IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v24y1987i6p535-542.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changing ideas: The medicalization of menopause

Author

Listed:
  • Bell, Susan E.

Abstract

This paper examines the intellectual roots of the medicalization of menopause in the 1930s and 1940s. An analysis of published papers written by prominent American medical specialists reveals three models that were developed to understand menopause--biological, psychological and environmental-- and shows how each contributed to its medicalization. This transformation was made possible by the paradigm of sex endocrinology and the availability of a new drug (DES), which was produced in 1938. Exploring the medicalization of menopause illuminates some of the special and complicated ways that women's experiences are vulnerable to medical control.

Suggested Citation

  • Bell, Susan E., 1987. "Changing ideas: The medicalization of menopause," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 535-542, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:24:y:1987:i:6:p:535-542
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(87)90343-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fishman, Jennifer R. & Flatt, Michael A. & Settersten, Richard A., 2015. "Bioidentical hormones, menopausal women, and the lure of the “natural” in U.S. anti-aging medicine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 79-87.
    2. Michel, Joanna L. & Mahady, Gail B. & Veliz, Mario & Soejarto, Doel D. & Caceres, Armando, 2006. "Symptoms, attitudes and treatment choices surrounding menopause among the Q'eqchi Maya of Livingston, Guatemala," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 732-742, August.
    3. Rayner, Jo-Anne & Pyett, Priscilla & Astbury, Jill, 2010. "The medicalisation of 'tall' girls: A discourse analysis of medical literature on the use of synthetic oestrogen to reduce female height," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(6), pages 1076-1083, September.
    4. MacKendrick, Norah A. & Troxel, Hannah, 2022. "Like a finely-oiled machine: Self-help and the elusive goal of hormone balance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    5. Ilona Voicu, 2020. "Disease or Release? A Content Analysis on How is Menopause Framed in Romanian Online Media," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 8(1), pages 141-148, June.
    6. Clare Butler, 2020. "Managing the Menopause through ‘Abjection Work’: When Boobs Can Become Embarrassingly Useful, Again," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(4), pages 696-712, August.
    7. Padamsee, Tasleem Juana, 2011. "The pharmaceutical corporation and the 'good work' of managing women's bodies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1342-1350, April.
    8. Bell, Susan E. & Figert, Anne E., 2012. "Medicalization and pharmaceuticalization at the intersections: Looking backward, sideways and forward," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(5), pages 775-783.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    medicalization menopause women;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:24:y:1987:i:6:p:535-542. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.