Understanding disorder, the female body and femininity: A qualitative exploration of the experiences of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome treatment


Samadrita Chowdhuri, University of Alberta

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is a condition characterized by different symptoms of menstrual abnormalities, overweight and obesity, acne, hair loss, and hirsutism (male hair growth pattern), based on the key feature of an increase in androgen synthesis by the ovaries (Ehrmann, 2005). PCOS, by its very nature, has a negative impact on a woman’s reproductive health and is a condition that has been stated to be incurable and treatments are mostly directed at masking the symptoms and regulating hormonal functionality. Most treatments focus on taking birth control pills aimed at inducing artificial hormones to mask symptoms that manifest the dominance of male hormones, since this is the most frequent endocrinopathy among premenopausal women and the major cause of infertility (Vrbikova,2012). Women with PCOS are reduced to having an abnormal body that needs to be addressed medically because they are unable to embody normative femininity. This research seeks to understand Indian and Indo-Canadian women’s perspective of PCOS, their illness experience, and how such experiences are connected to their perceptions of femininity. This qualitative study is informed by a narrative inquiry approach, combined with aspects of feminist methodology where personal narratives were utilized to comprehend the experience of a health condition. It seeks to understand how PCOS is labeled as a condition based on the assumption that androgen excess is not part of embodied ‘femininity’ and how the sex or gender binary is shaping medical diagnosis and treatment for this condition. I present preliminary findings from my ongoing Master’s research project, which is driven by the question of how this condition is constructed as a problem of femininity under the label of a health concern. This research aims to uncover nuanced knowledge of the experiences of Indian and Indo-Canadian women by examining how women identify their bodies in response to living with gendered disease. Based on previous research on women’s experiences of PCOS, this work explores how PCOS is experienced in relation to perceptions of the normative female body. The theoretical structure of this study is influenced by a feminist and social constructionist framework focused on gender and bodies. Theories of stigma and gendered social construction are central frameworks for the study. Specifically, I use Goffman’s concept of stigma, which considers how social expectations, standards of conduct, and appearance are attached to bodies in a static manner, and how stigmatization develops in accordance with such societal expectations (Goffman,1959). I also use Butlers ideas of cultural intelligibility as a guiding conceptual framework to reflect how women negotiate their gender identities as a part of the stigma management process, and how treatment becomes as avenue to conform to femininity norms. I also utilize Foucault’s concept of medicalization to understand how medical discourses control women’s bodies, and to understand how women manage stigma. The key insights gained from the first stage of analysis reflect two sets of narratives. One, women reflected on how the condition and treatments make them feel ‘’less of a woman’’; Two, women described how the masking of symptoms enhanced their identity as a woman. Both narratives converged under the idea that being healthy meant being feminine. Temporality also becomes important as women choose their treatment preferences based on what becomes important ‘now’ and what is ‘visible’ to others. Thus, the spectrum of symptoms and their perceptions of illness, are connected with temporality, meanings of femininity, and infertility. Birth control is then not a choice, but the only option to ‘fix’ the appearance-based symptoms and to regulate menstrual cycles so that they may function like ‘normal’ women.

This paper will be presented at the following session: