TY - JOUR
T1 - The time of the change
T2 - Menopause's medicalization and the gender politics of aging
AU - van de Wiel, Lucy
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - This article discusses the moment in which normative ideas about aging and reproductive embodiment became conceptually linked in the mid-nineteenthcentury medicalization of menopause. The reading centers on the first English book-length publication on menopause, written by E. J. Tilt in 1857, and Foucault’s concept of the medical gaze. I analyze mechanisms of observing, conceptualizing, and treating the body in relation to time and discuss their function in affirming and reworking social norms of age and gender. In doing so, I highlight the political work implicit in contesting conceptualizations of female reproductive bodies, their age-specific pathologies, and directives of (self-)surveillance employed in discourses surrounding women’s reproductive health.
AB - This article discusses the moment in which normative ideas about aging and reproductive embodiment became conceptually linked in the mid-nineteenthcentury medicalization of menopause. The reading centers on the first English book-length publication on menopause, written by E. J. Tilt in 1857, and Foucault’s concept of the medical gaze. I analyze mechanisms of observing, conceptualizing, and treating the body in relation to time and discuss their function in affirming and reworking social norms of age and gender. In doing so, I highlight the political work implicit in contesting conceptualizations of female reproductive bodies, their age-specific pathologies, and directives of (self-)surveillance employed in discourses surrounding women’s reproductive health.
UR - https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/ijfab.7.1.74
U2 - 10.3138/ijfab.7.1.74
DO - 10.3138/ijfab.7.1.74
M3 - Article
VL - 7
SP - 74
EP - 98
JO - IJFAB-International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
JF - IJFAB-International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
IS - 1
ER -
