Premenstrual Syndrome: The Dual Nature of a Lived Experience

Abstract

Premenstrual Syndrome was widely defined, analysed, and
researched based on the medical model prior to the British murder trials in 1980 where the court reduced the sentences of two women on the grounds that “severe PMS reduced their capacity to control their behaviour.” This led to a new dawn in the studies of PMS: feminist discourses emerged to challenge the negative aspects of PMS (e.g., it has been referred to as “the worst thing about being a woman”) and they began to create their own definitions of premenstrual changes contrary to those in biomedical and popular literature. The feminist literature placed the discussion of the syndrome within a sociocultural context, claimed the disorder to be ‘culture specific’, and examined its effects on social relations. Keeping in mind that PMS ‘reflects pre occupations of the culture’, this study aims to study women’s subjective experience of PMS, the social and cultural factors that influence women’s perception of PMS as they experience it, with specific reference to the impact of PMS on relationships with family, friends, and co-workers.