Premenstrual Syndrome and Self-policing: Ruptures in Self-Silencing Leading to Increased Self-Surveillance and Blaming of the Body

Abstract

Michel Foucault described self-policing as the modern replacement for external, authoritarian, methods of surveillance and social regulation. Today, discipline is instilled within, and punishment, if we waver from the norm, self-induced. This paper identifies self-policing practices in relation to the experience and construction of ‘premenstrual syndrome’ (PMS). Drawing on in-depth interviews with 36 British and 34 Australian women, it is argued that women's experience of distress or anger premenstrually, their positioning of this experience as pathology, and their self-positioning as a ‘PMS sufferer’, is connected to the self-policing practices of self-silencing, self-surveillance, over-responsibility, self-blame, and self-sacrifice. This is closely associated with hegemonic constructions of idealized femininity: the positioning of women as emotional nurturers of others, necessitating self-renunciation; the juxtaposition of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ woman; and the positioning of woman as closer to nature, with subjectivity tied to the body. Premenstrually, a rupture in self-silencing occurs, yet this is followed by increased self-surveillance, leading to guilt, shame, and blaming of the body. Identifying self-policing practices allows women to develop more empowering strategies for reducing or preventing premenstrual distress, developing an ethic of care for the self, and no longer blaming the body for premenstrual anger or depression.