Bearding, Balding and Infertile: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and Nationalist Discourse in India
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Bearding, Balding and Infertile: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and Nationalist Discourse in India Shruti Buddhavarapu 1 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract This paper investigates the gendered and racialized discourse on Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) in India. A complex metabolic, endocrinal and reproductive disorder, PCOS is one of the most common endocrinopathies in women of reproductive age today. Due to an unclear etiology, there is no single clinical definition for PCOS, contributing to a sense of confusion around the syndrome. India has one of the highest rates of PCOS in the world. Medical and social discourses on PCOS suggest the high rates are due to the failures of Westernized lifestyle and diet in women from developing countries. Taking the example of India, I argue that the lack of a clear etiology creates a discursive vacuum and that PCOS in itself is not a gendered and racialized syndrome, but the discourse on it is. Through the figure of the “new Indian woman,” I address the socio-political anxieties of nationalism projected onto the female body and suggest that the discourse on PCOS in India is in reaction to a rising nationalist rhetoric. As a syndrome that presents through “masculine” symptoms, PCOS acts a unique entryway into the intersectional issues of gender, race, sexuality, class and national identities. An analysis of the Indian setting might shed light on PCOS discourses that are increasingly relevant globally. Keywords India . Polycystic Ovary Syndrome . Nationalism . Colonialism . Gender . Health and medicine . Global health Polycystic Ovary Syndrome1 (PCOS) is a complex metabolic and reproductive disorder considered to be the most common endocrinopathy in females of reproductive age today (Burks and Wild 2014; Farquhar 2007; Kurzrock and Cohen 2007; Ramanand et al. 2013; Wolf, Barnes, and Aubuchon 2014). Though the syndrome is heterogeneous in how it presents in each patient, there are some physical characteristics deemed typical of it (although not necessary for all of them to manifest in an individual). Obesity, absent or irregular
* Shruti Buddhavarapu [email protected]
1
Department of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia, 038 – 2080 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Journal of Medical Humanities
menstruation, crown-pattern balding, increased body and facial hair, and acne are some wellrecognized signs of PCOS (Balen et al. 2003; Burks and Wild 2014; Kitzinger and Willmott 2002). A successful diagnosis depends on the specific permutation of diagnostic criteria being employed. More than eighty years since it was first introduced as the Stein-Leventhal syndrome, PCOS remains a condition without consensus on a single clinical definition (Balen et al. 2003; Nidhi 2011). While recent studies indicate that environmental factors and genetics might be important triggers for PCOS, the etiology is still unclear (Balen et al. 2003; Jahanfar and Eden 1996). Cindy Farquhar, a physician and gyn
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