Premenstrual syndrome as a western culture-specific disorder

Abstract

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) has a phenomenology resembling many culture-bound (culture-specific) syndromes described in the anthropological literature. Viewed as a culture-specific syndrome, PMS is an appropriate symbolic representation of conflicting societal expectations that women be both productive and reproductive. By simultaneously denying either alternative, PMS translates role conflict into a standardized cultural idiom. Thus, despite obvious biopsychological determinants, PMS is best understood as a sociocultural phenomenon illustrating both the special status of women in Western culture and the ethnocentrism of Western anthropology which heretofore has only recently begun to identify culture-specific syndromes in its own back yard.