This groundbreaking book challenges the medicalized approach to women's experiences including menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause and suggests that there are better ways for women to cope with real issues they may face.Before any woman diets, douches, botoxes, reduces, reconstructs, or fills a prescription for antidepressants, statins, hormones, menstrual suppressants, or diet pills, she should read this book. Contesting common medical practice, the book addresses the many aspects of women's lives that have been targeted as "deficient" in order to support the billion-dollar profits of the medical-pharmacological industry and suggests alternatives to these "remedies."The contributors-psychologists, sociologists, and health experts-are also gender experts and feminist scholars who recognize the ways in which gender is an important aspect of the human experience. In this eye-opening work, they challenge the marketing and "science" that increasingly render women's bodies and experiences as a series of symptoms, diseases, and dysfunctions that require treatment by medical professionals who prescribe pharmaceutical and surgical interventions. Each article in the book addresses the marketing of a specific "condition" that has been constructed in a way that convinces a woman that her body is inadequate or her experience and behavior are not good enough. Among the topics addressed are menstruation, menopause, pregnancy, post-partum adjustment, sexual desire, weight, body dissatisfaction, moodiness, depression, grief, and anxiety.

Series ForewordMichele A. Paludi, Series EditorForewordPaula J. CaplanIntroduction: The Medicalization of Women's Bodies and Everyday ExperienceMaureen C. McHugh and Joan C. Chrisler1. Pregnancy and Birth as a Medical CrisisRuthbeth D. Finerman, Adriane M. F. Sanders, and Lynda M. Sagrestano2. (Re)Productive Disorders: The Expanding Marketplace of Infertility MedicineEmily Breitkopf and Lisa R. Rubin3. The Medicalization of the Menstrual Cycle: Menstruation as a DisorderJessica Barnack-Tavlaris4. The Medicalization of Women's Moods: Premenstrual Syndrome and Premenstrual Dysphoric DisorderJoan C. Chrisler and Jennifer A. Gorman5. Menopause: Deficiency Disease or Normal Reproductive Transition?Heather Dillaway6. Menopause and Sexuality: Resisting Representations of the Abject Asexual WomanJane M. Ussher, Janette Perz, and Chloe Parton7. Women's Sexual Problems: Is There a Pill for That?Leonore Tiefer8. The Thin Ideal: A "Wrong Prescription" Sold to Many and Achievable by FewMindy J. Erchull9. From Fat Shaming to Size Acceptance: Challenging the Medical Management of Fat WomenAshley E. Kasardo and Maureen C. McHugh10. Medicalizing Women's Weight: Bariatric Surgery and Weight-Loss DrugsJulie Konik and Christine A. Smith11. Can Women's Body Image Be "Fixed"? Women's Bodies, Well-Being, and Cosmetic SurgeryCharlotte N. Markey and Patrick M. Markey12. Women's Loss of Self through Antidepressants: The Depression Diagnosis as a Form of Social ControlAlisha Ali13. Mourning Matters: Women and the Medicalization of GriefLeeat GranekIndexAbout the Editors and Contributors