GRSJ224/Medicalization of Female Ageing

Medicalization of female ageing is the practice of treating a female's ageing process with medical interventions. Mecalization of female ageing tends to result from the changes in social norms, institutions, and relations between gendered groups . It is worth noticing that medical knowledge as a social creation , which is generated through daily interactions between societal agents, is not free from cultural bias and tends to be shaped by power dynamics in social relations. In other words, by establishing standards of what is acceptable, medicalization is a form of management for social problems , consequently, social minority groups tend to be medicalized as deviant. Historically, female biology was viewed as inferior than which of male; at the same time, ageing is often constructed as a period of declining, vulnerability, and dependency in popular culture. Hence, older females are seen to be "double marginalized", which make the changes occurring on them prone to be defined as "abnormal".

Moreover, medicalization of female ageing can also serve as the regulation on females' age identity, as it creates and labels different age groups. For instance, although age have both chronological and social meanings, individual's ageing experience is highly influenced by their age identity, which is the result of social labeling. While ageing can refer to the general development from young adult to elderly, the medicalization of a female's transition from "maturity" to "old age" receives significantly more attention from both public and academic discourses, as its intertwined effects with social norms and cultural environments are salient. A good example is increasing popularity of anti-ageing cosmetic surgeries and hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which reveal the impact of the changes in technology, social norms, and media environment on how a female view herself in relation to others.

Historical and Cultural Contexts

Shifts in Cultural Views on Body

Regardless of numerous biomedical technology breakthroughs, human's feelings of anxiety and uneasiness toward death persist. Hence, the negative connotations of ageing process have been inscribed in our biological instincts and cultures. The general public's overwhelmingly negative reactions to von Hagens' exhibitions embody this kind of anxiety. Using plastination, which is a process of replacing body fat and water with long-lasting materials, Dr. von Hagens is able to display the real human anatomy bodies in their "alive" states such as playing sports or instruments. The exhibition reveals the current cultural sensitivity to body's transformation by blurring the boundary between life and death, and suggesting the inevitability of extinction of life even under the supervision of modern medicine.

Historically, body was not always subject to medicalization. Catholic theology of body suggests human's body and soul are formed in the image and spirit of god, thus are perfect. However, with the proposal of mind-body dualism , people started to accept the idea that human's body and soul can be separate entities, which made human anatomy possible. The advance in anatomy knowledge not only led to the artistic representation of beauty in human body in 16th century, also expedited the development of Western medicine, which has soon become the tool to manage both physical and social body. Today, there has been various medical technologies that do not focus on "fixing" but "improving" the body. For example, anti-ageing plastic surgery allows the patients to modify their physical features with accordance to their desired self-image and social identity.

Introduction of Oral Contraception Pills and HRT

In past few decades, there has been a rapid influx of the new medical technologies with increasing accessibility for the general public. In 1929, the first human sex hormone--estrogen, was successfully identified and extracted. Thirty years after this discovery, in 1960, FDA approved the use of estrogen as contraceptive pills. However, several medical studies at that time has found that the pro-longed usage of estrogen medication is related to blood clots, heart attacks and breast cancer. Therefore, for the women in Baby Boomer generation, neither The Pill nor HRT were considered to be attractive or feasible due to the possible fatal risks and severe side-effects. However, with the technological innovation, in 1980s, lower dosage version of contraceptive pill and estrogen-plus-progestin HRT were invented and entered the market. It soon became popular among females regardless of the contradictory medical findings on the association between the new medications and cardiovascular diseases.

Some researcher argue that the introduction of contraceptive pills and HRT alters public view on female reproductive health and ageing process. Specifically, the natural process of female ageing and the body's permanent cessation of menstruation are simplified to the deficiency in female sex hormone, which makes it possible for pharmaceutical industry to construct ageing as a "problem" that need to be fixed. Consequently, in reality, more and more women in their midlife are actively seeking for medical treatments for menopause symptoms. Moreover, modern technological innovation has created the illusions and desires to "construct one's self-hood and body outside of time". Thus, under current youth-oriented culture, many women are pressured to pursuit "agelessness" and they tend to experience emotional distresses when the disillusionment stem from losing control over ageing process inevitably happens.

