O mau humor na TPM: uma interpretação do feminino

Abstract

In The Bad Mood of Premenstrual Syndrome: An interpretation of the feminine intends to show how representations of the feminine are constructed in relation to women ´s monthly cycle and to discuss some cultural significances concerning the upsetting of humor one of the symptoms of the syndrome commonly known as: "premenstrual tension". Grounded in the theoretical approach of the body and the physician `s glance as objects of the Social Sciences, that is, as social constructions, and guided by feminist studies, we analyzed two types of current discourses, concerning women ´s monthly cycles, located in the carioca middle social strata, in the beginning of the XXI century; that are said to act on, or to dialogue with this "hormonal body". The discourses follow two different directions: The first analyzed speech is a doctor ´s book, an example of self help literature, engaged in the discussion of "hormonal intelligence"; aiming to become a model of subjectification of the feminine, based on the doctor ´s -scientific eye. It proposes a kind of control on the body, organizing the feminine through essentialized ideas which universalize the bodies and deal with this feminine description as pre-determined by "Natural" body conditions. The second discourse is composed by a group of interviews carried out with female bank employees, registering a subjectifyied feminine. These speeches on the feminine everyday life reveal that, in spite of the articulation of corporal descriptions rooted in the biology and in the medical sciences, they nevertheless show other cultural representative meanings of the feminine, and thus demonstrates the importance of case studies that priories the agencing of the subject in the social construction of gender.