strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde: How PMS become a cultural phenomenon and a psychiatric disorder, The

Another flaw is the frequent use of retrospective measures of symptoms, which rely on memory and thus may be influenced by cultural expectations, including a documented tendency for women to respond to items according to what they believe most women experience instead of what they themselves experience (Parlee, 1974). The frequent absence of control groups also confounds the results of menstrual cycle studies because fluctuations in performance or symptom severity are attributed to the menstrual cycle without consideration of whether similar fluctuations might occur in anovulatory, amenorrheic, premenarcheal, postmenopausal, or male populations (Parlee, 1973; Sommer, 1981). Menstrual cycle research is one of the few areas in the behavioral sciences in which women comprise the majority of those studied. Inherent in the design of most menstrual cycle studies is the unfounded assumption that only females experience cyclic fluctuations in affect, performance, and symptomatology (Parlee, 1973; Ramey, 1976). The exclusion of males as a control group precludes the examination of sex and gender similarities and differences. Some researchers have based their conclusions about PMS on psychiatric patients or prisoners, who are coping with unique stresses, or have failed to screen participants for other medical or psychiatric disorders that may influence their symptom profile, or have failed to use appropriate statistical tests to evaluate the data (Parlee; 1973; Sherman, 1971). The research on PMDD shares many of the flaws of PMS research.

A Brief (Political) History of PMS

Cultural beliefs that women are unpredictable, dangerous, and too emotional or fragile for certain social roles date back at least to ancient Greece. Menstruation, as an obvious difference between the sexes, became bound up in the politics of gender and has come to serve as a "natural" or "scientific" basis for such beliefs, replacing earlier religious or superstitious bases. Feminist scholars (e.g., Chrisler, 1996, 2002; Figert, 1996; Houppert, 1999; Martin, 1988; Rittenhouse, 1991) have noted ways that political expediency has influenced scientific and cultural interest in PMS historically.

The social construction of PMS is generally agreed to have begun during the Great Depression with the publication of an article by Robert Frank (1931), an American gynecologist, who described what he called "premenstrual tension" (PMT). He wrote about some of his women patients who complained of being tense and irritable, crying more easily than usual, and engaging in what he termed "foolish and ill considered actions" (p. 1054) just prior to menstruation. Frank's discovery added a modern veneer to the cult of invalidism and Victorian era concerns about the ill effects that intellectual exertion might have on the menstrual cycle. The notion of PMT also provided a sound, medical (i.e., scientific) reason why women should stay out of the workforce and leave to men any jobs that were available.

Katharina Dalton (1964), a British endocrinologist, coined the term "premenstrual syndrome," and it was she who expanded greatly the number of signs and symptoms women might experience prior to their menstrual periods. Dalton published her first work on PMS in the 1950s, when women were again being encouraged to become full-time homemakers so that more jobs would be available to the veterans of World War II. The new name PMS was a major step forward in the medicalization of women's menstrual cycles, that is, the belief that the cycle itself is a problem to be solved. Although PMT can be seen as simply a label for a phenomenon, when something is labeled a syndrome it is taken more seriously and seen as needing medical attention. In the 1960s and 1970s, Dalton wrote books (1964, 1977) and journal articles for medical professionals and a book (1979) and magazine articles for the general public; she often told reporters that women owe it to their families to seek treatment for their bad moods (Rome, 1986). Her books are still in print, and her public pronouncements about the nature and implications of PMS have been quoted frequently by writers in the popular press (Chrisler, 2001; Chrisler & Levy, 1990; Rome, 1986)). Her influence, albeit arguably greater on the general public than on her scientific colleagues, cannot be underestimated.