MEDICALIZATION OF A WOMAN’S BODY – A CASE OF BREASTS
MEDICALIZATION OF A WOMAN’S BODY – A CASE OF BREASTS

Summary/Abstract: Medicalization of a woman’s body is not a new phenomenon – it is widely described in Polish and foreign literature mainly with reference to maternity and menopause [Domańska 2005, Buczkowski 2005, Szczepaniak 2010, Bielawska-Batorowicz 2005, Arroba 2003, Cindoglu, Sayan-Cengiz 2010, Spina 2010, Whitaker 2000, Bell 1987, Conrad 2007, et al.]. Both issues are very complexand include theoretical deliberations and empirical research over variety of problems2. The paper examines the process of medicalization of a woman’s body with a focus on breasts. This choice is based on observations and analyses of literature concerning the medicalization of women’s bodies. A key finding was that within the frames of the process some aspects of women lives became more, while other conditions stayed relatively less medicalized – which stays in agreement with the Conrad’s concept of the degree of medicalization [Conrad, 2007: 6–7] – and that one of the most medicalized part of a woman’s body became breasts. To analyze this issue three dimensions of the medicalization of women’s breasts are proposed: aesthetic – commercial, reproductive-demographic, medical - productive. The analysis depicts how a part of a female body became a matter of interest for different medical subdisciplines depriving women of autonomy and changing normal life processes into an object of medical interventions and making women subject those interventions. The paper shows also how a female body became an object of biopower and biopolitics, which – through different tools – governs individuals’ bodies as well as whole populations. To analyze the issue a new analytical approach is proposed based on the concepts of the sociology of the body and the concept of biopower by Foucault. The analyze focuses not on the medicalization of the whole body and life of a woman but only on a part of the body – breasts and it does not depicts a certain case of medicalization but multidimensional practices performed toward that part. The analysis will be made in the context of the Polish society but the assumption is that the medicalization is a global process that progresses similarly in all Western societies and some comparisons and references to other countries (mainly to the United States) will be made.

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