Reinterpreting Menopause: Cultural and Philosophical Issues

by Komesaroff,Paul

• ISBN13: 9780415915656
• ISBN10: 0415915651
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1997-04-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In recent years there has been extensive analysis of the health effects of menopause and the safety and efficacy of the various "treatments" and rising concern about the appropriation and pathologization of menopause by medicine and its effects on women. However, there has been relatively little reflection on the social, cultural, philosophical and ethical issues raised by both menopause itself and the way it has been handled by medicine.Reinterpreting Menopausebrings together a number of reflections from a broad range of areas including feminism, cultural studies, clinical medicine, sociology, philosophy and political science and includes the voices and experiences of menopausal women themselves. In an innovative series of essays, current thinking about medicine, society and the body is critically examined. Particular attention is given to the medical representations of menopause, biology and aging, the history of medical approaches to women and the tensions between bio-medicalmodels and other explanations of menopause. The issues of hormonal therapies is explored in the context of the connections between women, medicine, representation and cultural politics. Contributors include:E. Ann Kaplan, Emily Martin, Mia Campioni, Fiona Mackie, Roe Sybylla, Wendy Rogers, Kwok Lei Leng, Margaret Morganroth Gullette and Robyn Gardner.

Table of Contents

Mapping Menopause: Objectivity or Multiplicity?	p. 3
The Left Hand of the Goddess: The Silencing of Menopause as a Bodily Experience of Transition	p. 17
Menopausal Embodiment	p. 32
Medicine and the Moral Space of the Menopausal Woman	p. 54
Revolting Women: Women in Revolt	p. 77
Resisting Pathologies of Age and Race: Menopause and Cosmetic Surgery in Films by Rainer and Tom	p. 100
Gynopathia Sexuality: Theories of Decline in Biology and Aesthetics	p. 127
Facing Change: Women Speaking about Midlife	p. 159
Menopause as Magic Marker: Discursive Consolidation in the United States, and Strategies for Cultural Combat	p. 176
Situating Menopause within the Strategies of Power: A Genealogy	p. 200
Sources of Abjection in Western Responses to Menopause	p. 225
The Woman in the Menopausal Body	p. 239
Menopause and the Great Divide: Biomedicine, Feminism, and Cyborg Politics	p. 255
Index	p. 273
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