Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Menopause narratives: the interplay of women's embodied experiences with biomedical discourses
    Conventional approaches to menopause tend to contrast the biomedical position on menopause with women’s actual experiences of it. Rather than focusing primarily on the tensions between these perspectives (biomedical vs. lay), our emphasis here is on the impact of biomedicine in shaping participants’ perceptions of their status as menopausal. Based on interview data gathered from 39 women in Ireland, we argue that the cultural authority of biomedicine shaped participants’ experiences of the body and how they constituted their health identity. We assert that, ironically, this was particularly the case among those who most strongly contested biomedical definitions of their situation. In addition, biomedical practitioners’ definitions had a strong normalizing power in how the body was experienced. We conclude by noting that our analysis problematizes the notion of privileging “women’s experiences” as advocated by some feminist perspectives. The heavy influence of biomedical discourses in shaping participants’ embodied experiences demonstrates the pervasive impact of prevailing discourses on women’s experiences.
    Scopus© Citations 23  1075
  • Publication
    The ending of menstruation: perspectives and experiences of lesbian and heterosexual women at menopause
    This article aims to theorize how a sample of menopausal women, lesbian and heterosexual, construct the ending of their periods, and what the experience means for them. Findings indicate that for most of the lesbian participants (who were in a sizeable minority), emotions of loss at the ending of periods were simultaneously expressed alongside positive feelings, and they engaged in greater introspection around the issue than did heterosexual women. However, lesbians did not all take up a singular subject position in relation to menstruation, indicating that there is fragmentation and plurality in how the body is experienced across a group.
    Scopus© Citations 10  488