La naturalisation de la ménopause

parcours d’une catégorie façonnée par le genre

Abstract

This paper deals with the historical construction of menopause and the different con-texts of thought that have shaped this category since the XIX^th century. Whether it is blood plethora, uterus or hormones which are at play in the etiology of the troubles of menopause, gender underlies medical discourses. First of all, I will examine the invention of menopause at the beginning of the XIX^th century, as a product of the adoption of a two-sex model. As we shall see, this invention is characterized by gender in that it consolidates a dichotomy and essentialist representation of female physiology as troubled and in need of disciplining. I will then analyze the way in which, since the 1920s, hormonal understandings of the body have constructed menopause as deficiency: gender today stems from this essentialized conception of femininity.