Debunking the PMS Myth

by Kelly

When I grew up I loved reading the Ancient Greek and Roman myths about Zeus, Medea, and all of the other fantastic stories. While these myths are amusing, most people would agree that they are purely fiction (cough, just like other religious stories, cough). There are, however, modern-day myths that we wholeheartedly believe in on a societal level. The myth I want to talk about today is the terrible spectre that hangs over all (cis-gendered) women once a month…the mysterious and all-powerful…PMS!

PMS, or Pre-Menstrual Syndrome, is (supposedly) the week before women start menstruation. During this PMS week, women are irritable, crabby, emotional, and may even experience physical symptoms such as cramps, increased appetite, headaches, and various pains. The kicker? PMS isn’t real. Yep, you heard me right. It’s a load of bullshit.

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I first learned that there is no such thing as PMS in an Intro to Psych class textbook my freshman year of college. The book said (I’ll paraphrase from memory here) that while many women may experience the “symptoms” of PMS, it is purely coincidental. Only 5% (again, this is from memory) of women actually experience severe PMS-like symptoms regularly. Meaning…it’s kind of rare.

Since it’s been a while since I read that textbook, I did a little further research last weekend. I found plenty of information debunking the PMS myth, but this study in particular was helpful in breaking down the information. Read the full article here. I have selected a few excerpts that are particularly helpful:

“So what does the evidence actually show? During PMS women will experience certain physical symptoms, including cramps, breast tenderness, and water retention, and of course these physical symptoms can make some women feel grumpy or unhappy, just as pain can make men feel grumpy or unhappy. But emotional symptoms associated with menstruation – notably, irritability and depression are rare. In fact fewer than 5% of all women have such symptoms predictably over their cycles (source: Brooks-Gun Differentiating Premenstrual Symptoms and Syndromes. Psychosomatic medicine, 1986; Reid, R. L. 1991 Premenstrual syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine).”

“Major findings from other psychological research and studies have concluded that:
No gender differences exists in mood.
No relation exists between stage of the menstrual cycle and emotional symptoms
No consistent “PMS” pattern exists across menstrual cycles.”


pms-c10285280So, if PMS isn’t real, how did we come up with this myth? There are plenty of reasons, but there are several important ways in which this myth has become normalized in society. First of all, if you tell an entire population of people (for example, the United States) that women have PMS and tell them what the symptoms are, wouldn’t they start to notice these symptoms? I’ve heard that medical students started to become hypochondriacs after learning all the symptoms to diseases and other illnesses, because they become hyperaware of their changes in mood & physical well-being. I think most humans function in the same manner – if you tell me I might feel crabby the week before my period, and I do have a bad day or two during that week, I’ll say, “Hey, maybe that PMS thing is true! Wow, I feel better knowing I can attribute this unhappiness to something.” It is, in a way, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy – tell women they will experience shifts in mood, and when they inevitably do (as all humans, save sociopaths, are prone to do), they will attribute it to PMS.

Of course, this now begs the question – if the physical “symptoms” are explainable due to the biological processes at work in the body (i.e. you feel bloated because, well, your uterus is doing some extra legwork this week), how did we come up with the emotional characteristics of PMS? Why are women supposedly more angry, more crabby, and more crazy during PMS?

The answer lies in Medieval Europe. Perceptions of women during the Middle Ages were pretty whacky. To begin with, all women were seen as potential temptresses and deviants (thanks to Eve). So of course, men were distrustful of women. The early “medical practitioners” (if you can really call them that!) thought that a woman’s uterus could travel throughout her body (especially during menstruation), and this caused all sorts of aches and pains (heartburn, indigestion, etc) that culminated in – you guessed it – hysteria. In fact this is where the word hysterectomy comes from…uterus=hysteria => removal of uterus=hysterectomy…you get the picture. Medieval men also thought women’s menstruation could give dogs rabies, etc (there are too many weird perceptions to get into here). Either way, it is clear that women’s menstrual periods were closely linked to hysteria – and therefore also linked to mood swings, anger, and irrationality.

It’s kind of funny and pathetic, in a way, to think that our modern civilized society takes social cues from the freakin’ Middle Ages. To be honest, when you really think about it, the entire concept is laughable. According to the article I linked to before, “In the 1970s, a vague cluster of physical and emotional symptoms associated with the days preceding menstruation, including fatigue, headache, irritability, and depression came to be thought of as an illness, and was given the label PMS.” Who were the doctors and psychologists during the 1970s? Men. Therefore, who gave us the label PMS? Men. Who doesn’t experience menstruation? Men. Yeahhhh, I made my point.

So do you feel crabby during your “pre-menstrual” week? Probably. Does it mean you have PMS? Probably not. So if someone jokes, “Why are you being such a goddamn bitch? Are you PMS-ing?”, I think the appropriate response would be as follows, “I’m sorry, is this 1209 or 2009? Google “the PMS myth” and get back to me, dipshit”*

*dipshit added for effect

EDIT (July 20, 2011): I saw on tumblr that someone said this article is ciscentric in places. I’m sorry for that, it was certainly not my intention. For the record, when I refer to women in this article I am referring to cis-gendered females. That is to say, I do not want to define the term “woman” to merely refer to those who are cis-gendered but for the purposes of this article that is how the term is being used.