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Reporting errors
References to women omitting girls
Women are constantly referred to in this and related articles; menstruation typically starts in early teenage years in girls. ?
Iztwoz (
talk) 11:57, 30 September 2022 (UTC)reply
I don't think this is an issue of concern. The article clearly says, "the first period (called menarche) occurs at around 12 years of age and continues for about 30–45 years."
Graham Beards (
talk) 12:06, 30 September 2022 (UTC)reply
In the first paragraph is "These cycles are concurrent and coordinated, normally last between 21 and 35 days in adult women" why leave out a large proportion of menstruating females?--
Iztwoz (
talk) 19:16, 30 September 2022 (UTC) Why 'adult' and why not just females?--
Iztwoz (
talk) 19:18, 30 September 2022 (UTC)reply
And are post-menopausal women not adults?--
Iztwoz (
talk) 19:20, 30 September 2022 (UTC)reply
I don't think this is an issue. The term "women" is used 33 times and 13 of these are in the citations. When the term is used in the body of the article, often the age range is given. If you have a
source for the differences of the cycles in girls, we could include these. It would insult our readers to say "in adult women who are still menstruating" when the meaning of post-menopausal is so obvious. I would be interested to see if any editors think "girls" is an issue.
Graham Beards (
talk) 21:41, 30 September 2022 (UTC)reply
I don't understand why the term "adult women" is used twice in the article - why not just "women"? I would have thought cycle length is on average the same, no matter if it's a menstruating teenager or an "adult woman" (perhaps different again during peri-menopause?). From a society point of view (or call it history), girls where officially women once they started menopause... Nowadays we don't think of them that way: we have girls pre menarche, then girls post menarche and then adult women. But biologically, the menstrual cycle is the same for a post menarche girl as for a woman, isn't it? In summary, I don't think we need to mention girls separate but I would prefer "women" instead of "adult women" here. - I've also seen the term "females" in publications to include women and girls in the one term.
EMsmile (
talk) 22:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)reply
Thanks for you valued comments. I have deleted the one occurrence of "adult women" and the one occurrence "adult woman". Stand alone "women" is redundant as the article starts off by saying "the female reproductive system".
Graham Beards (
talk) 09:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)reply
Basically, yes, the menstrual cycle is the same. It can be a bit more irregular for younger girls, especially those in their first year, but women is probably a better term.
172.4.66.98 (
talk) 14:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)reply
"There are common culturally communicated misbeliefs that the menstrual cycle affects women's moods, causes depression or irritability, or that menstruation is a painful, shameful or unclean experience. Often a woman's normal mood variation is falsely attributed to the menstrual cycle. Much of the research is weak, but there appears to be a very small increase in mood fluctuations during the luteal and menstrual phases, and a corresponding decrease during the rest of the cycle.[74]"
This paragraph is scientifically incorrect. Read this review articles
PMID35267252,
this and
this. This issue was raised during FAC in Persian Wikipedia. PereopticTalk✉️ 15:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)reply
No. Those studies were on women with pre-existing psychiatric diagnoses. The cited study by Else-Quest N, Hyde JS (2021) is correct in this regard. Also I can't see the discussion you refer to here
[1]Graham Beards (
talk) 17:31, 12 April 2024 (UTC)reply
"This cyclic experience may influence women’s mental health through a variety of mechanisms. For example, many women experience physical discomfort (e.g., dysmenorrhea, breast tenderness, joint pain5) around menstruation. This physical discomfort can be associated with increases in psychological distress and irritability, and decreased self-esteem.6 Many women additionally report increased interpersonal conflicts and reduced social engagement premenstrually and during menstruation7,8—which may contribute to depression and isolation.8 Negative affect is linked with increased impulsivity,9 substance use,10 and nonsuicidal self-injury.11 As such, it is unsurprising that systematic and meta-analytic reviews find exacerbations of psychiatric symptoms across the menstrual cycle (e.g., Carroll et al.12)."
Another articles also mentions mood swings
[1][2]. However, I'm not sure if it refers to normal women or those with underlying mental illnesses. PereopticTalk✉️ 06:18, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks for this. Firstly you must stick to
acceptable sources which none of these are with the possible exception of Handy et al. I think the issue you have had is essentially over mood swings. This is covered in our article where is says "there appears to be a very small increase in mood fluctuations during the luteal and menstrual phases, and a corresponding decrease during the rest of the cycle." Handy et al say only 5% of women are affected but even then they also admit to a sampling bias and add the caveat "Given the failure to include this information and the general lack of representation of racial and ethnic minority groups, the generalizability of these findings is an open question". So I can not accept your argument that what I have written is "scientifically incorrect".
Graham Beards (
talk) 06:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Graham Beards: Of course, English is not my first language and I may use some words incorrectly. I didn't mean this paragraph to be "scientifically incorrect", I meant that article by Handy et al was stated as straight fact. We have not covered the controversies surrounding this scientific issue in the text of the article As you said yourself, Handy admits that: "the generalizability of these findings is an open question" PereopticTalk✉️ 07:25, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
-This position is not a "cultural misconception" in any way, but it is a completely scientific matter about which there is debate and controversy. By the way, the number of researches that show the connection between the two is increasing. The mentioned sentence should be rewritten as follows: "There is a difference of opinion regarding the relationship between menstruation and mood changes" or "In recent years, the relationship between menstruation and mood changes has been discussed." Tisfoon.
I disagree. That's not an improvement. We don't base our articles on opinions, we use reliable sources and the second suggestion says nothing really.
