Disentangling gender and racial myths from clinical descriptions of female prevalent symptoms

My PhD research found that the myth of the hysterical female unintentionally influences the way in which
doctors, researchers, and the public discuss, categorise, and treat female-prevalent symptoms.

I compared expert (medical and academic) and patient accounts of PMS (Premenstrual Syndrome) with the
available scientific data regarding cyclical symptoms. The main finding was that persistent gender myths
associated with 'hysteria' were affecting participant descriptions. In particular, the untrue but surprisingly
common belief that the healthy female body (first the womb, now the female sex hormones) causes serious
mental health issues was strongly reflected in the way in which PMS was described. Unfortunately, this
assumption wrongly positions 'all women' as biologically prone to irrational beliefs and behaviours (including
the exaggeration, invention, or imagination of symptoms and other distressing experiences) (King, 2020).
This gender myth appears to have contributed to the unscientific separation and prioritisation of typically mild
premenstrual mood changes, and the dismissal and de-prioritisation of far more common and severe
experiences of (cyclical) pain. Black and other racialised ethnicity patient participants appeared to be subject to
even higher levels of disbelief in their symptoms than White cisgender women, demonstrating how gender and
race myths may combine to worsen discriminatory beliefs and practices.

Another major finding was that educational resources (from high school biology to specialist gynaecology
textbooks) reduce the menstrual cycle to just 'hormonal changes'. By omitting key information about the
female reproductive system, a more likely cause of cyclical symptoms (inflammation) has been overlooked for
the past 100 years. This gap in education unintentionally reproduces the myth of the hormonal/ hysterical
female and has led to 'bad science'- in that researchers have mistakenly assumed that the timing of symptoms
means that they must be caused by hormonal changes (rather than the inflammation associated with
ovulation, thickening of the womb lining, and menstruation).

Many clinical PMS studies have tried but failed to prove a causal relationship between the female sex
hormones and cyclical symptoms. Tellingly, these consistently negative study findings were positioned by the
medical PMS experts as evidence of the 'mysterious' nature of the female reproductive body rather than
suggestive of alternative scientific explanations. In fact, it appears that the pairing of 'women' and 'hormones'
in medicine (and wider society) has severely limited the ability of researchers and clinicians to account for
female-prevalent symptoms and conditions in any other terms.

My PhD thesis concluded with a proposal for redefining problematic cyclical symptoms as PMI (Perimenstrual
Inflammation) to help steer societal and medical discourses away from persistent gender/ race myths and
metaphors towards more accurate explanations. It is hoped that this will help to account for, and attend to, the
needs of individual patients without accidentally stigmatising an entire gender and/ or racialised ethnic
population.

I already have a contract with Bristol University Press to write a popular science book for academic and public
audiences. I now need to publish my work in some influential medical and academic journals to gain greater
professional credibility. This will be needed if I am to secure further research funding and persuade the
publishers of school and medical textbooks to integrate more comprehensive information about the purpose
and function of the healthy menstrual cycle. Ultimately, I hope to help boost patient and medical knowledge of
menstrual health (and female-prevalent symptoms), improve treatment options and patient outcomes, and
expose the way in which societal myths have prevented this information from being taught before.