Published
Jan 1, 2025Page count
192 pagesISBN
978-1447371632Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Jan 1, 2025Page count
192 pagesISBN
978-1447371625Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Jan 1, 2025Page count
192 pagesISBN
978-1447371649Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy Press
In this book, Sally King interrogates the diagnostic label of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) to expose and challenge sexist assumptions within medical research and practice. She powerfully demonstrates how the concept of the ‘hormonal’ premenstrual woman is merely the latest iteration of the ‘hysterical’ female myth. By blaming the healthy reproductive body (first our wombs, now our hormones) for the female-prevalence of emotional distress and physical pain, gender myths appear to have trumped all empirical evidence to the contrary.
The book also provides a primer on menstrual physiology beyond hormones, and a short history of how hormonal metaphors came to dominate medical and popular discourses. The author calls for clinicians, researchers, educators, and activists to help improve women’s health without unintentionally reproducing damaging stereotypes.
Sally King is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Menstrual Physiology at King’s College London, who specialises in integrating biological and sociological research and data concerning menstrual health. She is the Founder of Menstrual Matters, the world’s first evidence-based information hub on this topic (www.menstrual-matters.com). Sally was awarded the prestigious Sociological Review Fellowship in 2022, and an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded postdoctoral research fellowship in 2023.
1. Introduction
2. Mind the Gap: Maintaining Menstrual Ignorance
3. PMS As the ‘Daughter of Hysteria’
4. The Curse: Femininity As Debility
5. Blinded by a Metaphor- The mystification of the Menstrual Cycle
6. Practicing Good Science- Integrating Critical Perspectives and Biological Data
7. Matter Over Mind: Making Premenstrual Changes More Real
8. Mind Over Matter: The Psychologisation of Premenstrual Changes
9. Snatch 22: The Simultaneous Medicalisation and Minimisation of Premenstrual Experiences
10. Conclusion
