Medicalisation is a process whereby non-medical conditions and phenomena begin to be treated medically. Female bodies are frequent target of medicalization, which holds especially true for the reproductive cycle. However, through the change of cultural and socio-economic structures, the course of medicalization has changed as well. Individuals often personally demand tool by the medical and pharmaceutical professions to manage and monitor their menstrual cycle. My central question is thus: what role does menstruation play in the definition and self-determination of women, and how does the pathologisation of menstruation affect the demand for its medicalization? First, I will try to locate the causes of pathologisation and subsequent medicalisation of menstruation by the means of historical examination, as well as the changing of beliefs on menstruation from antiquity to the twentieth century. This helps to explain why menstruation is such a defining event in women’s lives, and also to answer the question of how they have managed it. One of the findings of this thesis is that, while in fact principal influence of medicalization of an individual and her reproductive cycle, the responsibility and demand for medicalization have since shifted to the individual. Two common examples of medicalization of the menstrual cycle are regulation and control through professional intervention and consumption of pharmaceuticals, which in addition reflect the general spirit of the neoliberal socio-economic system.
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