ABSTRACT
As I wrote in Managing the monstrous feminine:
The female reproductive body is positioned as abject, as other, as site of deficiency and disease . . . We are told that menstruation is sign of pollution, source of debilitation and danger, leading to psychiatric illness, criminality and violence . . . Premenstrual change is positioned as sign of the monstrous feminine within, necessitating restraint and control on the part of the women – breakdown in this control diagnosed as PMS, a pathology deserving of treatment . . . The post-natal period is a time when raging hormones are seen to be at their peak, leaving women fragile, anxious, angry . . . [and] menopause brings . . . a disease of deficiency and decay, from which no woman can escape . . . This is a dismal litany.[1, pp.161–162]
