Interview study, 2022
What is it like for women to experience their body during the premenstrual phase?
Women describe their premenstrual bodies in negative ways, feeling fat, leaking, and dirty. They check and hide their bodies more during this time. This connects to cultural ideas about what female bodies should be.
What they did
Researchers asked 460 women online to describe their experience of their body before their period. Then 16 of these women participated in body-mapping, where they drew and labelled pictures of their bodies, and in interviews about the images. Researchers analysed the interviews and pictures for common themes.
What they found
Three main patterns appeared. First, women described their premenstrual bodies in negative ways, feeling fat, leaking, and dirty. Second, women looked at their bodies more carefully and hid them more during the premenstrual phase. Third, women sometimes resisted cultural ideas about how female bodies should look. Body shame and dissatisfaction clearly increased before menstruation.
What it means for you
How women feel about their bodies changes across the menstrual cycle, getting worse before their period. This premenstrual body dissatisfaction causes real distress. Cultural messages about female bodies play a role. We need more research to understand how body-focused behaviours like mirror-checking or avoiding being seen affect PMS distress, as this could point to ways to help.
460
women completed initial survey
16
women participated in body-mapping and interviews
3
main themes identified
About the study
- Original title
- Mapping the abject: Women's embodied experiences of premenstrual body dissatisfaction through body-mapping
- Authors
- Samantha Ryan, Jane Maria Ussher, Alexandra Hawkey
- Journal
- Feminism & Psychology
- Year
- 2022
- Study design
- Interview study
- Participants
- 16
- What was tested
- None; study explored women's lived experiences using qualitative arts-based methods.
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1177/09593535211069290
Topics
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