Mediating menopause: feminism, neoliberalism, and biomedicalisation

Orgad, Shani and Rottenberg, Catherine (2023) Mediating menopause: feminism, neoliberalism, and biomedicalisation. Feminist Theory. ISSN 1464-7001

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Abstract

Menopause is currently a ‘hot’ topic in the UK. This article examines the Channel 4 television documentary Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause as a key cultural text in the current UK ‘menopause moment’, demonstrating how the programme both reflects and contributes to the broader trend of menopause's growing visibility and the emerging menopause market. We begin by situating Davina within broader social, cultural and economic processes which provided a conducive context for the show's largely positive reception, and which constitute some of the key forces fuelling menopause's heightened public profile more broadly. We then move to investigate the discourses that Davina draws upon, mobilises and highlights. Our analysis shows how the programme invokes feminist terms, while discussing crucial structural conditions that underpin the continued stigma and shame around menopause. At the same time, we demonstrate that there is a striking disconnect between the structural inequalities that the documentary highlights and its consistent emphasis on individualised and privatised solutions. This disconnect, we argue, provides important insight into the dominant forces currently animating the current menopause moment in the UK. We conclude by underscoring how even the more recent critical renditions of menopause have thus far remained largely curtailed by biomedical and neoliberal logics.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2023.
Divisions:	Media and Communications
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine J Political Science Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Date Deposited:	03 Aug 2023 11:42
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2024 21:33
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/119906

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