Third-wave Feminism

There is no clear and uniform definition of what third-wave feminism is, since the point where one wave ends or another one begins is imperceptible. Nevertheless, it has been widely accepted that one of its characteristics is the assertion on female sexual liberty. The prevailing effects of the movement makes the topics related to female sexuality become appropriate for public discourse. Consequently, females started to feeling comfortable to talk about their reproductive health and seeking for medical treatments. Researchers have observed that the women born in generation X are more willing to discuss and medicalize their menopause symptoms than their mothers' generation.

Besides, third-wave feminism is said to be discontinuous from first and second wave, as it asserts that older feminism ideologies are naive and obsolete. It creates a barrier between feminists in different generations and make it difficult to have sufficient coherence as a political forces. Some researchers argue that the media portrayals of wicked witch is a mirror of this phenomenon. Specifically, by portraying older females as jealous, and heartless witches, these images perpetuate the patriarchal stereotype that women are competitors over eligible men for marriage. Furthermore, the power of older females were undermined, and these images not only create irrational fear of ageing for young girls, but also avoid women's bonding for social and political representations.

Female Age Identity and Ageing Industry

Age identity refers to the labels that people perceive themselves in relation to their age . Adult development is said to be related less to chronological age than "ageing messages", which normally refer to the symbolic transition (e.g. graduation, wedding, and retirement) from one life stage to another. Moreover, the social meaning of old age tends to be negatively constructed as inevitable and involuntary role loss, which makes "being old" an extremely intimidating period for majority of women in their midlife. Since traditional heterosexual femininity is defined over maternity and sexuality, the central roles of being a "normal" female were presumed to be lost by older woman. Therefore, older women were socially and culturally marginalized and stereotypically represented as evil witch, controlling mother, or uneducated housewife in patriarchal society.

However, with female increasing economic independence and consumer power, the marginalization of older females seem to be no longer exist. Instead, mass media tends to portrait older females as "have it all"--"wealth, beauty, sex and control". These images are perceived as examples of "successful ageing" by the general public, regardless of that it is impossible to "have it all". In addition, there has been increasing number of advertisements from ageing industry in mass media. Ageing industry refers to the companies that make profit from medicalizing ageing process. For example, pharmaceutical companies, along with general media, is actively engaging in creating and disseminating medical model of menopause through representation of healthy and glowing menopausal women. The prevalent advertisements on medical treatments of ageing symptoms encourage women to connect their happiness and social status with physical appearances and ability to fight against "identity strip". They are also falsely granted the hope of achieving those impossible standards of successful ageing. Therefore, there has been a consistent debate over whether feminism fought for female political and economic independence while bypassed more personal and private manners such as female reproductive rights and ageing experience .

Alternative Experience of Ageing

A woman who is going through transition from "maturity" to "old age" tend to generate a sense of confusion as the former "cultural script" is no longer applicable to her current life stage. Though there have been several alternative views on this transition, which suggest a period of accumulation of life experience and wisdom instead of "identity stripping", our culture still lack of imagination of ideal mid-life experience for woman. Under this alternative perception, older females are constructed as strong, wise, and self-confident. However, this is not a gender-specific process as older males also share the same experience. In fact, research has shown that both older females and males have higher life satisfaction regardless of their increasing physical discomfort and challenge than young people.

Also, as it is discussed in above section, the lack of cultural imagination can be result of obsolete and patriarchal definition of femininity. With the changes in social values and modern technology, human's priority has been shifted far from reproduction and survival, therefore, the maternity and sexuality representation of femininity is out-dated and irrelevant. Since the process of redefining femininity requires a diverse and comprehensive representation of females in various social, cultural, and demographic groups, it is difficult to propose a rigid and uniform definition. However, it is still important to have the debate over "the meaning of being a female" in current social context. After all, femininity should be an inclusive concept for people who want to be identified with, instead of a rigid oppression from patriarchal society.