This makes a lot of sense and is also really alarming. It's amazing that the human brain can construct these kinds of responses in our body from societal norms. During my undergrad I took a human sexuality class where we were taught the same thing that pms is pretty much a social construct.

For me, I notice that the week before I get my period, I get really emotional. Not about things in my life, but like if I'm watching t.v. I kid you not I have teared up during commercials the week before I get my period but it doesn't transfer over to other aspects of my life. I don't get mad at my SO for little things or freak out about bills, I just might cry during an episode of House. If there were really something biological going on, I would probably be more emotional about everything that week.

Great post.

Wow, what a fantastic post. I often have thought I'm different, because I can't say I've ever had any of the symptoms I've been told I would get, no depression, no anger, none of it. I understand that women who do have these symptoms are obviously legitimate, but even if PMS is 'real', the understanding we have of it as a culture (i.e. the understanding men have of it) is mostly a load of BS. For instance, that it makes a woman irrational or liable to make stupid decisions. I have no idea why men consider women to be over emotional and irritable (hey, try putting up with what we have to deal with from patriarchy every day and see how it affects you...) when men have hormonal cycles the same way women do, and you only have to look at day to day interactions more closely to see who is the aggressive of the two, because culture allows them to be. Only, it's okay for a MAN to be aggressive, so no one notices.

This is fascinating to me. For a few years, I experienced horrific PMS symptoms (I guess what would be called PMDD) like insomnia, depression, and mood swings for an average of two weeks every cycle. My period was really irregular and always late; I'd never have any idea when it was coming and didn't bother to track my cycle (figured, what's the point?) but when I'd notice I was having trouble sleeping and feeling really upset, I'd count the days and realize that my period was late again.

I definitely agree with much of what you said, like that pharmaceutical companies take advantage of the idea of PMS to create new products to market to women and that PMS is often used to undermine and marginalize women. I have no doubt that social construction plays a huge role in PMS and our experiences of it, but I think I have trouble reconciling my own experiences with the suggestion that it's entirely socially constructed. I think it certainly warrants more study, and I always like reading posts like yours that problematize and question something I think many of us don't often examine closely.

Thank you for posting this. I get so sick of hearing people say "oh she's just PMSing"--especially when it comes from other women. Sometimes I feel as if we have to fight for the right to anger just as much as reproductive freedom and equal pay.

Personally, I'm not convinced. For all that PMS is a widely known phenomenon, it's also widely under-diagnosed and callously dismisssed. I've been to several doctors who have refused to take seriously the horrendous pains I get around my period: the vomiting, the intense cramps, the diarrhea (not to overshare). While I can accept the idea that women are "expected" to be moody and weepy around menstruation, and that can be problematic for the reasons you state, symptoms as extreme as these - and they aren't that unusual - are simply not part of the cultural framework. I've experienced a lot of bemusement and scorn for explaining that I can't go to school/work because of these symptoms: the usual response is "oh, it can't be that bad." So your statement that PMS phenomena "exist only because the members of a society implicitly agree to behave as if they do" seems kind of off-base to me.

Just my opinion. I hope I haven't misunderstood your argument!

This was a very interesting post, but I question the points concerning the medical community. I just finished reading "The Speculum of Ignorance: The Women's Health Movement and Epistemologies of Ignorance" by Nancy Tuana and it has really opened my mind to how women's health is treated in the United States. I don't believe the lack of sound medical basis for PMS points to PMS being socially constructed. What is your source that PMS has been thoroughly researched? Tuana states in her article that women's health is often ignored unless it deals directly with reproduction which although PMS concerns the reproductive tract it is not always studied because it does not affect conception. Also, although this is anecdotal information which I hate using, but the professors at the University of South Dakota don't even teach PMS in the medical school classes and tell the students just to read the information in the textbook. How can we expect to know whether PMS is socially constructed or a true medical condition if the doctors that are treating us are not taught about it? Not only that, but our future doctors and medical researchers see their professors and mentors treating PMS as something that can be just skimmed over, not a serious medical condition. It sends the message that this portion of women's health is not worth their time and therefore doctors and medical researchers don't need to do further studies on PMS.

I liked your points concerning the negative consequences of not having PMS defined in our society. This article definitely opened my mind to a new way of looking at public portrayal of PMS and women.

While I understand what you're trying to say about how PMS is used as a social excuse to dismiss women, I doubt that the emotional swings and everything are "all in the mind"... But I guess that you do have a point about it being a social construct: everyone experiences certain psychological/physiological symptoms according to a roughly monthly cycle, but it's "normalised" for women while men aren't expected to report this? Which would be in keeping with some scientific studies that've shown men experience similar symptoms monthly. In which case, something that's not unique only to women is used to further stigmatise women?

I hope I understand you aright! Still, very interesting post :)

I've also heard some evidence pointing to the fact that pain in childbirth is a similarly social construction. It would be interesting to know how we would react to our bodies if we were brought up in a space that loved them.

Five Stars, the smartest entry I've ever seen on feministing.

A good way to explain it would be to say "it's not in your head, it's in our head." Just because there's no grounding in objective science, doesn't mean something is not subjectively real. We're a culture that assumes that if something is relative, it must be in some sense fictional (opinion vs. fact). This is entirely false. The world is present to you only by the means of cultural filters, whether they be widely accepted scientific theories, political philosophies, or cultural norms, and what we call objective is merely those things we can agree upon.

This doesn't mean everything is relative. To the contrary, we can only form opinions about things which objectively exist in some way to begin with (even if its a verbal suggestion). But the way a thing exists in the world may allow for radically diverging experiences (called "myths" or "beliefs" by insiders or outsiders respectively) or they may allow for a very narrow range of experiences (so-called "hard science"). Opinion and Fact are two sides of the same coin (experience) and there's always a little of each in the other.

This is a point I've been hammering on in philosophy for sometime, and it's refreshing to find it so eloquently stated in Feminism. Now, if only this argument had corollaries in the philosophies of History and Physics, human intelligence might get somewhere.

As for the proof that menstruation is subjective, I'm doubtful at points: the lingering notion that menstruating women are unclean probably has more roots in religion (Judaism, then Christianity) than in direct oppression, and the lack of evidence for PMS is true for many female-specific medical phenomena (it's the reason we don't have Viagra for women yet), but it is certain that much of what we call PMS is the society-wide placebo effect of telling women they're grumpy when they're "on the rag."

i also am not completely convinced. sadly, there are a lot of things about women's reproductive health that aren't fully explained medically, and perhaps the issue on PMS is less 'its not real' and more 'theyre not really looking'. while i can appreciate your arguement, I just can't imagine that the symptoms I feel shortly before and during my period (very similar to you capillary!) and have felt since I got my period at the age of 9 are explained by the PMS is a social constuct theory. It's not socially acceptable or explained away by "oh it's ok... she's just PMSing" when I have to run out of class to go vomit. What has helped this symptoms? Taking hormonal BC.

I can see how "she's just PMS-ing" can definitely be a way of discounting or misplacing a woman's symptoms of depression, but I do not think this is the case for all women and all cases of PMS.

Sorry for the choppy post, had to reply quickly with bad grammar and such.

Capillary, are you experiencing these symptoms during your period, or during the few days/weeks before your period? I only ask because generally the PMS definitions designate that the symptoms must occur 2-14 days before the period, and that menstrual symptoms are not in PMS. I tend to have some of those symptoms during my period, and they really do suck (I have passed out from cramps before, which I was informed by a doctor was caused by cervical dilation) so I can completely understand how it would seem to not be due to a societal framework. But at the same time, if you're experiencing symptoms during your period and not actually before its onset, I'm not sure that your symptoms would fall under the blanket of PMS.

