LE3 .A278 2003

2003

Auger, Jeanette

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

Sociology

Sociology

The incidence of removing ovaries and uteri is excessive in North America. To better understand this trend, this thesis studies the relationship between women and gynaecologists through a theoretical application of dialectical phenomenology informed by Foucault, Goffman, Marx, Smith, and Szaz. First, feminist literature is used as a vehicle to critique medical and gynaecological literature to follow the history of gynaecology and how women have figured into its practices. This critique of the literature is supplemented with oral histories from women who have had experiences within gynaecology that call its justification of standard practices into question. Through a theoretical combination of these histories--of women affected by gynaecology and of gynaecology itself--this thesis shows that the treatment of women by gynaecologists may often reflect the discipline's history of pathologizing women; it also shows a trilogy of countercultures to these practices is under construction: (1) at the level of individual women who are speaking out against some gynaecological intervention, (2) within a growing number of feminist and popular press media, and (3) within medicine and gynaecology.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:2885