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Menstruation, Menopause, and ‘Being a Woman’: Greek Cypriot Women Talk About Their Experiences

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Menstruation, Menopause, and ‘Being a Woman’: Greek Cypriot Women Talk About Their Experiences Menstruation, Menopause, and ‘Being a Woman’: Greek Cypriot Women Talk about their Experiences Androulla Christoforou PhD University of York Women’s Studies December 2014 Abstract The aim of this research was to explore and examine the multiple and diverse meanings Greek Cypriot women of different generations attribute to the embodied experiences of menstruation and menopause. Through in-depth interviews with 20 women between the ages of 23 and 73 living in Cyprus, I explore the ways through which women construct meaning, interpret their experiences, and negotiate the cultural and medical representations of the female body in the context of the everyday. At the same time, I examine the context in which women’s experiences are embedded, analysing the dominant menstruation and menopause discourses, as well as the socio-cultural meanings attributed to sexuality, womanhood, reproduction, health, illness, and aging. Drawing on sociological and feminist scholarship on the body, I approach the female reproductive body as a subject (a lived body), but also as an object that is socially regulated by external discourses. Specifically, I discuss menstruation as ‘matter out of place’ (Douglas 1966) and menopause as loss of embodied control, arguing that the symbolic association of the female body with social order in Greek culture and the privileged status of the ‘civilized body’ in contemporary western societies (Elias 1994) constitute menstruation and menopause as stigma (Goffman 1963) that requires extensive management in social interactions. My findings broadly concur with other literature, and particularly with empirical studies on other female reproductive experiences such as pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding: the female reproductive body becomes an object to be managed, quietly, ‘behind the scenes’ and it is often experienced as separate from the self, highlighting the pervasiveness of the mind-body dualism at the experiential level on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the lack of control over the material/biological body. Paying particular attention to women’s agency, I discuss the cultural understandings of what it means to be a woman and to ‘have a woman’s body’ in the context under investigation and the implications for the women’s everyday lived experience. 2 Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................... 2 List of Figures....................................................................................................................... 5 List of Tables........................................................................................................................ 6 Acknowledgments................................................................................................................ 7 Author’s Declaration ............................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 2. The ‘Female Reproductive Body’: Sociological and Feminist Approaches to the Body..............................................................................................................................................16 Sociology of the Body................................................................................................................16 Key Theoretical Approaches .....................................................................................................19 Feminist Scholarship on the Body.............................................................................................28 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................32 Chapter 3. The Female Body and Reproduction: Research Perspectives and Debates ........... 33 Menstruation Across Disciplines...............................................................................................33 The Female Body as Pathological..............................................................................................47 Biomedical vs. Feminist Models of Menopause .......................................................................49 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................61 Chapter 4. Researching Menstruation and Menopause in the Greek Cypriot Context.............62 Research Design and Methods..................................................................................................62 Context and Background...........................................................................................................67 Sample.......................................................................................................................................70 Data Production: Carrying out the Interviews ..........................................................................72 Data Analysis.............................................................................................................................79 Chapter 5. Menstruation Meanings: Health, Womanhood, and Reproduction ........................86 Talking about Menstruation .....................................................................................................86 Menstruation as Health ............................................................................................................90 Menstruation as Womanhood..................................................................................................91 Menstruation as Fertility/Motherhood ....................................................................................96 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................101 Chapter 6. The Menstruating Body as Dirty Body: Stigma and ‘Passing’ ................................102 3 Menstruation as ‘Matter out of Place’....................................................................................102 Greek Women: Pollution, Cleanliness, and Boundaries .........................................................108 Menstruation as Stigma: Becoming Discreditable and Passing..............................................112 Consciousness of Menstruation as Stigma and Opposition....................................................121 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................126 Chapter 7. The Lived Experience of Menopause: Losing Control ............................................128 Menopause-related Changes and Aging.................................................................................129 Control and the ‘Civilized Body’..............................................................................................139 Menopause as Stigma: Concealment and Silence ..................................................................145 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................150 Chapter 8. Menopause Discourses, Interpretations, and Decision Making ......................... 152 Menopause Discourses: Multiplicity of Perspectives .............................................................152 Representations of Menopause in the Greek Cypriot Context...............................................155 Making Sense of Menopause and Hormone Therapy ............................................................161 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................173 Chapter 9. Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................... 175 The Female Reproductive Body ..............................................................................................177 Being a Greek Cypriot Woman................................................................................................184 Contribution to Knowledge and Implications for Future Research ........................................192 Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 195 Appendix 1: Interview Guide ..................................................................................................195 Appendix 2: Informed Consent Form......................................................................................198 Appendix 3: Background of Participants.................................................................................200 Appendix 4: Glossary...............................................................................................................204 References....................................................................................................................... 206 4 List of Figures Figures Figure 1 Links between researcher and respondents................................................................71 5 List of Tables Table Table 1 Respondents’ demographic characteristics .................................................................73 6 Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to my supervisors Prof. Stevi Jackson and Prof. Sarah Nettleton for their generous insights, guidance
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