The major problem I have with PMS being considered a medical condition is that to me it implies that the way Western women's bodies work is just inherently unhealthy. When kittens are born, their eyes and ears are still closed, and yet we don't call that a sensory disorder. It's just how it happens naturally. By the same token, if PMS symptoms are a naturally occurring phenomenon, it seems odd to me that we as a society would diagnose it as something abnormal and in need of fixing. If, however, it were culturally induced, and wasn't a truly natural occurrence, then it would make sense for doctors to try to treat it in the idea of "fixing" women who were having these symptoms for no reason. I just find that so much of the way we treat PMS is based on "common sense" judgments and not sound medical and scientific inquiry, and I really wish more attention were paid to finding not only the causes of PMS symptoms, but also an actual standard of what those symptoms are (since much of the information I've found on PMS basically says, "we don't know what the symptoms are." Seriously though, I saw that CREATIVITY was listed as a "symptom" of PMS.)

This is a really interesting theory. I did a cursory search and found a few citations of a study that had equal success in symptom supression with drugs and placebo. I'm curious as to how much more would be out there if the drug companies didn't have so much power.
On my search I also an across some writings of women that will not accept this as a possibility because they experience discomfort, but to my understanding, the discomfort is very real- it's the cause that's misidentified. If women are feeling physical symptoms this bad, and the cause isn't what we assumed it is, then I hope that more research is done for the well-being of all of us.

Good question, Jill. I've also read reports of how under-researched women's health issues generally are. But I read an article a couple of yours ago by Paula Caplan, who also wrote the Ms. article on PMDD linked here, about this topic, and she claims that PMS has received a disproportionately large amount of research attention and funding because of the pharamceutical industry's belief that it's a potentially lucrative area. I can't find the article online, but I think I have a copy of it in a course packet from a Philosophy of Science course. I think the amount of research devoted to PMS is also referenced in this article.

Capillary, I only intended the phrase that you quoted above to be a description of social constructions in general. I guess as applied to PMS I would say instead that PMS, as a set of symptoms that are thought to be associated together and bio-chemically based, exists as a discrete phenomenon in our culture because we implicitly agree to behave as if it does. Does that help? I mean, I think it gets complicated when you're dealing with phenomena that involve the description and interpretation of behavior. I think that concepts like PMS become internalized in the self-conception of women through their socialization. This can cause them to interpret their experiences through this lens, and even to dismiss their own behavior as irrational at times. This really seems to me like an instance of the enemy getting into your head. But again, that doesn't mean that the experiences aren't real, just that the way we've been taught to view them is problematic.

You made a great argument here but I'm still not sure about this. The day before I got my first period, I had a meltdown on the bus ride home. I won't give all the details but I'll say there was screaming and even hitting. I didn't know on any level that my period was coming.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

While I do think that women experience PMS, just differently from each other, I agree that much of what we see it as is a social construct. Now, to post a horror story related.

I was listening to the radio on my way to work, and of course they said something to piss me off. It was some quiz thing, and eventually, the question "What woman's ailment is the herb *blahblahherb* used to treat?" I could feel it coming. The man replied "menstruation", and the radio DJ said "Actually it's PMS, but that's close enough." I was so furious they said that the two were the same, and it made it worse they called either of those an ailment.

Thanks, Marcus! And I don't know much about Philosophy of Physics, but you might find a corollary in the history realm in Anthony Appiah's view of race as a social construction. And I guess I always interpreted the post-modern/Foucaultian "tracing a genealogy" method to be sort of a critique of various historical concepts and the way historians deal with these kinds of categories (race, gender, etc) that are thought to belong to the "natural" world.

My concern about this was addressed by Sothenna, so thank you, Sothenna. I experienced debilitating cramps/vomiting/passing out on the first day of my period for years before going on BC, so I've always been skeptical of the idea that PMS is a social construct, but your comment gives me the ability to think about this differently.

I never experienced mood issue (unless you count being in a terrible mood from feeling like I was being stabbed in the gut once a month), so I've always wondered when my friends talk about their mood swings if they're not actually just genuinely stressed or upset about something and are feeling like attributing it to PMS is expected/acceptable/etc. I have one close friend who swears she has PMDD because she's moody and stressed and frustrated every day of the month, but I've always wondered why she doesn't attribute that to her type-A personality. The expectations she places on herself, the stuff she tries to cram into her day, and the way she insists she has to get everything perfect the first time around - well, that'd give me month-long symptons generally attributable to PMS, too!

I've done things too, where I'm suddenly, very randomly, crying at an episode of television, but I've never considered that anything except, "Wow, that really affected me." I wonder what would happen if we gave more validity to how we're feeling without trying to explain it away - would we still see PMS, or would it disappear?

Lots of things for me to ponder, thanks for the post.

Excellent, excellent post! I'm a grad student in sociology and I study the body. There is so much about the body that is a social construct, including PMS.

I think an important point to note about social constructionism is that things that are socially constructed are take for-granted as "real".

It's not that PMS isn't "real" subjectively on some level, its social meaning isn't fixed.

Actually, it's funny, I've noticed since I've been on the pill there are times when I want to attribute something to PMS and then I realize that I haven't stopped the pill yet so even though I know I'm having my period in a week, my body can't tell that yet.

There are times when I have mood swings that are short and intense and irrational. They feel like they must be due to something more than just me being upset, but they don't always happen before my period. So I can really see how I would just have these weird mood swings and attribute them to PMS because it fit my understanding of how women's emotions are supposed to work. They're probably just due to stress. The way stress can affect me is becoming more clear to me now since I realized that sometimes when I cry without actually feeling that sad it's because my body needs to relieve stress.

On the other hand, I also have debilitating cramps, and I know those are biologically real. But as noted above, that's not PMS, it's a physical part of having your period.

It's also worth mentioning that our expectation of PMS can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, which could explain some very real experiences of it that some might have.

This is an interesting theory for sure, but like others I remain skeptical in some ways. For me, I keep track of my menstrual cycle based only on how I feel. It never fails me that two to three days before beginning menstruation (no matter if I am early/late or wildly irregular) I will feel different and it prompts me to begin carrying supplies with me and to be more careful of my logical/emotional exhibited state. I'd love to see more research on the effects of the hormonal flux on the body and how that translates to how women feel physically and how they translate that mentally.

Very interesting post. I like how careful you were not to discredit individual women's feelings.

Myself, I believe there might be something to PMS, but the following factors are making it impossible to identify:

- Conflation of the pre-menstrual period with the menstrual period. If you are vomiting on the first day of your period, that is menstrual, and it's pretty damn obvious that we do in fact have some serious business going on when we are *menstruating*. The question is about *pre-menstrual* issues.

- Conflation of "I was not menstruating yet" with "The blood hadn't made its way out of my uterus yet." I consider it very, very possible that a woman who reports symptoms on the first day of her period, before she knows that she is having her period, has actively started to menstruate, and it just hasn't visibly shown up yet.

- A very small set of women who have objectively real symptoms, vs. a very large set of women who have been trained to believe that it's only okay to be angry if you're menstruating or about to menstruate. Statistical noise can obscure any real effect there might be.

But it is absolutely significant that we have this notion in our culture that women are "emotional", men are "rational", that women have "hormones" and men don't, because when objective studies were done of men and T-levels, we found that testosterone rises and falls *constantly* in men in response to emotional situations, particularly positive or negative stressors. But men don't bleed, so no one sees it. (as for women are emotional, men are rational: 90% of all murders are committed by men. If there is a dichotomy, it is that women are more empathic and more easily sad; men are more easily angry and less influenced by the emotions of others, which makes them *more* emotional half the time as they cannot be modulated by someone else's calming effects. And all of this is cultural, in my opinion. But you can't call the people who commit almost all the violence in the world "rational". You just can't.)

