Medicalization of Women's Bodies

            Medicalization is the process by which a normal function of the body becomes indicative of disease. In our society, medicalization is becoming increasingly frequent among women. Women are being treated for various normal body functions did not require medical attention in the past. Some women’s body functions that are medicalized in our society today include: pregnancy and menopause. I am going to focus on an article I read about the medicalization of menopause.

            The woman that wrote this article, Nancy Krieger, was going through menopause and she stressed her concerns with the medicalization of menopause. Women tend to seek medical and cosmetic “help” during menopause because aging is seen as something that requires medical attention. Nancy Krieger even writes, “Some medical researchers, health care providers, and drug companies have defined menopause as a hormone ‘deficiency’ condition due to ovarian ‘failure’.” This view suggests that menopause is similar to thyroid deficiency or even diabetes. Some medical providers even claim that if menopause is not treated it could result in other chronic conditions or sudden death. I think this is ridiculous. Menopause is simply a normal part of an aging woman’s life. Since the onset of menopause stops the production of hormones in women’s bodies, “hormone replacement therapy” became an accepted “treatment.” Doctors and women believed that “hormone replacement therapy” would solve all the problems of menopause by boosting estrogen levels in the system. It turned out that “hormone replacement therapy” didn’t solve all the problems of aging, and in fact, it was more detrimental than beneficial to a woman’s health.

            There has been a long history of illness being associated with women’s reproductive organs and hormones. During this time period, many women had hysterectomies in attempt to “cure” many problems. This article also states, “higher education for adolescent girls was discouraged for fear that taxing girls’ brains would ruin their reproductive organs.” In society, we no longer associate education with destroying women’s reproductive organs. We do, however, associate menopause with being something that needs “help.” I believe that many doctors see menopause as something that needs to be treated because they only ever see women that complain about menopausal side effects. Doctors do not get input from healthy women that don’t complain of menopause. I believe that the medicalization of menopause is extremely biased. Menopause is a natural thing and it happens to every woman in middle age. I feel that doctors should suggest alternative homeopathic remedies to menopause because it has not always been something that required medical attention. I also feel that doctors make women feel like menopause is a bigger problem than it really is, by overreacting to it. Women should be able to accept menopause without feeling like they are “deficient” or in danger of other medical problems or death.

http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/menoexcerpt.asp?id=53&chapterID=31