this myth alive. It is an excuse for women to show their suppressed anger once per month, and excuse for men to believe that women are not really to be taken seriously and also that they “don’t mean it” if they yell at them once per month (hint: they mean it).”
– I agree completely.
“About the pill: I have now changed the pill 5 times and each time I freaked out because I came across such forums. I myself found absolutely no difference in my mood with different pills.”
– Same here! 🙂
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I found a difference in my mood when I started on Birth control pills: Happiness and relief that I no longer had to deal with the anxiety of a potential unexpected pregnancy. 🙂
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I know the feeling. 🙂
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I don’t believe that PMS as usually portrayed (that is, a woman turning into a raving nightmare creature) exists, but it’s pretty clear that some mood changes are associated with the hormonal changes.
I can always tell when my girlfriend is about to have her period as she gets quieter, a bit more sensitive, and a bit listless. She herself admits this freely, and we joke about it. It really is a noticeable change, and it’s not something I or she minds or even think about much, but I simply don’t believe any studies that claim that there is no association.
The lived experiences of millions of women contradict this ideas. As science-based as I am, I’ll deny science over lived experience any time.
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“The lived experiences of millions of women contradict this ideas.”
– The lived experiences of millions of women in cultures where the PMS is constantly discussed differs greatly from the lived experiences of millions of women in cultures where the PMS is not discussed. The symptoms you enumerate are extremely easy to provoke by very mild auto-suggestion.
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BS!
If YOU read the article right “..culturally over-attributed to the menstrual cycle.”
it says over-attributed = exaggerated, does not mean it does not exists at all, because it does. Ridicules to even discuss/deny this; menstruation onset = hormon changes = mood changes. Not all woman are effected the same way and some woman obviously are more effected. Count your self lucky and move on!
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YES YES YES! It’s a clear instance of the placebo effect.
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I’m post menopausal and guess what, I get cranky sometimes. I wonder what causes that? Oh yes, it must be real life! But I had a real life before, nothing seems to have changed much except for an absence of periods. Hurrah!
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🙂 🙂
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“There aren’t, to her knowledge, cultures where a notion of PMS isn’t a consideration,”
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This is getting too bizarre. Try to read the post, OK? Just make an effort. You will then see that “her knowledge” is very limited in this case. Which is the entire point of my post.
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So which part of her information do you want me to believe?
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All of it. I’m sure she is completely truthful about everything she says.
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Could her knowledge(science) in regards to PMS also be very limited regardless of completely truthful she is?
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“Could her knowledge(science) in regards to PMS also be very limited regardless of completely truthful she is?”
– This person specializes in medicine, not in different cultures. You would know that if you read the post instead of spamming.
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That doesnt seem to hold you back, Spanish Professor. 😉
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And the spamming continues.
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