Man loses his temper, he's raging, woman loses hers, and she's PMSing!

London: Covid did strange things to friendships. Old friends, scattered across the world, suddenly reappeared on Zoom calls and WhatsApp groups, and resumed the intense discussions we once had in person. Mid-argument in one such discussion recently - the kind where you're both right, both exhausted - he suddenly stopped.

'Do you know what the luteal uglies are?' he asked, with the confidence of a man who had just drawn the winning card. I did not. It sounded like an unfortunate medieval family--the Luteal Uglies of Gloucestershire.

It turns out 'luteal uglies' is one of the internet's newer names for feeling irritable, or generally not delighted, during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, relating to the corpus luteum, a temporary structure that forms in the ovary after an egg is released


His actual point was better. Growing up in the West, the old rigid lines around what men and women are allowed to feel may have faded. But the double standard hasn't disappeared. A man loses his temper, he's raging. A woman loses hers, and she's PMSing. Same anger. Different diagnosis.

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is particularly useful because it arrives with an excuse pre-installed. Nobody has to investigate what the woman is actually angry about. The case has already been solved by the ovaries.

I didn't have to look far for proof. My son performed this linguistic upgrade on me. When he was little, if I raised my voice, it was 'Ma's raging,' the same phrase he'd use for his dad. Fair enough. Equality. Martin Luther King Jr would have been delighted. Somewhere along the way, however, it became 'Ma's PMSing.'

He didn't invent this. He absorbed it from the air, along with TikTok terminology, protein advice, and 'It's not that deep.' But that's the problem. Anger at an actual incident becomes a temporary biological mood swing.

I want to say: no, my anger is real. You are perfectly entitled to criticise the volume, or the occasional unnecessary reference. But please engage with the substance.

For decades, women fought to have PMT, premenstrual tension, taken seriously. We wanted doctors to stop dismissing it as 'nerves,' and partners to stop calling us dramatic. Mission largely accomplished. Except now 'hormonal' is available is a free pass. We built the weapon and handed it over, for no fee.

In 1953, Raymond Greene and Katharina Dalton published 'The Premenstrual Syndrome' in British Medical Journal, trying to get women's cyclical suffering taken seriously. By 1981, Christine English and Sandie Craddock successfully used PMS-related arguments in criminal cases, and the British press discovered the irresistible image of 'Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde.' We asked to be believed. The world heard: unstable, but medically excusable.

In 2013, American Psychiatric Association added premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Feminist researchers pushed back, not because severe premenstrual suffering isn't real, but because of what philosophers call 'epistemic injustice.' Once anger has a diagnostic label attached to it, other people can dismiss it. 'You're not upset because of what he said. You're upset because it's day 24 of your cycle.'

You might assume there's an ironclad blood test behind all this. There isn't. Researchers have yet to identify a single biological marker that distinguishes women with severe PMS from those without it. Psychologist Carol Tavris argued that researchers took normal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle, packaged them as PMS, and sold them back to women as a disorder. The danger is that we become quietly trained to distrust our own fury.

So, ladies, are we the baddie here? Not entirely. For some women, PMS are genuinely severe, even life-threatening. Naming that experience matters because it can lead to proper care.

But the label is a double-edged sword. It helps women who genuinely need treatment, while conveniently arming everyone else with an explanation for any woman's anger, ambition or inconveniently well-timed opinion. No actual listening required.

The answer isn't pretending PMS or PMDD doesn't exist. It's getting ruthless about separating illness from ordinary human anger. Treat women who are genuinely unwell with actual care, and stop letting 'hormonal' do the job that 'she's right, actually' sometimes should.

Because a medical label can be a wonderfully efficient lid. Once a mood has a diagnosis attached to it, nobody has to ask what's underneath.