Appendix of Resisting Disease and Constructing Experience: Menopausal Women's Resistance to Medical Hegemony

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Resisting Disease and Constructing Experience: Menopausal Women's Resistance to Medical Hegemony

Appendix:
Interview Questions:
Figures referred to in the text

General Questions

What is your age?
What is your level of education? <12 years/ = 12 years/ > 12 years
What is your employment status? Employed/Unemployed
What is your marital status? Married/Not Married
How many children do you have?
How do you self-identify?

Specific Questions

Are you currently experiencing menopause?
How do you know that it is happening?*
Have you done anything for it/about it?*
Do you seek external support? If so, from where? What made you seek support? How has it affected your experiences and/or knowledge?
Is this time you have sought an alternative approach?
Have doctors been involved in this experience? Friends? Mother? Children? Husband?*
What would you say is/are your source(s) of information on menopause?
What is the content of the information? Does it vary according to source?
If you visit a physician, what does he/she tell you about menopause? What are his/her recommendations? How does this make you feel?
What is your opinion of hormone replacement therapy? Are you currently under such treatment? Why or why not?
What do you think about the information that is available from your physician? Is it accurate? Biased? Useful? Sufficient?
What is your understanding of why women experience this change?*
What do you consider to be the most significant change(s) (physiological/psychological/social) that occur(s) during this time?
How would you respond to the following statement: "Menopause is a time of great disease risk that calls for rigorous medical intervention"?**
How would you respond to the following statement: "Menopause is the best time of life for a woman"?
How do you feel about menopause?*
Does it have any special meaning for you, positive or negative?*
How would you rate menopause in terms of importance in your everyday life?
Have you experienced any stressful life events during this time? Have these events affected your understanding of and experience with menopause?
How would you explain menopause to a young woman?*
What advice regarding menopause would you give a young woman?
What advice would you give women currently experiencing this change?
What are your expectations of menopause?**
How have your attitudes towards and understanding of menopause changed since you began experiencing menopause, if at all?
Do you recall your mother saying anything about menopause? What did she tell you about it?
Do you consider menopause to be part of the normal female aging process? Do you feel it is separate altogether?

* Questions based on Martin's questions in The Woman in the Body

** Questions based on study "Anticipating Menopause: Observations from the Seattle Midlife Women's Health Study", Menopause 6(2): 167-173.

Figures referred to in the text

Figure 1

Woman showing some of the stigmata of 'Nature's defeminization.' The general stiffness of muscles and ligaments, the 'dowager's hump' and the 'negativisitic' expression are part of a picture usually attributed to age alone. Some of these women exhibit signs and symptoms similar to those in the early stages of Parkinson's disease. They exist rather than live" (ibid 351).

Figure 2.

"Typical appearance of thedesexed women found on our streets today. They pass unnoticed and, in turn, notice little" (ibid 356).

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Figure 3.