I know that I personally idealize rationality and Vulcan states of non-emotion, so *every* time I have a persistent emotional state it seems to me that it comes out of something unrelated to emotion but related to my health. I'm menstruating. I'm tired. I'm tired *and* menstruating. There's not enough light. My birth control pills are making me crazy. Blah blah blah. I mean, there's truth to it (the birth control pills really did make me crazy, until I changed the prescription -- Prozac didn't completely stop the suicidal fantasies, but changing my BC *did*.) But is it rational for me to *always* pin feeling depressed on something taking place outside the realm of emotional states? So I can certainly see PMS being a convenient vehicle for a woman to explain her own feelings to herself without having to confront what's *really* bothering her.

Fabulous, fabulous post!

If anyone wants to learn more about the theory behind this concept, Lukács, a Hungarian Marxist, had a lot to say. His interpretation of reification might help you to understand this more. I love him.

Yes, yes, and many times yes.

I know that hormones can effect the way that you feel (although if what the poster says is true and there isn't a hormone connection to PMS then that's another matter entirely), but I have never excepted the excuse "my hormones made me do it." I hear it from women apologizing for acting like an ass, and I hear it from men who are trying to excuse their sexual abuse. We are human beings and what makes us human beings is our ability to think and overcome instinct and emotion. Of course humans are not perfect and everyone does idiotic things, but it's not because of your hormones, it's because you were weak or stupid or not thinking. This shitty excuse not accepted in the courts, and it shouldn't be accepted in everyday life.

And can I say how much it makes me want to scream when I hear someone write off a woman's thoughts or feelings because she's on her rag? RAR.

this is an amazing post, thank you rachel for taking the time to write about this.

while i've identified as a feminist since high school, there are still a lot of issues that i've never explored in much depth and PMS as a social construct is one of them. it has always struck me as odd that so many women report differences in the symptoms they suffer, and that PMS is in common parlance, an easy way to dismiss female emotion, especially anger. i've never personally noticed any of the psychological or emotional symptoms that fall under the umbrella of PMS, however, since i experience severe cramps on a regular basis, i figured that there must be something biological going on to justify the existence of PMS.

so yeah, thanks for writing all this out and making an excellent case for the idea that PMS is BS. i will definitely discuss this idea with other people i know.

xJane said: "I've also heard some evidence pointing to the fact that pain in childbirth is a similarly social construction."

It's not just pain in childbirth, it's all pain. People in some societies can endure surgery and teenage circumcision without anesthesia. A large fraction of the experience of pain is psycho-social in nature. We in the Western world, raised in a relatively comfortable environment, are particularly sensitive to pain.

rachel, you rock :)

Thank you so much for this post. I have always felt the same way regarding the medicalization of periods and PMS. It has just always struck me as odd that women's reproduction is one of the only natural human function which is treated as a "disease" or something to be fixed. I cringe any time my female friends attribute their bad mood or rude behavior to "hormones" instead of just facing up to the fact that they are upset and angry in general. Now endometriosis runs in my family, and the pain associated with that is very real, so I am not saying its all in our heads, but that does not mean that some of it isn't. I think the idea of PMS definitely has the two-fold outcome of allowing society to continue to marginalize us as emotional and hormonal, and allowing women to have an outlet for certain behaviors and excuse it away with, oh its PMS. Women should be able to be pissed off any time of month, and not have it poo-pooed as not their real feelings.

My husband came home the other night and mentioned this website to me, and it seemed to fit in beautifully with what you are discussing. I am curious what the thoughts are on it.

http://www.pmsbuddy.com/

While I see the argument against PMS as a mental disorder, I think it's harder to overlook the physical aspects of the problem -- when I've had two days of cramps, nausea, diarrhea and debilitating pain, I am, almost certainly, going to be more irritable and moody than usual; especially in a world where the response of the medical community to debilitating pain and suffering is 'take a tylenol and hope for the best.'

I have to echo that previous statement. I too have debilitating side effects with my period that usually last a week, and they are not pretty. I once had to crawl from my bed to my bath tub, literally CRAWL to relieve the intense pain with hot hot water. All of this is bound to make a woman a little cranky. However, what truly irks me is when you display any emotion whatsoever and it is automatically assumed that you are "PMSing".

Taenia, most of the symptoms you mention are during your period, so wouldn't technically count as pre-menstrual. But I think all the commenters who have mentioned the physical aspects of menstruation bring up a good point. With many of the research resources dedicated to the trendier PMS research, the kinds of studies that could actually be more beneficial to women get overlooked.

xJane and MZ, I read some stuff about this when I was pregnant, and it's an interesting topic. Most of the studies concluded that pain in childbirth is linked to societal expectations. While it's not the case that women in cultures where there's no expectation of pain don't feel some pain and discomfort, it is true that in cultures where childbirth is less medicalized and viewed as a natural and normal occurence, women report feeling less pain. There are also studies that link the amount of pain reported to the amount of stress the mother is under. So having bright lights in her face, a lot of strangers bustling in and out of the room, machines hooked up to her, etc. increase her discomfort, but having a woman-centered, calm environment where her voice is heard and her wishes are respected reduces her experience of physical discomfort. Just try explaining that to a patriarchal medical industry.

And Mariella, thanks!

Months after I first got my period, I spent the summer with my aunt. She asked me if I experienced cramps when I menstruated, something no one had talked about to me before. I told her no, having no idea what cramps were even like. During my very next menstrual cycle I experienced horrible cramps. Coincidence or psychological projection?

I am conflicted about the idea of PMS. I do believe that women's menstrual cycles are horribly pathologized in our culture, but I am not sure that the existence of social stigma detracts from a possible non-socially constructed reality of it.

My own experiences lead me to believe there is something real involved absent social constructs. After my first experience with cramps, I experienced cramps and nausea every menstrual cycle until I got on a fitness kick in college. When I was eating very healthily and exercising at least 4 times a week, the cramps and nausea ceased to exist leading me to believe that the symptoms had more to do with the health of my body than my perception of my cycle. Once I fell off the fitness wagon the cramps and nausea returned.

During the health kick, I also kept a journal of my diet and exercise as well as my menstrual cycle. Separately, I also kept a diary. Every two weeks after my period I would get depressed, and when my period returned I would be very happy. I knew something was wrong, and I started to wonder if I was bi-polar. It took a few years before I realized that my moods correlated with my menstrual cycle. I felt something was wrong before it ever occurred to me that my menstrual cycle could be related, so I know I was not being psychosomatic or projecting my problems onto my menstrual cycle. I was prescribed birth control, and I have been better ever since. While I greatly dislike people associating menstruation with bitchiness or moodiness, I did notice a significant difference between my actual emotions and the hormonal depression haze I experienced ever few weeks. It was very real, but is not, I think, very common among women.

I have to say I find this interesting, but not particularly convincing. Perhaps I've just had one too many Foucaultian post-modernists try to convince me that just about everything is a social construct.

First, patriarchal culture using PMS as an excuse to marginalize women would not necessarily preclude it from being a biological fact. It could be that it exists, and that it has subsequently been co-opted as a justification for behavior. Second, simply because no biological mechanism has been identified, that doesn't necessarily mean one does not exist. Finally, stress hormones are known to have an incredibly wide variety of physiological effects (see work by Robert Sapolsky on this, fascinating and very accessible). So if there were a biological cause for PMS, it seems very possible that stress could amplify the response.

Those are just thoughts off the top of my head. I'm certainly interested to hear where research goes with this, because at this point I don't think we have enough evidence to come to a very strong conclusion either way.

I hate hearing cultural reinforcements of this notion that PMS is some uniquely "feminine" outlet for undesirable emotions - as in Katy Perry's new song, "You PMS like a bitch, I would know."

Retaining this informal use of PMS ignores women's actual problems and reduces them to strange and inexplicable byproducts of menstruation.

@ WickedAnnabella

Well, I'll be the last to try to convince you that everything is a social construction, but in the case of PMS I think there are a number of compelling reasons, beyond the use of PMS as a marginalizing force.

