In the specific case of aggressive behavior in women, a certain phase of the menstrual cycle has been related to mood swings and even criminal behavior. We are referring to the so-called premenstrual syndrome (PMS) that relates hormonal fluctuations with women with certain aggressive, irritative, anxiety, depression, etc. symptoms. It is Frank in 1931 who describes for the first time a set of symptoms, among which nervous tension stands out, which appear 7 to 10 days before menstruation and which are relieved by the appearance of periodic bleeding.
This author proposes ovarian hormones as the cause of all this. The term premenstrual syndrome is coined by Greene and Dalton 1953 to refer to a series of diverse symptoms that appear after ovulation and are accentuated in the days that proceed in menstruation, disappearing with the arrival of this.
The symptoms of PMS are of two types: somatic and psychological. In a recent review on the subject, Bancroft and Backstrom (1985) find that the most important premenstrual psychological changes are the following: irritability, depression and lack of energy.
Lerma (1987) found that 46% of the women studied had increased irritability in the premenstrual phase. This increase in premenstrual irritability could contribute to an increase in aggressive acts during this phase of the cycle (Floody, 1983).
There are various studies that show a greater number of aggressive acts committed during the premenstrual phase.
Morton and Cols (1953) observed that PMS leads to an increase in irritability and hostility that can lead to aggression of the irritative type that, especially in subjects with little self-control, can trigger a violent act. The judicial records of a series of inmates studied by him showed that 60% of the acts of criminal violence carried out by women occur during the premenstrual week, while only 2% were carried out at the end of the menstrual period.
One of the authors who has stood out the most in the study of the association between the menstrual cycle and the commission of crimes is Dr. Dalton. She carried out an investigation with inmates that yielded the result that at least half of the women studied committed their crime during menstruation or pre menstruation (Dalton 1961).
This increased irritability and aggressiveness in the premenstrual period has been echoed in Dr. Dalton's studies. Thus, he found that the incidence of child abuse was higher in the premenstrual phase.
Rausch and Janowsky (1983) there is not enough information to define precisely which hormones, neourohormones or a combination of hormones are the cause of PMS. Elevated levels, or rapid drops, of estrogens, progesterone, aldosterone, angiotensin, prolactin, androgens, and even certain neurotransmitters could be related to emotional instability and fluctuate during the luteal or premenstrual phase of the cycle.
For Koeske (1987), the studies that emphasize a certain biological substance to find an explanation for PMS are inconclusive and the investigations are characterized by not being systematic and having methodological errors.
As a conclusion, it could be said that a single biological explanation cannot be attributed to the wide spectrum of PMS symptoms. Both the studies that associate PMS and those that associate testosterone with aggressiveness and criminal behavior are for the most part retrospective. Thus, it could be postulated that an organism that is directed towards action secretes a series of hormones, which in this case would not be the cause but the consequence of the action.
Possibly both elements are interrelated in such a way that socialization affects physiology and vice versa, rather than thinking of a unidirectional physiological cause. The difference between both sexes would not be in their ability to be more or less aggressive, but rather the different biological mechanisms would predispose them to develop more or less violence; In this sense, the interaction with social norms, assigning more active or passive roles, would be defining the system.
From these studies, it could not be concluded that only testosterone produces aggressiveness and progesterone inhibits it, but that in any case they facilitate these reactions based on the cognitive interpretation that the individual makes of the environment in relation to its context and its limitations.
The cyclical and hormonal components are predispositional, that is, they lay the basis for establishing the determined behaviors, but the triggers of the action in the case of the human being are fundamental symbolic. We believe that this is the reason why most of the studies that have tried to relate biological variables to the cause of PMS and of this to crime have not obtained clear results.
All this means that the commission of crimes in women is much lower than in men, mainly because the mechanisms of socialization in women affect, as we have indicated, in the little use of physical aggression.
When you talk about crime, it seems that you are dealing with a purely male fact. Scientific research on criminality deals, as a rule, with the behavior of the delinquent man. Normally, Women are treated only as passive subjects in crime, with the consideration of victims.
If women are ever mentioned as criminals, the problems of female crime appear only in different sizes and in a second and sometimes even in a distant plane.
