Managing the Monstrous Feminine takes a unique approach to the study of the material and discursive practices associated with the construction and regulation of the female body. Jane Ussher examines the ways in which medicine, science, the law and popular culture combine to produce fictions about femininity, positioning the reproductive body as the source of women's power, danger and weakness. Including sections on 'regulation', 'the subjectification of women' and 'women's negotiation and resistance', this book describes the construction of the 'monstrous feminine' in mythology, art, literature and film, revealing its implications for the regulation and experience of the fecund female body. Critical reviews are combined with case studies and extensive interview material to illuminate discussions of subjects including: the regulation of women through the body regimes of knowledge associated with reproduction intersubjectivity and the body women’s narratives of resistance. These insights into the relation between the construction of the female body and women's subjectivity will be of interest to those studying health psychology, social psychology, medical sociology, gender studies and cultural studies. The book will also appeal to all those looking for a high-level introduction to contemporary feminist thought on the female body.

Background: Negative premenstrual change can result in distress for a significant proportion of women. Previous research has suggested that women employ a range of coping strategies and behaviours in order to manage and reduce premenstrual distress. However, as yet there has been no specific scale available to measure premenstrual coping. This research aimed to develop and validate a measure of premenstrual coping which can be used in future investigations of negative premenstrual experience.Methods: A sample of 250 women living in Australia, reporting mild to severe premenstrual distress, completed an online survey containing 64 items related to premenstrual coping. The items were generated by reviewing past literature related to premenstrual experience, in particular recent qualitative research on premenstrual coping. A principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted to determine item clusters that would form a measure. Reliability and validity were tested using calculations of Cronbach alphas, correlational analysis with psychological coping scales and a content analysis of participant reports of coping strategies.Results: The factor analysis, which involved two principal component analyses, resulted in five factors containing 32 premenstrual coping behaviours. Interpretation of the factor solution drew on empirical and theoretical accounts of premenstrual coping and the emergent factors were labelled Avoiding Harm, Awareness and Acceptance of Premenstrual Change, Adjusting Energy, Self-Care, and Communicating. These factors form the subscales of the Premenstrual Coping Measure (PMCM). The subscales demonstrated acceptable to very good reliability and tests of construct, concurrent and content validity were supportive of sound validity.Conclusions: The PMCM provides a valid and reliable scale for quantifying ways of coping specific to negative premenstrual change. Conceptual similarity was found between some coping behaviours and behaviours positioned as symptoms of premenstrual change. Explanations for this overlap may be found in cultural discourses associated with idealised femininity and PMS (premenstrual syndrome). Further psychometric investigation of the PMCM will enhance knowledge of the role of coping with negative premenstrual experience.

Sado-masochism (SM) is described as a pathology in current psychological and psychiatric textbooks, and is often discussed alongside behaviours such as child sexual abuse and rape. Individuals who engage in SM are invariably positioned as experiencing intra-psychic conflict ameliorated through the displacement of the sexual drive. This is a limited and one-dimensional analysis of a complex phenomenon. This article presents the results of an in-depth qualitative study designed to further our understanding of the psychology of SM consistent with a social constructionist approach. Twenty-four self-identified sadomasochists, recruited through SM clubs and agencies and informal social networks, were interviewed. Thematic discourse analysis was used to generate a four-factor definition of SM: consensuality, an unequable balance of power, sexual arousal and compatibility of definition. Participants positioned SM variously as dissidence, as pleasure, as escapism, as transcendence, as learned behaviour, as intra-psychic, as pathological and as `inexplicable'. The research findings, their relevance to our understanding of SM sexualities and the limitations of the methodology and subsequent formulation, are discussed.