In the original post I linked to a number of articles on the medical research behind PMS, but most of the academic articles I've read couldn't be linked because they require a password from an institution that subscribes. However, Emily Martin and Anne Fausto-Sterling have both written on this topic. Fausto-Sterling is especially thorough in examining the research and the cultural mythology behind concepts like PMS. Myths of Gender has a great section on PMS.

I think your point about stress hormones is consistent with a view that PMS is a social construct. Studies have shown that women who are under a lot of stress report experiencing the symptoms of PMS more regularly and intensely. I'm not sure why it makes sense to think that their emotional discomfort is caused by female hormones rather than stress hormones, particularly when men who are under a lot of stress often have the same experiences.

I also think the contrasting experiences of women from other cultures that do not share our cultural mythology about PMS is very significant. In anthropological studies of this, women from these cultures did not report these symptoms in any kind of a pattern that would link to menstruation.

And finally, the fact that the western medical establishment is now extending PMS to menopausal women, when their claim is that ovulation is what triggers the whole cycle, makes no sense at all. Actually, it makes perfect sense in an industry who's goal is to maximize profit and sell as many prescription meds as possible. But outside of that, this just doesn't make sense.

I can argue for both sides on this PMS discussion.

When I was younger and learning to get used to menstruating every month I didn't track my cycle on the calendar (I was in middle school, I had other issues on my mind, like: what am I going to wear to the dance on Friday?). And every month on the day I got my period I would think back to the week before and think, "So that's why I was so moody the other day". Was I blaming my emotions on PMS or was I experience the real deal? I want to say I suffer "real" pre-menstrual symptoms, and not just to be able to blame my emotions on a syndrome. To me, if menstruating did not come with hormonal imbalances and intense cramps, then what would be the point? I am a woman, and one thing I can have that men can't is cramps and hot-flashes once a month.

Now I track my period because I really like to know when I can expect blood soaking my panties when I wake up. And because of this I think I am almost 100% more aware of the state of my uterus and how it feels. When I know my period is due soon I, at times, have felt cramps a week ahead of the arrival of my blood flow. I don't care what any one else thinks, because I think some of my Pre-menstrual symptoms originate in my mind. Maybe it's because I want to get my period over and done with, so my mind creates symptoms of menstruation.

What about women with hysterectomies? Do they feel pseudo-symptoms once a month?

"If PMS was a disease or a syndrome there would be some underlying bio-medical cause,"

Two of the links you provide ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT the biomedical causes of PMS!! Hormones have known powerful and NUMEROUS effects on the brain and neurotranmitter systems. Stress does too, and the two systems (stress response systems and hormonal response systems) can interact in many ways. We don't know all the EXACT mechanisms in which hormones cause PMS, but there are many strong theories. Just like we don't know the EXACT mechanisms behind gravity, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The symptoms of PMS have been recreated by administration of the right mix of hormones. Just because there are numerous symptoms really doesn't say anything about the validity of PMS. Since hormones have so many effects on so many neurotransmitter systems we would actually expect this.

I say this as a neuroscientist and someone who does NOT experience PMS (my periods are almost non-existant). I do think way too much emphasis is put on PMS in our society and the public perception of it is deeply flawed and influenced by misperceptions and exaggerations. But to say that there is no biomedical cause or that hormones are not linked to PMS is horribly inaccurate and unacceptable.

"But to say that there is no biomedical cause or that hormones are not linked to PMS is horribly inaccurate and unacceptable"

I never said that hormones are not linked to PMS. But all of the research I've read says that science has been unable to identify a hormonal profile corresponding to PMS. The sources I linked to say that scientists think hormonal changes are the "most likely" cause of PMS. But none of the research they've done has been able to establish this. You know, there was a time when scientists thought that differences in brain size and structure were the most likely cause of women and blacks being inferior to white males. So I'm not really all that convinced by scientific conjecture that conveniently aligns itself with our culture's patriarchal attitudes and preconceptions.

I recommend Menstruation and Femal Behavior and Myths of Gender by Anne Fausto-Sterling for further reading on this topic.

I don't think PMS is a social construction. I think it's misdiagnosed because there isn't proper diagnostic criteria. Take me for example. I feel irritable for no apparent reason or get pissed off by things that normally don't bother me during the three or four days before my period, and I experience cramps one or two days before any blood shows up. I've concluded that these phenomena are pre-menstrual and not coincidental or part of some environmental factor, because these things only happen at that time of the month. But a lot doctors and other people will tell you that PMS symptoms can appear 2 weeks before periods start. That doesn't make much sense, because those "symptoms" are happening both 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after her period, so why is it exclusively pre-menstrual? Because that's what we're taught. Since I don't buy into the idea of "every time a woman gets pissed she must be PMSing, I think my symptoms are actually biologically based. I think doctors need to recognize that we live in a sexist society and develop diagnostic criteria that isn't based on sexist assumptions.

I'm not sure why it makes sense to think that their emotional discomfort is caused by female hormones rather than stress hormones.

It's pretty simplistic to assume that PMS could only be caused by one or the other. As jj above me says, both types of hormones can have a wide variety interacting effects on the human body.

As an example, glucocorticoids (stress hormones) can reduce immune response, so that if you're stressed, you're more likely to get sick. The bacteria or virus that infects you is still the root cause of your illness, but stress hormones increase your susceptibility. So it seems just as plausible that stress hormones could, through some pathway, amplify whatever underlying physiological mechanism causes PMS.

jj-if you come back, would you mind providing a link to the study where the symptoms of PMS were recreated? I have institutional access and it sounds very interesting.

You know, there was a time when scientists thought that differences in brain size and structure were the most likely cause of women and blacks being inferior to white males.

Simply because a small group of scientists a long time ago had screwed up ideas doesn't mean we should dismiss all scientific evidence. It's like using Valerie Solanas' ideas as a reason to dismiss all of feminism. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

@ WickedAnnabella

I don't believe I am dismissing all scientific evidence. It's just that, in this case, there really isn't any. And these scientific theories about race and gender aren't the only time when science has served to validate cultural attitudes. Before we had PMS we had hysteria, wandering uteruses, and neurasthenia, all of which have been disproven. This article features a full discussion of this topic, but you have to have a password to view the full text.

And I agree that hormones can interact. But in the absence of any evidence supporting the claim that female hormones cause any of these symptoms, it just seems more productive to move on to more promising research and to address the societal causes of women's stress, rather than attempting to medicate the problem away.

I agree with your post and thank you.

Now can we talk about the syndrome's that make men overly emotional, grumpy, and even violent?
like post losing game syndrome?
Too hot summer syndrome?
Lost job syndrome?
Lost anything the ego couldn't handle losing syndrome?

nothing compared to the "symptoms of PMS".

Wow, great post!

I actually wrote a poem about PMS awhile back and I will post it here...

PMS

To me PMS stands for…
Partially
Misunderstood in
Society
OR…
Primarily
Misrepresented
Sex
OR…
Pervasive
Matriarchy
Subjected
To be dishonored by society.

I'll buy your argument. I never experience PMS. Ever. I don't really think about it. Now, that isn't to say that I don't see my period coming. I'm fairly regular and can sort of pin point it. So as a social construct it's easier to blame my moodiness on hormones rather than working through them. I am often taken aback to how men will quickly forgive me for my moodiness too if I mention that I'm close to my period. On one aspect, it's great because it gets me out of trouble, but it's also terrible because it's sexist on both our parts. When this was first brought up on Feministing, I realized how dead on the reasoning was and how deeply sexism is entrenched in PMS. I no longer use PMS or my period as an excuse, although it is fairly tempting.

Also, you've given me a great argument to use against my otherwise enlightened sister when she says so-and-so should just "go take a Midol."

