Logo image
Changing ideas: The medicalization of menopause
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Changing ideas: The medicalization of menopause

Susan E. Bell
Social science & medicine (1982), v 24(6), pp 535-542
1987
PMID: 3296222

Abstract

medicalization menopause women
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.

Metrics

12 Record Views
156 citations in Scopus

Details

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being
#5 Gender Equality

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Web of Science research areas
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Social Sciences, Biomedical
Logo image