ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theme of medicalization from a historical perspective. In many respects, developments in Canadian medicine were quite typical of what was happening elsewhere in western society. Feminist critics are concerned about what they see as the ‘medicalization’ of women’s bodies. They point to the new reproductive technologies and the promotion of hormone replacement therapy for older women as only the latest in a long line of examples. Many women supported and even demanded medical care that could be construed as interventionist. While both men and women experienced puberty, most physicians deemed puberty in woman much more significant, characterized as it was by the onset of menstruation, which was both a visible manifestation and a sign of its complexity. Physicians perceived puberty in women as a limiting rather than a liberating experience. While physicians believed that sexuality was a natural instinct experienced by women, they believed that the purpose of marriage was the procreation of children.
