Anna Grofik

Anna Grofik

PMS as a Culture Bound Syndrome

            As the article states, PMS has become an increasingly well-known icon in the past thirty years as oppose to its relative invisibility in the past. The author discusses the media image of women with PMS, with images such as “a raging beast” or “Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde”. PMS is described as “a scientific basis to women’s hostility and duplicity”. In my opinion this “scientific” basis just invites criticism of women as being overly emotional or imbalanced. I think that instead of an increased awareness of women’s health, there is an increased desire to stigmatize women, with the help of PMS to prove it. The article argues that PMS can’t be defined as a disease because “there are no laboratory findings that can discriminate PMS sufferers from nonsufferers” and “the symptoms of PMS are not specific to it”. Treating menstrual cycle related symptoms as pathological rather than normal, Chrisler argues, increases the amount of women to believe that they have PMS despite symptoms of irritability or aching being commonly associated with the normal pains of menstruation. A woman will more commonly blame PMS for such everyday ailments as a headache, creating the idea that PMS is a syndrome due to the fact that a group of symptoms can be commonly related to one another through PMS. Chrisler continues to discuss the idea of ‘culture-bound syndromes’ or a “constellation of symptoms that have been categorized as a dysfunction or disease in some societies but not in others”. This article asserts that PMS is a culture-bound syndrome, and indeed it does fit the criteria. Irritable behavior is deemed pathological in menstruating women, despite irritability being a state that any person can normally encounter. Menstruation, in our society, is treated as completely negative and the idea of ‘raging hormones’ in women contribute to the idea that menstruating women are unstable and not in control of themselves. Chrisler argues that because stability is highly prized in industrialized societies, PMS is automatically labeled as unhealthy due to its apparent ‘volatile’ nature of behavior. PMS also is concerned with gender roles in society. PMS violates the female gender role of a passive and nurturing woman. By blaming anger a woman feels on PMS, her voice is dimmed and her grievances are ignored. PMS seems like quite a useful tool in a society that wishes to diminish gender equality by placing women in a specific role. By overdramatizing regular menstrual pains as a disease, the feminine gender characteristics of weakness and emotional instability are enforced and those who fall victim to menstrual changes are made to feel instable. While Chrisler argues that the medical world benefits from this new untapped market of disease, she asserts that most of all the status quo is the “greatest beneficiary”. PMS is a form of social control, Chrisler argues, and “serves to keep women in their place”. I believe PMS has a crippling effect on the way women will view their abilities and self-control, a major gain for those who wish to keep women from being visible in the public sphere of politics and other institutions.

Women with Disabilities

            In this article, Olkin initially discusses the social stigma of people with disabilities and continues to encompass what additional stigmas are found facing women with disabilities. Olkin goes on to draw similarities between women’s issues and disabilities in that they are disadvantageous in different environments and are drawn from social context. Both the women’s and disability rights movements commonly ignore different subgroups in these categories so as to appear a unified front. Olkin recognizes that both of these movements were largely pushed forward by women, as for their own individual goals and as advocates for their disabled children. A major difference between these two movements is that the disabled are mostly isolated from the larger disabled community and do not receive the benefits of peer support and similar understanding. This is due to the fact that most disabled people are placed into non-disabled environments from childhood and attempt to blend into that environment. Olkin also draws a difference in the movements concerning reproduction, in that the women’s movement was concerned with reproductive freedom and the disability rights movement is fighting for the right of a disabled fetus to be born. As discussed in this article, disabled women face obstacles in “dating and partnering, sexuality, pregnancy and childbirth, mothering, and divorce or unpartnering”. As isolation is prevalent for disabled women, personal interaction such as dating is inhibited by poor self-esteem and lack of experience. Also myths that disabled people are asexual or cannot handle their sexuality leave them to believe that they are “deviant or damaged in their sexuality”. Women with disabilities who are also pregnant face trouble in trusting themselves to make birthing decisions. Women with disabilities also experience custody problems and ambivalence in debating whether to leave a partner. The main concerns are physical needs, financial needs, custody concerns and relationship issues. I found this circumstance interesting because I think that for non-disabled women this list would be reversed. I found that these concerns were based largely on immediate survival, hardship and vulnerability. The fact that disabled women are largely dependent on other’s assistance makes it easy to understand why separation would be a last resort. The adversity facing disabled women is astounding considering the combination of two serious social stigmas attached to them. As the hidden minority, disabled women are debilitated by their vulnerability in their physical or mental impairment and by their gender.

Stigma Management

            This article discusses the management of the stigma of a disabled body through sport and physical activity. The disabled body is negatively viewed, as it does not comply with the views of autonomy and physical competence. Physical activity and sport “can reaffirm ability rather than disability and serve as a means to affirm one’s bodily competence”. The article also examines “the data analysis centered on the role of such participation in managing the stigma associated with a disabled body” through interviewing male college students with disabilities who engage in some type of physical activity. The main benefits of physical activity gleaned from these interviews were physical competence and enhanced bodily appearance. Through sport, disabled bodies can demonstrate physical skill and health, contrary to the stereotype of weakness associated with disability. Many of the men report that others are surprised of their physical competence, most likely due to the fact that society deems disabled bodies unable to participate in able-bodied sports. Many of the men also discuss the health benefits involved in sport and how this allowed them to influence the behaviors of those around them with regards to their disability. Some of these men take it on themselves to change society’s attitude towards handicap people through making their body less ‘stigmatized and devalued’. The men discussed how building up also helped them achieve acceptance. This fact made me think that even men oppressed by a disability are not free from the Adonis complex. Physical activity also transformed the way the men viewed themselves, in a positive way that counters stereotypes of the disabled body. “As participation in sport and physical activity is often unexpected for individuals with physical disabilities, their involvement may create an alternative impression of the disabled body. For example, such participation inverts notions of physical incompetence and negative appearance by highlighting physical skills and a liberated body”. Compensation for masculinity is also a factor in the men’s choice of sport to erase societal stereotypes. Personally, I commend the men for overriding physical disability and for having the strength to stay active in a horrible life circumstance.