The social construction of menopause as disease: A literature review
Journal Title: Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology - Year 2018, Vol 9, Issue 2
Abstract
Menopause is not only a natural biological aspect of women’s life, but, also, a social construct, mainly due to the contribution of the medical science. The article analyzes, in its first four parts, how this social construction has evolved, starting with the vision of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century medicine, that approached menopause as cause of multiple women’s diseases, continuing with the transformation of menopause, in the middle of the 20th century, in a specific disease (the estrogen deficiency disease), due to the discovery of the synthetic estrogen and, latter, in a syndrome, and finishing with the potential role of the in-vitro fertilization in reconstructing the image of menopausal woman as “useless body”. The last part of the article aims to capture the main feminist critiques of these types of social construction and to stress out some gaps in the Romanian feminist approaches regarding this topic.
Authors and Affiliations
Ilona Voicu
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP656508
- DOI -
- Views 111
- Downloads 0
From “reversed quota” to “ invisible quota” in the recruitment of the descendants of immigrants for public service jobs
Through a qualitative comparison study of the hiring of the descendants of immigrants for public service jobs in France and in the Netherlands, this article highlights the selection mechanisms implemented by local human...
Aura Matei / Book review: Paul Dragoș Aligica and Peter J. Boettke (2009). Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development
Aura Matei / Book review: Paul Dragoș Aligica and Peter J. Boettke (2009). Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development. The Bloomington School. London and New-York: Routledge
High school and university students’ opinions about politics
This paper is a part of a larger thesis, which compares two groups’ relations to politics, based on empirical sources. The main question, which can be answered only partly in this paper is, what are the particularities o...
Follow me on academia.edu: Analysis of a distraction online and of its consequences on daily life
The narration of a story is a work half-way between the real and the virtual, the factual and the functional. The request to join a social network sent to 281 people is a pretext to reflect on what happens in the world o...
Theoretical and practical difficulties in researching disabled parenting in Romania
This article explores the difficulties in navigating the multidisciplinary literature on disabled parents in the Romanian context with the purpose of setting a framework for investigating this topic in Romania. The artic...