I did a quick google scholar search, and from what I can tell, there is quite a bit of research that points to a hormonal role in PMS, and it seems that you're being a bit disingenuous when you say there is not. A review paper which can be found here says "...considerable data support the relevance of estradiol and central serotonergic function in at least two mood disorders in humans, premenstrual syndrome and perimenopausal depression." It sounds like you have access through a university, so check it out if you can.

Is there a social component to PMS? I'd say that there's some interesting evidence pointing that way, yes. But there also seems to be evidence of a significant biological effects which shouldn't be ignored.

If anyone can't access the paper above and would like me to send a pdf, just give me your email address and I'll send a copy along.

Sorry, just to be clear, my last comment was directed at Rachel_in_WY.

WickedAnnabella, I'll check out that article when I have a minute. The two articles I read that investigated the role of estradiol said that it was only linked to about a quarter of the symptoms of PMS and the timing of fluctuations in estradiol levels often did not correspond with reported symptoms. This just seems like a really flimsy basis for claiming that PMS is caused by hormones. Especially when women who haven't internalized the concept of PMS don't report these symptoms even though their hormonal fluctuations are basically the same.

It seems far more likely that women interpret and report their experiences via the filter of the cultural conception of PMS that is deeply embedded in their self-conception. This is always an issue when the research subjects are self-aware agents who understand and interact with cultural norms and expectations. I know that this is a very unpopular view among scientists, but it seems absurd to deny that cultural attitudes and expectations influence and shape scientific research. Science does not occur in a cultural vacuum, and unless your subjects were raised by wolves, they will conceptualize their experiences via the gender norms of their culture.

Rachel,

I work in the sciences, and I don't know a single scientist who would deny that cultural attitudes and expectations influence and shape scientific research. In fact, most scientists recognize this, and work pretty hard to take it into account. That's why we have things like double-blind experiments! That's also why scientists continually question their conclusions and search for better answers.

A few more interesting papers I pulled up in my brief search:

Efficacy of selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors in premenstrual syndrome: a systematic review

Efficacy of vitamin B-6 in the treatment of premenstrual syndrome: systematic review.

These two reviews conclude that serotonin-reuptake inhibitors and B-12 reduce PMS symptoms compared to a placebo. If PMS were purely psycho-social, the placebo should have the same effect as the drug. That isn't the case in these studies, which points to a possible biological underlying cause.

And with that I'm out for now, thanks for taking the time to respond to me!

Rachel and others,

I am all for interrogating science and gender norms. However, I find this problematic:

It seems far more likely that women interpret and report their experiences via the filter of the cultural conception of PMS that is deeply embedded in their self-conception.

This sounds to me like, "Women have been brainwashed by the dominant ideology and are not capable of objectively assessing their emotions or patterns of behavior."

I am about as deprogrammed as they come, and I get PMS. Heck, I got PMS before I knew what PMS was (my mother never talked to me about periods when I was a kid).

@ AnatomyFightSong.

I'm truly not trying to deny anyone's experience here, and I think that your version of what I said is really oversimplified. We all live in a culture that views women as irrational, and female behavior as being frequently dictated by bio-chemistry. Regardless of what your parents tell you, it seems pretty unlikely that you're going to grow up in this culture without absorbing these attitudes and gender norms to some extent. So I guess I'm not trying to question whether you experience the things that are generally attributed to PMS in our culture. I'm questioning the concept of PMS itself and all the mythology that surrounds it.

You make some very interesting points, but at the end of the day from my own personal experience I think that PMS does exsist...Perhaps that in other cultures it is not as documented because of the simple reason that there are so many more cases of ADHD documented now...it isn't that there is necessarily more cases but now as a culture know what to look for...(although this isn't meant to start a discussion on the validity of that...I'm a teacher I know it to be a disorder)...and I cannot say anything for other women, but I don't track my period...frankly I forget about it until I start picturing stabbing annoying people I work with in the hand for reasons that are admittedly...thin...I also get folded over in pain, and even then until I start with the bloody I don't make a connection...

I'm not a scientist...and I've no desire to be, but it also seems to me that different hormones can react and cause different reactions in different women...some women never get morning sickness...and some women throw up for 3 or more months, but morning sickness isn't a social construct...as for the frequency (we are thinking that it isn't a word, but details)found in men and post-menopausal women...the frequency may be similar, but is the regurlarity of the symptoms equal to that of women?

But it is definitely interesting

You make some very interesting points, but at the end of the day from my own personal experience I think that PMS does exsist...Perhaps that in other cultures it is not as documented because of the simple reason that there are so many more cases of ADHD documented now...it isn't that there is necessarily more cases but now as a culture know what to look for...(although this isn't meant to start a discussion on the validity of that...I'm a teacher I know it to be a disorder)...and I cannot say anything for other women, but I don't track my period...frankly I forget about it until I start picturing stabbing annoying people I work with in the hand for reasons that are admittedly...thin...I also get folded over in pain, and even then until I start with the bloody I don't make a connection...

I'm not a scientist...and I've no desire to be, but it also seems to me that different hormones can react and cause different reactions in different women...some women never get morning sickness...and some women throw up for 3 or more months, but morning sickness isn't a social construct...as for the frequency (we are thinking that it isn't a word, but details)found in men and post-menopausal women...the frequency may be similar, but is the regurlarity of the symptoms equal to that of women?

But it is definitely interesting

Just a funny story...
I was talking to my fuck-buddy (self-label) today while we were driving about this. I was like, 'today I came across the theory that pms is a social construction'. Now he ain't the brightest bulb there is, but he was like, 'I'm not sure I agree. Sometimes I think PMSing is just an excuse' referring to his ex, who was basically the anti-feminist ultra-damsel-in-distress. Which basically means he agrees, which I told him. He was like, 'Wait, what?' and then I explained it. He's such a cutie. He respects feminism, but sometimes I have to explain it. Normally I'd be annoyed that I have to explain feminism, but I'm happy he listens...

I loved this post. I was a Sociology major and a W omen's Studies minor. Social constructs play a huge part of our lives and most of us do not even realize it. Thank You!

A really interesting idea. Whilst I agree that Society does use PMS as a way of controlling or oppressing women (see that PMS Buddy site above as the perfect example), I'm afraid my personal experience contradicts the author.

I am particularly sensitive to changes in my hormone levels. I reacted badly to every single contraceptive pill I tried when I was younger, the worst of the symptoms being depression. My mood shifts with changes in my cycle, and like the previous poster I know when to start carrying my diva cup without looking at a calendar.

But the biggest evidence for me is when I was pregnant and nursed my two children. For 18 months each time I was free of my period, and free of PMS. Now the morning sickness I suffered during pregnancy, that's another story, but funnily enough, another hormone related ailment that I have experienced.

Forgive me, as I haven't read through all 57 comments preceding mine, but people here seem very generally to be forgetting this concept: "In countries which don’t have a construct corresponding to the Western idea of PMS, women don’t report experiencing the symptoms in any pattern tied to mentruation" which is expressed throughout the post in several ways. I don't think the point is that women don't experience the symptoms of PMS, but that there is no concrete linking between the symptoms attributed to PMS and the menstrual cycle (while individual women may see patterns that relate their own symptoms to their own cycles there is no universal correlation between the two). If that makes any sense at all.

I understand that women's emotions are to often trivialized or dismissed as merely "PMS" but PMS is a real condition. I don't really understand how you can say otherwise if you've had your period, unless you have very easy cycles. I get terrible cramps, to the point where I literally can't move. Being told that this " is a social construction" is not helpful.

Also, I was never aware what PMS was really as a young teen, but I started bursting into tears in class at a certain time every month.
Once again, while not every woman might have PMS, a lot of women do, and I think it is unfair to dismiss our experiances.

