Resisting the Mantle of the Monstrous Feminine: Women’s Construction and Experience of Premenstrual Embodiment

This chapter uses a feminist material-discursive theoretical framework to examine how women adopt the subject position of ‘monstrous feminine’ via the role of premenstrual embodiment. In this examination, Ussher and Perz draw on interviews they conducted with women who self-diagnose as ‘PMS sufferers.’ They theorize that this self-positioning is subjectification, wherein women take up cultural discourse regarding idealized femininity and the stigmatized fat body; according to the authors, this results in distress, self-objectification, and self-condemnation. However, they argue that women can reduce premenstrual distress and resist negative cultural constructions of premenstrual embodiment and fat bodies through women-centered psychological therapy, which increases awareness of embodied change and leads to greater self-care and acceptance of the premenstrual body.