Study, 1991
How did premenstrual syndrome become recognized as a social problem?
PMS became recognized as a social problem in the early 1980s through a combination of medical research, popular media, feminist writing, and a famous British legal case where two women charged with manslaughter used PMS as a defense.
What they did
The author performed a content analysis of published articles and discourse about PMS to trace how the problem became socially defined.
What they found
PMS was defined as a social problem through interactions between medical, popular, and feminist literature, and was shaped by dramatic legal events and cultural assumptions about women and their biology.
What it means for you
This is a historical and sociological analysis of how PMS became socially recognized, not a study with data about PMS itself. While understanding how medical problems become defined is interesting, this type of analysis does not tell us about PMS causes, treatments, or how common it is.
About the study
- Original title
- The Emergence of Premenstrual Syndrome as a Social Problem
- Authors
- C. Amanda Rittenhouse
- Journal
- Social Problems
- Year
- 1991
- Study design
- Study
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1525/sp.1991.38.3.03a00070
Topics
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