THE PROBLEMATIC OF “EXPERIENCE”

Abstract

This article examines a select sample of popular magazines and self-help books to address the question: How is premenstrual syndrome (PMS) constructed discursively as a legitimate disease worthy of medical attention and public discussion? The author finds that some women have been active participants in the construction of PMS as a medical disease. In particular, she finds that accounts of women's experiences of premenstrual symptoms figure prominently in the rhetorical legitimation of PMS as a medical phenomenon in the popular press and self-help books. At the same time, the author examines the gendered assumptions about gender, health, and normality that underlie how women's “experiences” are incorporated into the construction of PMS. In particular, she asks whose experience is part of the medical legitimation of premenstrual symptoms and argues that the case of PMS illustrates the need for feminists to problematize biological as well as social experiences.