I have to agree very strongly with jj, WickedAnabella, AnatomyFightSong and sfgirllives. I'm actually quite devastated by this post. I've had a chronic illness that has left me housebound for years. I am in agonising pain every day, and profoundly exhausted all the time. I'm really shaken up reading this type of thinking on here (both the post and some replies, especially those bordering on New Age territory suggesting certain pain would not exist if we regarded our bodies differently), because it's so similar to the type of ideology I've come across again and again to do with my illness, and I always associated it with an oligarchical medical industry. It has caused me to suffer more than I needed to, both because research efforts look in the wrong direction by looking for psycho-social causes, and because it being mistakenly regarded as non-physiological in etiology means it has been invalidated by the doctors/(ex-)friends/strangers who don't understand how what I go through could possibly be so bad.

I do understand all the points you're making, I just think they're very flawed though I lack the energy right now to pull up resources to make convincing arguments against certain assertions, particularly the medical research you cite. I understand you don't intend to trivialise what women go through, but theories like this do trivialise physical-based syndromes. I just really caution against the real harm that can be done (harm in the form of complete erosion of confidence in those who suffer misunderstood diseases/syndromes by feeling they don't have the full support and belief of others in what they go through, feeling isolated, feeling further stress which can help worsen the syndrome/disease) by espousing something is any type of construct - social or psychological - just because medical science does not yet have all the answers. Or that there are more answers than those without scientific backgrounds can properly do justice to. I think there's a danger of coming from one discipline and being conclusive in something that is the realm of that discipline (e.g. social construct) without having the scientific grounding and expertise that allows you to weigh up all the research. There's also the danger of finding things to support an argument you already believe in strongly, and in this case I don't feel the medical evidence cited here reflects the broad range of research out there.

As some have cited, there are many studies out there showing hormonal causes of PMS. And importantly, just because it's not a homogeneous syndrome does not mean it's not a syndrome or disease. This itself is a misunderstanding of medical science. Besides all of this, a better argument could probably be made for research being skewed or limited by a patriarchal field that does not take this seriously enough.

Research into my own illness - which I will not name right now, as it has a trivialising name, and it takes a fair bit of work to educate on the real nature of this illness - is seriously, criminally (quite literally - funds allocated to it for research have been illegally redirected to other diseases on the whim of those deciding it's not real enough) underfunded. I have read over and over the argument that there is 'no physiolgical basis' or 'no known cause' for it and that this therefore means it's some construct of a modern society, or that it's primarily psychological. The two ideas are very easily conflated together.

Thankfully there are researchers out there who believe in the devastation the illness I suffer from causes, and independently pursue cutting edge research into it. They are finding very clearcut physical abnormalities and causes in relatively new areas of science (things only discovered this decade). You have to be very versed in this particular disease to even know where to find this research and discussion on it, and I believe this is the case with a lot of medical research. In fact, there are 1000s of papers supporting a physical etiology of the disease I suffer from, and yet most introductions to the illness I could find online will say there are none. This is why I never trust statements saying 'there is no research' or 'no known cause' without looking into it further.

It's not really fair to look at a few synopses or a couple of papers and conclude from those. The scientific side alone is extremely involved to navigate through, and then of course there are the politics that determine what gets researched and how things get interpreted.

I must emphasise again that just because an answer is not there yet, does not mean it will not be found. To then conclude its etiology can't be physiological is wrong. One researcher I admire said that 90s sciences in particular was very arrogant, and now there are so many more dimensions to physiology that are being discovered that turn a lot of old theories - especially 'there is no known biological cause therefore no possible biological cause' theories - on their heads.

The most valuable thing the researchers I admire have done is listen to their patients' experience and believe them, and have a faith in this that allowed them to follow particular research leads. When there are women saying the way they experience PMS symptoms most certainly fits cyclic patterns, and are severe enough that it's pretty hard to deny there is a physiological event happening that is causing them, we have to first and foremost, listen to them and approach this from a position of believing them. Even if research is not conclusive yet, there are many leads suggesting hormonal causes and these need to be researched further.

I do believe psycho-social factors play a part in many diseases, and as some said that there is a social construct side that can confuse what is PMS and what isn't, and possibly carelessly attribute too many negative but rational emotions to it. But there is also a strong construct in our society that insists stress is the cause of everything in the absence of conclusive evidence of other causes. The thing is I was having a really enjoyable life when I was struck ill, and from then I was told how stressed I was simply BECAUSE I was ill, which was ridiculous. I know saying PMS is a social construct is not the same as saying it's stress-related or even psychosomatic, but they both do boil down to one thing - saying if this circumstance wasn't there, you wouldn't suffer from whatever ailment/syndrome, and I don't believe that at all. Physiological abnormalites, all types of illnesses are a reality for many, and some happen to women only, some happen to men only because of biological differences, something that can't be argued away with gender construction theory. However applicable in other ways, there is a dangerous line crossed when this theory is used to make the physical realities of why women suffer certain diseases invisible or invalid.

I'm also very wary of statements about how people in non-Western countries don't experience certain illnesses, without back up and decent scrutiny of the source. I've heard these things about my illness - that apparently those outside the 'West' have 'real' problems so don't get this (I know you're not saying that here), which turned out to not be true and in fact the rates of the disease were the same. There are also always potentially other reasons for differences, if they do exist, like living in less polluted areas (there is certainly an ecofeminist argument to be made for women's hormonal-related health problems), different diets and genetics.

Finally, I should mention that as well as analogising PMS to my main illness, I do also suffer from PMS and likely endometriosis. (Endo sufferers can often have quite severe PMS because of the high levels of hormones associated with the excess endometrial tissue). I not only experience severe symptoms from these, but my other illness gets distincly, significantly worse. I have read some little known research which found in my particular illness, the hormones at PMS time have an anaesthetic effect on the brain. There are tons of bizarre ways hormones can work that is not that well understood yet.

Learning to identify what happens for me at particular points of my cycle was extremely empowering and helped me manage both those symptoms and the exacerbated ones of my illness. It helped me identify, e.g., I was feeling cyclic depression which helps you get through it, knowing it won't last and that no, you don't actually hate everyone you know :D.

My overall message is to beware of anything that directly or indirectly trivialises anyone's pain and suffering. Saying things don't have a physiological cause without knowing the full scope of the scientific evidence, and what determines the evidence, does trivialise. In the case of PMS, it doesn't take into account personal accounts of how how severely affected many women are affected by mental, emotional and physical symptoms that come out of the blue at regular intervals. Nor that such women are reasonable, intelligent and logical to see that these fit the cyclic patterns that research has helped us understand.

correction: I meant to write gerontocratic instead of oligarchical.

orangesoda, I don't think anyone here is trivializing anyone's pain and suffering. I think the big question being asked here is, why do we feel the things we do? If it's suffering caused by PMS or suffering caused by another source, it's still suffering, and we feel it and it's real (a point hammered in by the original poster in her first paragraph). The point that simply attributing all female suffering to PMS can negatively affect helpful research is a valid one.

orangsoda, I'm sorry if you got the impression that I was trying to trivialize anyone's pain. That was not my intention.

But I also think that your assessment of my knowledge about this is a bit lacking. While in grad school I wrote a paper on this topic in a Philosophy of Science course. In that paper I cited 38 academic journal articles, 19 of which came from scientific refereed journals. Since then I have read a number of articles on current research that attempts to tie hormones to PMS, and none of them are very convincing. The best one ties one hormone (estradiol) to about 1/4 of the symptoms, but the researchers themselves acknowledge that the fluctuations in estradiol levels often do not track with the reported symptoms. To me this is not convincing, conclusive evidence that PMS, and all of it's symptoms, are tied to hormones. I think the researchers approach the subject assuming it is, so when their research doesn't demonstrate this fact they say "we still don't really know what causes PMS, but we believe it has to do with hormone fluctuations." That sounds like conjecture to me. And I'm sorry, but I don't think that science is perfectly objective or something that we can't question and challenge. Take a look at how the American medical industry deals with childbirth, in the face of solid evidence that their approach is profoundly damaging to mothers and babies, and you'll have good reason to question it as well.

