FÖRVIRRING, FÖRRUTTNELSE ELLER FÖRNYELSE? - En etnologisk studie av kropp, normalitet och berättande i gestaltningar av klimakteriet

Abstract

Menopause is a complex, paradoxical totality and every menopausal experience is different from the other. This essay aims to capture some of the experiences surrounding it. The main questions is what it is that the women of the study share about menopause, and how they talk about it. The material consists of interviews with eight women from the ages 51 to 81, all of whom are either in menopause or have come out of it, and narratives collected partly on my own website ”Övergången” (”Transition”) and on the Internet via blogs and a discussion board on menopause. Using Goffmans theories on interaction and roles and theories about gender and age as a social construction I discovered that it is ambiguous messages that are thrown at the middle aged woman in menopause. Menopause is not always a welcome part of the role as a woman. The menopause is also associated with aging and a woman is expected to experience menopause during a certain age and period in the life schedule, often the middle age. In some situations the menopause is a given part of the role while in others it is deliberately left out. Two keywords that all women relate to, one way or another, is normality and standards. One important aspect of menopause is also that it is not easily controlled in all situations; hot flashes and mood changes can hit whenever and no positive thinking in the world controls it. Many women deals with the symptoms by using hormonal treatment, often adding estrogen which is the hormone that is reduced in the body during menopause. Estrogen treatment is associated with increased risk of cancer in the uterus and breasts and some women think that nature should take its course without adding of hormones, while other women recommend it. The body is often perceived as a complicated machinery that can be repaired if broken down. The dialogue of menopause is often fragmentary, kind of like the menopause itself. Using Labovs six elements of a complete narrative I was able to discover that the narratives shows the narrators ideas of menopause in contrast to the commonly known images of it. The old, sweaty woman is a stereotype that most women seem to relate their experiences to. It is also noticable that the informants sometimes lack experience of talking about menopause, which can be seen in the occasional absence of resultation in relation to the complicated action in the narratives. Sometimes, a sort of broken narrative occured, especially in one of the interviews, where the informant was uncomfortable telling me about her bodily experiences in menopause. The conversation of menopause is accepted in some situations and less accepted in others. To deal with it, it is not unusal to talk about it in a humorous way or by talking about other womens experiences. This essay is a contribution to the dialogue of menopause, hoping to show that the term ”normal” is closing and makes people feel different rather than included, and also display the menopause as the fragment, complex totality that it is with all its ups and downs, symptoms and treatments.