The Inaccuracies Correlating PMS to Women’s Mood Consistently

The False Stereotype I Unlearned: From a Male’s POV

The Misconceptions We(mostly males) are Culturally Led To Believed

Source: Ken Kupchik, via mechanicadvisor

In my Psychology class last year, we had this interesting question.

What is PMS? Is PMS real or not? What do men think about PMS symptoms in women? How much is PMS a catch-all phrase for anything a woman does that looks or feels like stress or mood? Does it get put in a bad light?

I felt compelled to come back to this and write a short retrospective to what I now think of PMS. (Was highly uncomfortable being one of the few males in the class for this)

What It Is

The question should be about the experiences that women have when having PMS, not if it’s real or not. PMS is where a woman is a combination of symptoms (bloating, headaches) that many women get about a week or two before their period. It definitely is real, as it is many women have gotten it. The thing is that it’s usually discussed negatively. As a male, I was inherently taught to believe that when a woman has PMS, it was a biological syndrome to lead to women to be naturally more irritable than their normal behavior is because of the physical symptoms that come from the body preparing itself before the period cycle. Also if you ever discuss it, it was a blasphemous thing to do.

The Culture of The Phrase Associated to PMS

Wrongful Phrase

That’s how we looked at it culturally as a male, but looking back, that was the wrong thinking. Sure you don’t want to bring it up, but why associate the syndrome negatively like a stereotype. If so, then is every other syndrome negative, for example down syndrome. There are many beautiful people that have down syndrome, but if we thought culturally that they were less valuable to society, how would they feel being attached to that connotation. My point is we incorrectly attached the wrong thought to syndromes such as PMS. Also, are most women even radically different personality wise when on the syndrome? Exactly.

My Male POV On Men Thoughts

Basically, I’m saying that for some reason we (society) were taught that having PMS was essentially a type of mental issue. Here is some insight into my perspective, my dad tells me when you say something multiple times, you can speak it to existence. For example, some woman will continually blame their body’s discomfort for their anger and hostility and allowed men to vice versa accept that PMS was the blame to aggression. I’ve known a girl that has said that before as a joke, but stuff like that makes me wonder if that reinforces that phrase. This doesn’t help as being different genders, men and women don’t know what’s going on in each other’s bodies.

So when guys see a female they know to act differently radically, they’ll just assume that it’s bodily reasons instead of actually figuring out what the change of attitude stems from. Assumptions of symptoms that cause nasty personality change, and constant irritability; that’s what guys think of the symptoms. Yes, even when they’re rules, we have exceptions to them, and you have a few women that get moodier after dealing with PMS, but to label the whole gender with that connotation is incorrect. Even what we see in sitcoms, they heavily reference the syndrome in a few episodes to portray the woman who is usually happy and quirky, to be mean and dismissive. As if it was a plot device for the female character to further the episode, but planting seeds in people heads that it is true, unfortunately. I’m saying that we allowed a culture to paint PMS as a scapegoat to why a woman might be aggressive (a stereotype) when every woman reacts to body changing differently, not by depression or anger.

Final Thoughts

But the syndrome is real and women do experience it. Men do associate it with a nasty display of irritability that they are not used to seeing from the person. This is something that I was taught, but realize that my initial thinking was off. My point is to say how culture shaped the notion of a implanting people with inaccurately stating without sufficient statistical evidence that stereotypically, PMS makes women moody, irritable, or depressed.