**7. Medicalization**

The concept of medicalization, as developed by Ivan Illich [30], is a useful tool in trying to understand the conceptualization of women's sexuality in the biomedical model of health and sickness; it provides space for a critique of the positivist side of medicine in an age of embodied culture [31-34], in which the body becomes the principal field of political and personal grievances, as claimed by Bryan S. Turner in his theory of modern society as a "somatic society".

Medicalization involves the identification or categorization of a certain feeling, state or behaviour as pathological, as something in need of treatment or intervention; it is a process in the course of which health or behavioural issues begin to be viewed, defined and treated as medical issues, a process in which everyday occurrences, phenomena or living conditions are reinterpreted as medical issues to be subjected to medical control and definitions emphasizing risks, pathology and the importance of intervention treatment or other types of "managing" or handling the issue. Health professionals, and doctors in particular, are the ones defining, studying and treating these issues. "Western" medicine, also known as allopathic medicine, which is supposed to be based on scientific findings, provides a rigorous framework in its many iterations to explain, categorize and classify a variety of symptoms and diseases affecting individuals. Health professionals use a number of different means to treat and prevent illnesses or alleviate health issues as well as improve people's quality of life. Let us not forget, however, that medicine has evolved in a certain conceptual framework like all other scientific fields, and is therefore based on implicit, often ill-defined and unclear presumptions, such as the concepts of masculinity and femininity, which is made apparent in fields like psychiatry, gynaecology and obstetrics; historically speaking, these are disciplines particularly employed as mecha‐ nisms of power, and their practices have widely been used to control and define normality, pathology and deviance [35]. Medicalization processes occur in different ways, such as through changes in social relations, the creation and use of language, the development of certain ways to solve problems while disregarding others, and the institutionalization of particular services while others are excluded. The consequences of medicalization include personal or social life decisions being made within a limited specific reference framework.

The expansion of medical authority into various fields has had important impacts on everyday life. Medicalization has become such a self-evident part of our lives that is takes significant effort to distance ourselves and listen to the facts.

Medicalization of individual areas of life does have its advantages. Medicalization can be critiqued in terms of medicine as a scientific authority and health professionals as experts, linking to questions about the control and regulation of individual groups or phenomena and the interplay between knowledge and power [18]. In analysing power relations, their com‐ plexity needs to be taken into account, as the issue of medicalization cannot be reduced to the desire to dominate certain areas of knowledge or its disseminators and the conscious need to regulate populations, even though these two factors are among its essential elements. If authority over the body/in the body, as Foucault suggests, is divided into the disciplining or individual bodies and the regulation of population, or biopolitics, both of these processes simultaneously occur at the same place in the context of controlling human reproduction – that is, on the female body, even *in* and *with* the female body. Maintaining subservience and control inevitably involves a certain degree of violence, which, however, may not always be visible or apparent on sight. Control employing physical force and corporal punishment, isolation and darkrooms frequently morphs into more subtle, yet equally effective tools, such as exposure to other people's gaze, coercion to self-monitoring, self-discipline and disclosure, and manipulation through feelings of obligation and guilt. What does "medicalization of female sexuality" mean, then, and what is the price paid by women, frequently without knowing why and for what purpose?

often lower in the hierarchy than doctors, for example. On the other hand, being a woman does not always mean more equal cooperation with other members of health teams and empathy

The concept of medicalization, as developed by Ivan Illich [30], is a useful tool in trying to understand the conceptualization of women's sexuality in the biomedical model of health and sickness; it provides space for a critique of the positivist side of medicine in an age of embodied culture [31-34], in which the body becomes the principal field of political and personal grievances, as claimed by Bryan S. Turner in his theory of modern society as a "somatic

Medicalization involves the identification or categorization of a certain feeling, state or behaviour as pathological, as something in need of treatment or intervention; it is a process in the course of which health or behavioural issues begin to be viewed, defined and treated as medical issues, a process in which everyday occurrences, phenomena or living conditions are reinterpreted as medical issues to be subjected to medical control and definitions emphasizing risks, pathology and the importance of intervention treatment or other types of "managing" or handling the issue. Health professionals, and doctors in particular, are the ones defining, studying and treating these issues. "Western" medicine, also known as allopathic medicine, which is supposed to be based on scientific findings, provides a rigorous framework in its many iterations to explain, categorize and classify a variety of symptoms and diseases affecting individuals. Health professionals use a number of different means to treat and prevent illnesses or alleviate health issues as well as improve people's quality of life. Let us not forget, however, that medicine has evolved in a certain conceptual framework like all other scientific fields, and is therefore based on implicit, often ill-defined and unclear presumptions, such as the concepts of masculinity and femininity, which is made apparent in fields like psychiatry, gynaecology and obstetrics; historically speaking, these are disciplines particularly employed as mecha‐ nisms of power, and their practices have widely been used to control and define normality, pathology and deviance [35]. Medicalization processes occur in different ways, such as through changes in social relations, the creation and use of language, the development of certain ways to solve problems while disregarding others, and the institutionalization of particular services while others are excluded. The consequences of medicalization include personal or social life

decisions being made within a limited specific reference framework.

effort to distance ourselves and listen to the facts.

The expansion of medical authority into various fields has had important impacts on everyday life. Medicalization has become such a self-evident part of our lives that is takes significant

Medicalization of individual areas of life does have its advantages. Medicalization can be critiqued in terms of medicine as a scientific authority and health professionals as experts, linking to questions about the control and regulation of individual groups or phenomena and the interplay between knowledge and power [18]. In analysing power relations, their com‐

towards patients.

150 Sexology in Midwifery

society".

**7. Medicalization**
