ABSTRACT
If a phenomenon cannot be objectively observed and measured using reliable, standardized techniques, then it cannot be “known” within a positivist paradigm. This has resulted in a methodology-driven, rather than a theory-driven, analysis of PMS and its possible aetiology. For example, the role of unconscious factors, clearly identified by Horney (1931) as important in PMS, cannot be easily assessed within a hypothetico-deductive frame, and so they are not included in modern models of the syndrome. Equally, as historical, political, and wider societal factors are not easily operationalized and assessed, they are only addressed within feminist critiques of PMS (e.g., Parlee, 1991; Showalter, 1987; Ussher, 1989). According to a positivist paradigm, PMS is construed as an individual problem-a disorder affecting an individual woman, on whom bio-medical or psycho-social factors impact and produce symptomatology. The woman is implicitly positioned as passive and devoid of social context in traditional analyses of PMS, because agency is not easy (if at all possible) to observe. So it is inevitable that it is her body, or her symptoms, that are the entire focus of attention. Yet women are not passive objects in relation to either interpretation of their bodily symptoms, or in relation to PMS. Self-diagnosis of PMS is a process of active negotiation of symptomatology, cultural discourse associated with reproduction, current life events, and lifestyle, and medical or psychological discourse about female reproduction. Many women make sense of their experiences through positioning themselves as sufferers of PMS (Swann, 1996; Swann & Ussher, 1995); others may experience symptoms but not make ascriptions of PMS. To position these women as “false negatives” (Hamilton & Gallant, 1990) is to misinterpret the active negotiation and resistance of dominant discourse associated with “PMS” and female reproduction in which many women engage. It is to reinforce the notion of women as passive dupes, rather than active agents who continuously make sense of and interpret the social sphere, and their own bodily experiences (Ussher, 1997a).
