“DRAMATIC”, “CRAZY”, AND “UNWORTHY” WOMEN: ENDOMETRIOSIS AND THE (MEDICAL) PERCEPTIONS OF FEMALE PAIN

Taking a critical feminist cultural studies approach, this article describes, analyses, reflects and theorises women’s pain in the case of endometriosis. Western historical discourses on endometriosis over the last 2,500 years offer a basis for analysing the position the disease holds in contemporary society. Using locally limited digital ethnography (the stories of 33 women published on the website of Endozavest – Society for Raising Awareness for Endometriosis between 16 January 2017 and 24 April 2023), supported by secondary sources, three ways in which women’s pain is perceived and managed are presented and contextualised: dramatised pain, mental illness, and “female deficit”. The article reveals how patriarchal violence within the medical system perpetuates aspects of physical pain that directly/indirectly discipline women’s bodies and push them into a variety of unwanted sexual and reproductive roles.