Hormonal dilemmas: gendered narratives in the search for health and balance

• In Event: 40820 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: Gender & Health

Abstract

In 2024, the Washington Post published the article “Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion.” This piece reported on the rise of online content overstating the adverse side effects of hormonal contraception and depicting it as a cause of “unnatural bodily imbalances.” This reporting highlighted the complicated relationship hormonal contraception users have with it and their bodies. Likewise, political commentators reacted by claiming the article dismissed the lived experiences of women, but more interestingly, that it was part of a censorship agenda against “birth control critics” and those “committed to protecting natural femininity.” These concerns over balance, endocrine disruption, gender as hormonal make-up, and the natural as a moral category gain relevance in a political context where health freedom movements like the Make America Healthy Again become mainstream. Even more when, paradoxically, spokespersons like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and podcaster Joe Rogan have promoted Testosterone Replacement Therapy to hack their health and masculinity, as a contrast to the back-to-nature narratives of femininity. I present the preliminary results of an exploratory interview-based study exploring how gendered understandings of hormonal health shape people’s relationships with their bodies and healthcare practices. These suggest the back-to/hacking nature narratives can be instrumentalized to reinforce traditional gender roles, and it raises larger questions about how wellness information is used when healthcare is privatized and framed as an enterprise of self-optimization. This is part of a larger project aimed at understanding hormones as biosocial objects (Erikainen et al., 2024; Oudshoorn, 1994).

Author

• Genesis Luigi Bravo, Yale University