PCOS Discourses, Symbolic Impacts, and Feminist Rhetorical Disruptions of Institutional Hegemonies [Hardcover]

PCOS Discourses, Symbolic Impacts, and Feminist Rhetorical Disruptions of Institutional Hegemonies examines the power of hegemonic institutions and their impact on bodies, focusing on how women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) employ rhetorical strategies to resist and disrupt mass media and clinical discourses that seek to define them and their experiences. This monograph argues that through the enactment of bio-power (Foucault), digital and mass media have denied women with PCOS opportunities for autonomous subject formation, and, in turn, allowances for constructing their ontologies and epistemologies. However, by networking in participatory new media, McKinley posits, women with PCOS can reclaim their agency. To support this argument, McKinley rhetorically examines three PCOS artifactsa television episode, an online popular culture forum, and an online health forum. This monograph bridges the personal and the academic and adds to and extends the work being done in the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine (RHM) on PCOS through the adoption of a unique theoretical lens (e.g., Lisa Melon?ons performative phenomenology) and methodology (e.g., Norman K. Denzins Feminist Communitarian Model) and contributes to conversations surrounding femaleness, femininity, womens health challenges, and advocacy, as located in RHM scholarship and related fields.Marissa C. McKinley is assistant teaching professor of English at Quinnipiac University.

In this groundbreaking monograph, Marissa C. McKinley seamlessly weaves personal experiences with rigorous academic analysis to rhetorically explore PCOS through the lens of feminist epistemologies. The book offers a compelling exploration of the construction and portrayal of the PCOS body in both digital and mass media. This generative work not only contributes to discussions on femininity, women's health challenges, and advocacy, but also serves as a vital addition to RHM scholarship and related fields. Bryna Siegel Finer, lƒJ