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Deformities and Diseased: The Medicalization of Women’s Breasts

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Breast Cancer

Abstract

For more than 30 years, medical sociologists have argued that the institution of medicine is an agent of social control. In his classic essay, Irving Kenneth Zola argues that as more of human experience becomes medicalized—that is, as natural human experiences and processes come to be seen as conditions that require medical attention—physicians enjoy increased control over people’s lives (1971). Sociologists Diana Scully and Catherine Kohler Riessman further discuss how doctors historically have exercised social control over women by medicalizing women’s experiences, such as childbirth, premenstrual syndrome, and menopause.

We may not have a cure for every disease, alas, but there’s no reason we can’t have a disease for every cure.

—Barbara Ehrenreich, 1992

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Authors
  1. Susan J. Ferguson Ph.D.
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© 2000 Anne S. Kasper, Susan J. Ferguson

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Ferguson, S.J. (2000). Deformities and Diseased: The Medicalization of Women’s Breasts. In: Breast Cancer. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-03779-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-03779-4_3

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-312-29451-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-03779-4

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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