You know it's true that talk of PMS, "hysteria," and menopause has been used to discredit women and I agree that a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted, that the DSM has been used in extremely oppressive ways and mental health diagnosis can be tricky and fluid.

But just as there is a misogynist way to discuss and understand these things, there is also a feminist way to talk about them. The misogynist way might include notions about women being irrational, at the mercy of ther hormones, unsuitable for public office, any number of uses for the b-word etc. The feminist way might include the notion that women's lived experiences are important, that women are authorities on what happens with/in our own bodies, that women's mental health matters and merits research, that when women are curt or angry or impassioned it is not at all okay to dismiss it as "*****iness."

See where I'm going? There is a middle ground between the two camps that are arguing in this thread. The fact that the history of psychiatry is fraught with sexism, crap science and paternalism is problematic, but it doesn't discount the existence of mental illness IMHO and it doesn't mean it has to stay that way forever.