Also, to sfgirlives and others, I still don't see how my position on PMS reflects on the physical symptom women experience during their period. PMS refers to the 150 symptoms that women are supposed to experience prior to menstruation. I have never tried to say that women don't experience cramping, discomfort, headaches, etc. during their period. I apologise if I gave that impression, but my comments were only meant to refer to Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS).

After reading the comments, I have to point out for those who are forgetting:

PMS stands for "pre-menstrual syndrome." PMS symptoms are only such if they are experienced before menstruation.

Therefore, menstrual cramps, nausea, and diarrhea are not PMS symptoms and nobody is trying to call them a social construct.

Meanwhile--excellent post, everything I wanted to write other people have said already.

Rachel,

Hormones aside, there's speculation that neurotransmitters like serotonin may play a part in PMS.

You mention that women who've experienced abuse, high levels of stress, etc., are more likely to report severe symptoms of PMS.

This correlation suggests that women who are unhappy with their lives subconsciously utilize the construct of PMS as a socially acceptable outlet for the suppressed frustration and rage they feel.

Psychological research grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy indicates that trauma or mental illness can in fact "rewire" the brain, making people more vulnerable to depression and anxiety in the future; cognitive behavioral therapy tries to "re-rewire" neural paths. (I'm oversimplifying.)

It's logical to me that such women would would be biologically more vulnerable to PMS. I think that social construction isn't the only valid conclusion we can reach.

I certainly accept that social construction and other non-somatic factors play a role in PMS, from sexism to drug companies' opportunism. But I don't believe social construction and biological factors are mutually exclusive.

Orangesoda,

One of my best friends has an autoimmune disorder that's difficult to pin down biologically and is often written off as bogus... so I can imagine how much that sucks. I don't doubt that if this illness was more common among men than women, people (both doctors and others) wouldn't be so quick to label it psychosomatic.

AnatomyFightSong,

I agree that it doesn't have to just be a hormonal cause, but my original point is that there's no identifiable chemical cause, outside of the "speculation" that you mention. And yet in our culture the idea that PMS is caused by hormones is accepted as fact. I have a problem with that.

"Psychological research grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy indicates that trauma or mental illness can in fact "rewire" the brain, making people more vulnerable to depression and anxiety in the future; cognitive behavioral therapy tries to "re-rewire" neural paths

Right, so why do we call it PMS? Why not just call it what it is, rather than suggesting that it's a "female weakness" or a problem with the reproductive system?

This is a topic near and dear to my heart, because for years I've suffered with debilitating PMS that follows very definite patterns, and the symptoms are undeniably alleviated for me by the start of menstruation. As I get healthier, the symptoms are gradually improving, but I still deal with it every month. As a for instance, being a fairly unsentimental person for half of each month, and blubbering helplessly over anything, for fuck's sake, photos of "adorable" snakes (I kid you not), or the Olsen Twins, the next half, are NOT random incidences that I'm attributing to PMS. And the fact that women in other cultures don't experience PMS may very well have to do with the diet and habits of OUR culture as compared to theirs, just as many conditions and diseases are more prominent in this country, for the same reasons.

I remember reading a book while I was pregnant that stated, "We now know that most of the pain of childbirth is in the mind." I noted it was written by a man, who can never experience childbirth of any variety...I thought it was damned condescending, a dismissal. Later, after I'd experienced labor, I longed to find that man and squeeze his backbone in a vise and then inform him that it was all in his mind. Because that's how labor felt...it was a world of pain that took me completely outside myself. I consider it a positive experience...it isn't often that something forces you to lose all inhibitions, petty concerns, etc., so completely. I didn't care what anyone thought about anything, including myself, didn't care who saw me naked and lookin' ugly with my face contorted, growling like a monster...it was great! But it was ever-so-fucking-real, that I know...

Rachel,

My point was that women with a history of trauma or mental illness might be more likely to get PMS because their brains are "primed" for negative emotional states.

To step back and clarify -- you're saying that the elevated levels of depression or anxiety that many women experience before their periods are purely the result of a social construction? I ask in case I somehow misconstrued your argument and we have our signals crossed.

Rachel-
I was actually talking about terrible cramps and mood swings BEFORE my period. I do understand that you're not trying to trivialize pain, but it seems hard to listen to people dismiss PMS in various ways because they themselves don't experience it.

sfgirlives, suggesting that PMS is a social construction is no more "dismissing PMS" than noting that paper money is a social construction is dismissing our economic system. I don't believe I've tried to do either. And we can go on about this all night. Games are a social construction, but I do not deny the existence of the world series. Language is a social construction, and without it we couldn't be doing this right now. Political elections are a social construction... Shall I continue?

AnatomyFightSong, so how is it helpful to maintain our cultural ideas about the irrational, overemotional women whose behavior and concerns can be dismissed because they're just caused by dysfunctional female reproductive systems? If women who have experienced trauma are more prone to depression, then by all means we should address that. But how does it help to categorize it as a "female weakness"? They've been fucked up by their life experiences, not their body chemistry.

What I'm saying is that this phenomenon that we label as PMS consists of a lot of symptoms that have no obvious link to menstruation or female body chemistry, that many of the concerns and emotions that women express are legitimate ones that become delegitimized once they are attributed to some hormonal state that scientists are only guessing exists, and that approaching it this way is counterproductive and harmful to women. I have never denied that women may experience a whole range of things including anxiety, depression, etc. I just question the explanatory framework. Why is it necessary or even prudent to lump it all together and blame it on their reproductive systems? Men have cyclical hormone fluctuations too, but nobody is dismissing their concerns and emotions as being hormone-based. Why is that? Because when a man gets angry, he's just angry, but when a woman gets angry, she's hormonal. Patriarchal bullshit.

Ugh. I feel like this is getting a little contentious. :-(

I'm sorry - that's not my intention at all. I have an issue with the way our culture frames PMS and unnecessarily medicalizes all of these issues in women's lives, not with you!

Maybe this way of saying it will sound less intimidating. I don't mean to deny that women experience things like depression, anxiety, cramps,etc, and I think it's possible that some of them have bio-chemical causes, which may or may not be linked to the reproductive system. But the extensive list of symptoms and experiences that are attributed to PMS, and the cultural mythology that's built up around it is clearly problematic. Rather than telling women that what they're experiencing is biological, and tying it to these age-old memes that also gave rise to concepts such as hysteria, we should parse them out and identify them for what they are. This would involve discarding a lot of these notions as outdated, sexist ways to discredit the thoughts and concerns of women. It would also involve paying close attention to the ways that trauma and stress affect women (and men)in a way that can provide treatments that are far more effective, and that takes women more seriously than the current PMS construct does. Finally, the research on both psychological and physical symptoms would be much more reliable once your subjects themselves stopped framing and interpreting their experiences via the PMS construct. Does that make sense?

To those with the debilitating cramps and nausea... try pot. It's a life saver. Way better than midol or advil!

Hmmmm... The only big cramp I can remember (except when I run a lot...which doesn't count) was like 6 months before my first period. So I doubt it was linked. I've had my period since I was 13, and I'm 16 now, and I don't have symptoms. Unless bleeding or running less is a symptom, but that's only because I only use pads and they're not that comfortable. ^_^ I'm not moody, I don't get cramps, nothing special happens and I don't keep track of my period... I've had people warn me about these symptoms though, so I was very much aware and expecting it. But...nope.

@ Ayla

Hah! Don't let the pharamceutical industry hear you say that - they'll send out their henchmen.

On a related note, pot is the best remedy for morning sickness, with no known negative impact on the health of the baby. Some early studies of this suggested that it caused low birth weight because most of the mothers were also smoking tobacco, but when you separate those cases out, there's no noticeable difference. In fact, for mothers with extremely bad morning sickness, pot use produces a healthier birthweight because the mother can actually keep some food down after smoking.

