That looks excellent! I’m so tired of the PMS thing – first they say it’s not real (though it is), then they say it’s crippling and makes you temporarily insane (though for the vast majority of people who get periods it isn’t).
ETA: I’ve never heard of it defined strictly as a psychological phenomenon before. The original definition I heard (when medical science finally agreed it’s real) is simply physical changes indicating one’s period is about to arrive: water retention, slight cramps, food cravings. I’ve also heard they’re related to zinc defiency, which might explain why it’s not consistent across the world.
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Her research is fascinating. The book goes into all areas of women’s life where supposedly we get all hormonal and crazy: bleeding, pregnancy, menopause. Basically, there’s no credible science that we are any more emotional than men at any time of our life, and a lot of these transitions that are presented as so scary are actually pleasant for women - such as menopause.
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Has she looked into the changes that occur for those of us who take hormone-blocking medications due to having (female) hormone-sensitive cancer?
It’s been fascinating to experience how different the side effects are from one to the next, but they’re all definitely making me glad that for most of my life my identity has been dominated by female hormones, not male ones.
They remind me of a response I heard to the misogynistic claim that the time in the cycle women supposedly think more irrationally (just before and during their periods) corresponds to the time they think most like men do…so while we’re only irrational a few days a month for about half of our lives, they’re like that every day!
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She has a chapter on hormone therapy but doesn’t get into hormone blocking treatment.
I have heard that about the cycle - heard it from a nutritionist.
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And the other part is that men have hormonal swings too – living creatures with hormones tend to – and the difference between the peaks and the troughs is bigger than those for women who menstruate, but because there are no highly visible signs of these fluctuations, there’s no mythology around how they affect behaviour.
Besides, for the most part, their effect is negligible.
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Exactly; it surprised me when I realized that I had swallowed this idea that men are all steady and level emotionally and women fluctuating; it’s absurd and yet, it was a baseline for me for most of my life.
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WE ARE NOT!!! [runs off sobbing]
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I finally read the memo that googler sent around that got him fired. What made me maddest was the footnotes.
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To know what stupid reason he gave for the gender pay gap… Not surprisingly, it was the “well, women like to stay home and do unpaid emotional and physical labor (which isn’t REALLY work anyway)” argument.
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I figured as much and I knew that it would piss you off (it pissed me off and I just scanned the idiotic thing). But anyone that has Jessica Jones as their avatar can handle anything a MRA snowflake can vomit up.
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I know. Doesn’t mean it’s great for my health though. Going around angry all the time because people say stupid things about gender or race is just going to get me into an early grave.
Hopefully you’ll all come to my raucous wake! 
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If there is anything left after 45 & the TGOP get their nuclear war with NK.
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Meanwhile, the CBC offers this relativist take that misses many of the major points:
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Ah yes, the old “debate me” tactic.
How about no?
How about that?
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Exactly. Some things are debatable, some things aren’t. To claim women can’t code when in fact they virtually created the job is indefensible, never mind undebatable.
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