PMS affects some women more than others. For some it comes and goes; for others it's a regular visitor; for still others it's hardly noticeable; for all women it's an excuse for reprehensible behaviour.
Once upon I time, I suppose, most women were ashamed of being bitchy, over-sensitive and weepy once a month. I'm guessing this because my fiancée, who is from a very traditional background, still regrets the days when she feels depressed and hypersensitive around the time of her period. She, however, is the exception in my world.
At the other end of the scale are two of my cousins. Once a month, to varying degrees, they both get very, very bitchy. They want everything their way. They have no patience for anyone else. They want what they want and they want it now. Well, it's a hormonal condition, so perhaps they can't control it. What bothers me is that after almost a week of treating everyone around them like dog meat, they don't apologize. They consider it their birthright to treat the people around them badly once a month when their hormones act up.
Last time I checked, this sort of thing was rude. If a man were to do it, it would be grounds for divorce. Treating your mate / brother / sister / parents like crap once a month is considered, in a man, a sign of bad manners. It's also known as "abuse."
Of course, women claim that there are all sorts of powerful hormones raging through their bodies, and that they don't have enough self-control to be polite. Even if this were true, one should at least look at the wreckage afterward and say you're sorry that you smashed your brother's camera or told your cousin to "Fuck off!" Of course, I doubt this "hormones too powerful to resist" theory. I think that a lot of it is women getting their frustrations out, now that they have a medical excuse for anything they do. Why would I think this (other than that I'm an incurable cynic)? I've noticed that except in their bitchiest, most rotten months, my cousins never let the full force of their bitchiness loose on their female friends.
Why don't PMSing women lay into their best girlfriends once a month? I'm sure that a few do, but why don't the rest of them do it? Because they know that other women know that it's not really all that bad, and that they won't put up with the abuse and the bullshit. Men, on the other hand, can't claim to know what it's like, and so tend to tolerate what women on the rag dish out.
PMS is also a wonderful way to get out of being convicted of a crime, even a serious one.
Recently, a North Vancouver woman was let off with a slap on the wrist after driving the wrong way down a major freeway and killing another woman in a head-on collision. The woman who caused the accident was drunk as a skunk. If she had been a man, there would have been no question of his guilt. As it was, this woman was suffering from "serious PMS" and wasn't fully aware of the consequences of drinking so much alcohol and then driving. This despite the fact that she had previous convictions for drinking and driving, and despite the fact that she had already tried therapy for her problem. Her lawyer assured everyone that her client was very sorry and was now taking her meds. The judge bought it.
I would like to know how women would feel if researchers discovered that there is an ailment called "testosterone overload" in men that causes them to become sexually aggressive, some of them uncontrollably so. How would women feel if this condition was found to be responsible for most rapes? Would women be reassured when some lawyer said that yes, his client did rape the defendant, but that he was terribly sorry and was now on meds to control his condition which, after all, only cropped up once a year or so. Would women breathe a sigh of relief that, although this guy was back on the street, he was harmless?
Get real. Women would freak out. The defense would never be allowed, and he would go straight to jail.
Which is why there is no male equivalent to PMS: because nobody wants to find one.