Rachel,

Yeah, that way of framing it makes sense to me.

Also, I second (or third) the idea of pot as a treatment for cramps and nausea... I wish it came in candy form, though, because I hate what it does to my lungs.

You can always make brownies... :D

A few years ago I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the initial post. Then, as I got closer to my 30s, I began to experience horrendous pain lasting 2 - 3 days on ovulation, and have been hospitalised for pain relief twice in the past 12 months. I used to be totally anti the pill because I did not want to put anything chemical/hormonal like that in my body, but it is my only relief. I spoke to my mother and discovered that this runs in the family. I did not know this until after the hospitalisation. I totally think that stress has an impact on pain, and that society can label legitimate angry / stressy (and non-period related) emotions as 'PMS' in a way that discards female emotions as 'just women's stuff' and so can hide legitimate angst. But equally (and as I experienced first hand) PMS is a medical fact and many women suffer directly because of their reproductive system.

"You can always make brownies..."

Or invest in a vaporizer! You can get flame heated hand-held pipe style units starting at around $35-40 and a decent electric unit starting at $100 or so. There's no smoke, it tastes better, the smell doesn't linger on clothes or in a room and you get more out of your weed.

Oh, and AnatomyFightSong... it DOES come in candy form! Depending on where you live, it can be hard to find someone who makes it (I've only lucked out once in my life), but you can find the instructions for various versions online. It's a bit of a chore but maybe worth it if other solutions don't work for you.

Roseanne Barr
"...society wants women on anti-depressants so they are no longer creative or fierce".
Has she taken anti-depressants?
"Oh, hell yeah. There isn't anything that I haven't done. They dull your rage. People don't like angry women so they say, 'We're going to have to drug that bitch to get her to shut up. We will humiliate her and disenfranchise her, but first she has to shut up.' Oh yeah, I did those anti-depressants the last time I was famous. I needed to dull the horror of it."
Roseanne Barr-
love her!

My cycle has always been extremely erratic, I can go anywhere from 21 days to three whole months between periods. The result being that I can never predict my period and have stopped even trying. But always without fail, for two to three days before hand I am extremely irritable. I experience mood swings from blinding rage to weeping depression, then I get my period and I realize why, and as soon as the cramps start the mood swings go away. So I don't believe PMS is a social construct.

I do however believe the idea that a woman is unable to control her behaviour when affected by these mood swings is a construct. I go home at the end of the day and I cry or I rage, but in my interpersonal interactions during those times I'm at least civil, maybe terse, but civil. I don't let it affect my work or my school life.

It's the idea that women are turned into tantrum throwing toddlers that is objectionable. It's so pervasive and ingrained an idea that we just can't help it when we're PMSing that I've heard women use it to excuse for their own inappropriate behaviour. Sometimes the same women who would be furious at a man for suggesting the same thing. It's the same as the argument that men can't help cheating. We can help it because we have these magical things called brains, and the brain is mightier than the hormone.

I do think PMS exists...it's just that a lot of people generalise it as being a couple of days wortn of anger that a woman experiences prior to a period. An incredibly broad generalisation if you ask me.

All of this personal anecdotal evidence to the side, the anthropological argument seems really compelling, but it didn't receive much attention in the comments.

"Saying that PMS is a social construct is not the same as saying that it doesn't exist, or that the symptoms don't exist, as I've noted in several previous comments." -- Standardised reply from the author for those who disagree.

You really are determined not to listen, are you, to not let anything in that will mess up your neat explanation of what all women go through. In what way are you saying it exists, by your pointless caveat at the start? The word "IS" is a very powerful one. It means "equals". You have yet to engage in what sense you are saying it is real (that it does exist): "social construct" has the strong connotation of a socially enforced imagining, often for vested interests, often acting on an unconscous level, of "not being based on any objective fact". Just what are you saying then, when you say it IS a social construct, yet does exist? You fall into the familiar trap of not making any clear concept known of what is "real". Your entire argument undoes your caveat, and the subsequent responses where you simply reassert your point, does not broaden the debate, and frequently verges on the insulting. You are failing to engage with the "dissenting" commenters. Simply repeating this caveat "not the same as saying it doesn't exist" half-heartedly -- now coming as standardised replies -- is simply not listening. (Why not follow it with a disgusted "*groan*"!) It's not a matter of believing everyone: it's a matter of taking it in at all. What a determined academic you must be, how much there must be at stake for you to be right. Sickening. Listen to other women: it's called FEMINISM.

Oh, it's worth noting, Language is not a social construction: evidence is showing it to be innate. Though the symbols used in individual languages are arbitrary, the human ability for Language is something our brains are born to develop, like walking. It is not like other skills we develop, individually or as a society (the progressive, cumulative effects of those skills) -- such as economic systems, and symbolic artefacts of that system, such as money. The innate versus the social (and its constructs): the real becoming entangled in the symbol... I think it is into this territory that the issue of PMS is straying here.

I think if we consider the parallel with Language the author has drawn in the second paragraph, and reflect on how social construction is actually only part of the picture, we come closer to accounting for the way that this debate cannot be encapsulated by concepts of social construction. I understand your ambition, author, and the reason for it. All I'm saying is, author, qualify your argument, bound it within what it can answer, allow space for what it does not answer, and people with PMS may not get so peeved at you. It's only polite, to assert what you can prove to be right, and leave open what you cannot. It's also a good approach to knowledge.

We are all born into a world steeped in retarding social constructs. Let's all do our best not to get more entangled while in the very act of trying to untangle ourselves from this mess of mal-formed symbols! It is only through true clarity that we will all extricate ourselves, socially and individually, from the nonsense that surrounds us. In this struggle, let's each have the true individual courage to balance knowledge with doubt, without letting it take over, to allow room for the unknown, to further productive discourses, between thinking, considerate people... to be open purposefully, to further our knowledge for the sake of all. Yes, please, let's do this together, yet without reducing ourselves to cheersquads and partisanship, which is just more of the same tripe.

For the record, I don't get PMS.

You are failing to engage. You simply cherry-pick phrases you want to repond to. That's not replying, it's just arguing how right you are. "Come now?", "... if I so choose", "...bizarre": pleas engage, and stop being so belligerent. You just prove me right about your manner with every less-than-subtle insult.

Listen, I get it: you are right, and that's it. Feels good to be right, huh?! People like you do nothing to advance the cause, and plenty to feather your own beds. Give us all a break.

I welcome you "questioning the explanatory framework": we need this sort of inquiry; my god, we need it. This had potential to be quite a stimulating topic, and it did attract some real interest. It is not only what you are saying but your approach to others that people take exception to, that turns people away: upsetting people who are opening up to you, while shutting down debate (unintentionally, I'd like to hope).

Perhaps you truly were seeking some intelligent discussion, left with only a sea of ignorance before you. It is frustrating being intelligent and well educated, when engaging with the public. I believe you do make a mistake in underestimating people, including myself (I am actually as educated as you, in similar disciplines). The theory which you seek to champion here is a very useful tool. But you're squandering it: by overstating it, yes, but more so by alienating people by your stridency, by your impatience with their comments. If your role is to educate, then educate properly, with patience.

I'll make this real simple for the PhD holder: you're mode of engagement is insensitive, and actually counterproductive to healthy discussion.

Check it out: what discussion have you really succeeded in establishing here? Some not terribly intellectual cheers from people who got some basic gist of social construct theories (hardly a breakthrough for womanhood), and a whole lot of upset people who feel derided. Well done: you have created a desert. Again, No doubt.

Please, for all of us, rethink your approach to engaging others before posting again. Share your intelligence, but responsibly.

I apologise for not answering your reply, but you've actually misunderstood what I was saying with every point, and really failed to engage again. I am putting this to bed now. Good luck next time, Rachel in WY.