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The decline of masculinised industries across the Global North is well documented; however, to date, there has been relatively little discussion of feminised paid care work in formerly industrial areas. Drawing on evidence of gendered and classed ‘care trajectories’ into paid adult social care and childcare care work in one such area, Teesside, North-East England, our findings show continuities with research documenting entrenched problems with low-paid, insecure work. We argue that greater recognition, increased valorisation and markedly improved care work employment conditions would bring wide-reaching benefits to places where they now comprise a large share of local employment.
This article presents results from a systematic literature review within the broader research framework of the ‘Combining Employment and Informal Care’ project. It integrates three key perspectives: a methodological emphasis on qualitative studies; a geographical-cultural focus on German-speaking countries; and an exploration of the health effects of combining employment and care. Eight relevant studies were identified. Key issues are: understanding the familial carers’ perceptions of their situation; assessing the impact of combining care and employment on physical, mental and social health; and identifying facilitating or challenging factors in their daily lives. Factors like workplace arrangements and social support networks are found to influence carers’ health outcomes the most. Recognizing the pivotal role of health outcomes, this study underscores the importance of future qualitative research to further comprehend the intricacies of combining employment and care.
Chapter 7 examines the way in which the Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) study participants appeared limited in their ability to describe healthy (pre)menstrual physiology. The first part discusses the patients’ lack of knowledge regarding the menstrual cycle. The second part examines the way in which the experts tended to reduce the menstrual cycle to hormonal changes only. It is argued that this reduction may contribute to the group’s tendency to conflate symptom correlation with ‘hormonal’ causation and to position contradictory data as due to the ‘mysterious’ female reproductive system, rather than alternative physiological explanations. The third part describes some other factors that further limited the expert accounts of PMS. The chapter ends with a summary of content and a ‘why this matters’ overview.
Chapter 8 makes some conclusions about the themes identified in the Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) study data and what they mean for women’s health research and practice more widely. The first part outlines how and why the participant descriptions of PMS reflect three key societal gender myths more than the available population data. The second part summarises the wider implications of these findings and makes some suggestions for improving women’s health research and associated clinical practice. The book ends with an urgent call to action: we must improve menstrual health literacy if we are ever to alleviate female prevalent symptoms and conditions, and successfully counter the myth of the hysterical hormonal female.
Chapter 6 illustrates how gender myths informed participant descriptions of the cause(s), prevalence and management of Premenstrual Syndrome, as well as the prioritisation of certain premenstrual changes over others. The first part focuses on the positioning of the female sex hormones as the main cause of debilitating cyclical symptoms, contrary to the available scientific data. The second part describes the way in which certain types of premenstrual change, and medical treatments, were prioritised due to pervasive gender norms. The third section examines how the participants exaggerated the prevalence and number of premenstrual symptoms, which (unintentionally) implies that the female (reproductive) body is inherently debilitating. The chapter ends with a summary of content and a ‘why this matters’ overview.
Chapter 2 explains how the myth of the hormonal premenstrual female came to be and how it (unintentionally) influences medical accounts of female ill-health. Specifically, how an ancient medical tendency to attribute female-prevalent symptoms to ‘femininity’ itself (first the womb, then the ‘female psyche’, now the sex hormones) continues to act as an unacknowledged metaphor within clinical and popular discourses. The chapter summarises both the biomedical and critical literatures on hysteria and Premenstrual Syndrome, to provide the historical and intellectual context to the present study.
The introduction provides some useful contextual information about why this book is needed, why now, and why the author is a qualified and motivated menstrual health and rights researcher. It also positions this work in relation to recent developments within the menstrual activism and research space. The introduction concludes with a brief overview of the book content by chapter.
In this book, Sally King interrogates the diagnostic label of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) to expose and challenge sexist assumptions within medical research and practice. She powerfully demonstrates how the concept of the ‘hormonal’ premenstrual woman is merely the latest iteration of the ‘hysterical’ female myth. By blaming the healthy reproductive body (first our wombs, now our hormones) for the female-prevalence of emotional distress and physical pain, gender myths appear to have trumped all empirical evidence to the contrary.
The book also provides a primer on menstrual physiology beyond hormones, and a short history of how hormonal metaphors came to dominate medical and popular discourses. The author calls for clinicians, researchers, educators, and activists to help improve women’s health without unintentionally reproducing damaging stereotypes.
Chapter 4 is about the way in which the Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) study participants tended to position premenstrual changes as psychological rather than physical phenomena. The first part looks at how and why the expert participants prioritised emotional distress, given that the patients described predominantly physical changes, in line with the available population data. The second part examines the positioning of premenstrual changes as more psychological than physical in origin and experience. The third part describes the way in which PMS was positioned in relation to Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. The chapter ends with a summary of content and a ‘why this matters’ overview.
