Vivendo no Feminino: percepções da menopausa

Abstract

The human body can be seen as a vehicle on which an individual exists, interacts, feels and experiences the world of life. Thus, this research aimed at investigating on how women experience the menopause phenomenon. Based on biomedical perspective, menopause expresses itself when there is a decrease on hormonal production. This usually occurs nearly the 50’s and it is considered the beginning of female aging. According to social sciences, this issue is approached considering the female individual’s social and relational dimensions. Thus, this research highlighted on understanding how this phenomenon was perceived and experienced on women’s subjectivity. The methodological approach was qualitative and based on Alfred Schütz's phenomenology as the theoretical guiding reference. Six (6) women who are going through menopause, from 50 to 60 years old, were interviewed, all of them belonged to a similar economic extract and are college graduated. This field research was carried out from June to October, 2018. The interviews were based on a semi-structured script of questions that focused on the menopause experience and on notes and observations obtained during the interviews. Those questions aimed at understanding on how this phenomenon was perceived and experienced by these women, considering peculiarities of their experiences, which ranged from a feeling of denial, when their physical aging was observed, until a re-signification of their lives and existences.