Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a menstrual mental illness or the performance of an abjected femininity?

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In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association published the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), considered to be the most influential classifications of mental illnesses (Dorlin and Scott, 2016; Greco, 2016). There, premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) was classified as a depressive disorder, following years of debates between feminists and psychiatrists (Zachar and Kendler, 2014). PMDD is defined by the presence of affective lability, anger, anxiety, depression, feeling out of control and physical discomfort during the premenstrual phase. Current treatments include antidepressants, hormonal replacement therapies, the pill and hysterectomies (Epperson et al., 2012). Additionally, PMDD must impact close relationships.However, there is no consensus on PMDD's aetiology; classifying it as a mental disorder linked to menstruation thus raises questions about why this choice was made and why social factors of trauma and violence are absent from the medical discourse of PMDD, when research suggests it is more prevalent in the lives of PMDDers. To explore this, one must combine sociological investigation and philosophies of discourse, subjecthood and embodiment, to understand what PMDD does for gender roles, for the possible dissimulation of violence or anger, the stereotype of pathological women and their constitution as abject or subjects.