Graham Beards (
talk) 07:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Graham Beards: difference of opinion base our articles, not just opinion. I don't know why you are reading my speech word for word. By disagreement, I mean the difference between scientific articles. Find out the meaning of my words, not sentence by sentence and word by word. When a review article admits that there are problems with my review, you should not write the research results in the text of the article without mentioning these problems. For example, it is better to write: "But still more research is needed in this field." PereopticTalk✉️ 08:23, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
There are common culturally communicated misbeliefs that the menstrual cycle affects women's moods, causes depression or irritability, or that menstruation is a painful, shameful or unclean experience. Often a woman's normal mood variation is falsely attributed to the menstrual cycle. Much of the research is weak, but there appears to be a very small increase in mood fluctuations during the luteal and menstrual phases, and a corresponding decrease during the rest of the cycle.[1]
There are common culturally communicated misbeliefs that the menstrual cycle affects women's moods, causes depression or irritability, or that menstruation is a painful, shameful or unclean experience. Often a woman's normal mood variation is falsely attributed to the menstrual cycle. Much of the research is weak, but there appears to be a very small increase in mood fluctuations during the luteal and menstrual phases, and a corresponding decrease during the rest of the cycle.[1] Limited data indicate that the role of hormones in psychiatric symptom exacerbations in those women with pre-existing psychiatric diagnoses warrants further research to develop standardized assessment measures.[2]
Hi Sandy, I don't think we should use the study. This diagram
[2] shows how the authors only focussed on women with pre-existing psychiatric conditions. There are numerous conditions that are aggravated by hormonal changes[3] but only a tiny percent of women experience this. I think we are in danger of creeping towards medicalizing a healthy physiological function, which, as you know, was a big, big problem in earlier versions.
Graham Beards (
talk) 14:13, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
"only focussed on women" Which Only? I agree with Sandy Georgia, do menstrual cycles only happen to normal women? When talking about menstrual health, part of it includes women who have underlying mental illnesses, and it is good that these issues are also covered in the article. In addition to the issues I mentioned, the topic of underlying diseases has a very wide coverage in mental health articles.
[3][4][5][6]PereopticTalk✉️ 16:25, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I don't know what you mean by "Which Only".
Graham Beards (
talk) 16:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I think this is my grammar problem. :) Suppose I didn't write that sentence at all PereopticTalk✉️ 16:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
This is from he Lead:
The menstrual cycle can cause some women to experience
premenstrual syndrome with symptoms that may include
tender breasts, and
tiredness. More severe symptoms that affect daily living are classed as
premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and are experienced by 3–8% of women. During the first few days of menstruation some women experience
period pain that can spread from the abdomen to the back and upper thighs. The menstrual cycle can be modified by
hormonal birth control.
But the text does not clearly mention mental healthPereopticTalk✉️ 17:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
OK. Let me summarise what I think the issues are:
You translated this article into Farsi. (And where is the acknowledgment ?)
You nominated it for FA in the Persian Wikipedia.
One (just one) reviewer, Tisfoon, said there wasn't enough on mood swings.
So you added this to the Persian version: "There is a difference of opinion about the basic and long-term effect of the menstrual cycle on mood and its relationship with mental disorders and its continuity and occurrence in each cycle. However, mood swings during the cycle (especially in the luteal phase and menstruation) are accepted among experts and may be accompanied by fluctuations.
This was sourced to an article on suicides. (Jang D, Elfenbein HA (2019). "Menstrual Cycle Effects on Mental Health Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis". Archives of Suicide Research : Official Journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research. 23 (2): 312–332.
doi:
10.1080/13811118.2018.1430638.
PMID29461935.)
Then you started the discussion here requesting a similar addition.
I disagreed saying the existing coverage was adequate.
You replied by saying "But the text does not clearly mention mental health ".
This is not needed in my view. And furthermore, I find it misogynistic when a normal, healthy physiological function in women is held to blame for mental diseases. Unless you can quote an
WP:MEDRS source to support your claim that the menstrual cycle causes mental disease in otherwise healthy women, I think we should let the matter rest.
Graham Beards (
talk) 17:38, 13 April 2024 (UTC)reply
These ambiguities were raised in GA, but since these are still not resolved for me, I have raised these issues here. I did not come here to suggest that we add this text to the English article, I raised this issue to seek the scholarly opinions of English Wikipedia users about it. But I came across this sentence: "And besides, I find it misogynistic to blame a normal, healthy physiological function in women for mental illness." This sentence really surprised me.
In that case, please see
WP:NOTAFORUM: "...article talk pages exist solely to discuss how to improve articles; they are not for general discussion about the subject of the article."
Graham Beards (
talk) 05:56, 14 April 2024 (UTC)reply
It's very, very clear that when I say "ambiguities," I mean the validity of the text in the menstrual health section. But unfortunately, you are dragging the discussion to the sidelines, first you describe the summary of my participation and goals, then you raise your personal beliefs and finally you sweep question under the carpet, I think it is better to wait for the third opinion. PereopticTalk✉️ 06:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)reply
^Roeder HJ, Leira EC (May 2021). "Effects of the Menstrual Cycle on Neurological Disorders". Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports. 21 (7): 34.
doi:
10.1007/s11910-021-01115-0.
PMID33970361.
Else-Quest N, Hyde JS (2021). "Psychology, gender, and health: psychological aspects of the menstrual cycle". The Psychology of Women and Gender: Half the Human Experience + (10th ed.). Los Angeles:
SAGE Publishing.
ISBN978-1-544-39360-5.