Towards a rhizomatic perspective of the medicalized Body? A Review on Medicalization and Gender

Abstract

Medicalization has been one of the most important topics for feminist agenda and gender studies. During the second wave of feminism, when sexual and reproductive rights were the top concerns for women, is exactly when the studies of medicalization started to grow. The goal of this research is to present some characteristics of the studies that are concerned with the gendered medicalized body by indicating how the medicalization process has been explained, understood and interlaced with different institutions and people. One main concern in this review is to pay attention to how gender is expressed in medicalization studies. Within a qualitative design, and the support of SPSS™, we constructed a mapping review on the literature published in books, and thereafter we developed a content analysis of the chapters on medicalization. An overview of the characteristics of the studies are presented, and after two categories are discussed: (a) meanings of medicalization and (b) medicalizing bodies and its entrepreneurs: a rhizomatic expression. It was concluded the medicalization thesis should be considered as one line of a “rhizome” that connects to different actors, corporations and organizations. In deconstructing the rhizome, the analytical category gender should be understood as a socio-historical construction related to relations of domination and to resistance as well. Also, the medicalization authors should be sensitive to the epistemologies of the Global South.