Women's Bodies and Women's Lives in Western Herbal Medicine in the UK

Abstract

Health practices designated, over time, as complementary and alternative to normative biomedicine represent one of the earliest manifestations of the growing significance, especially for women, of holistic health care in many Western English-speaking societies. In this article, I interrogate ideas and practices around the body and self in Western herbal medicine (WHM) in the UK. I first explore women herbalists' ideas of the body, health, and illness. I then examine the self-care practices that constitute an integral part of WHM, leading to an investigation of the implications of their incorporation into women users' everyday lives. Drawing on theoretical understandings of embodiment and technologies of self, the explorations presented reveal women's bodies and selves as arenas for self-care and self-fulfillment while also highlighting tensions and dilemmas in women's lives. I suggest that WHM constitutes a form of holistic and politicized health care that contributes to confronting and fulfilling women's traditional gender roles and discourses of caring femininity.

Keywords:

• complementary and alternative medicine
• femininity
• gender
• self-care
• Western herbal medicine
• women

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Maxine Birch, Mette Terp Høybye, Helle Johannessen, Loni Ledderer, and Lenore Manderson, and the reviewers for their thought-provoking comments to earlier versions of this article.

Notes

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/270188/homeostasis; accessed March 10, 2011. The commitment to a physiological definition of homeostasis by some herbalists in this study differs from a notion of “natural homeostasis” (Pitman 2006:78) found may be among other herbalists with other approaches to herbal medicine and in some other CAM modalities, such as those based on humoral or Asian medical systems.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nina Nissen

NINA NISSEN, PhD, is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests include alternative medicine and health care, feminist theory and practice, and health social movements. She is particularly interested in exploring the intersections of health care, gender, and personal and social change.