Controlling The Monster: Exploring Constructions Of Women And Their Bodies In Endometriosis Apps

Abstract

People globally increasingly use digital applications (apps) to manage their health and health conditions. In particular, women commonly use apps to understand and manage female reproductive issues. Some apps target women with endometriosis, a common but poorly understood condition primarily affecting women. The aim of the current research was to explore how endometriosis apps constructed endometriosis and people with endometriosis, how people with endometriosis were positioned, and the potential implications of this positioning for app users. Multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) was used to systematically examine dominant meanings produced by visual and linguistic features (i.e. colour, imagery, text and interactive app functionality) of five endometriosis apps from the USA, New Zealand and Singapore. Results demonstrated that apps drew on biomedical and biological discourses to construct endometriosis as a complex and confusing disease of the female reproductive body. This positioned biomedical and natural health professionals as knowledgeable experts about endometriosis while minimising women’s experiential knowledge of their bodies. Apps drew on intersecting postfeminist, neoliberal and healthist discourses to construct women with endometriosis as responsible for self-tracking many physical, emotional and behavioural experiences. Self-tracking was constructed as generating data that was meaningfully interpreted by app algorithms and experts to help women understand and manage their endometriosis. Dominant management recommendations (i.e. biomedical interventions; lifestyle changes) aligned with hegemonic ideals of traditional and neoliberal femininity. These findings align with previous feminist research findings that mainstream endometriosis discourse reflects androcentric biases in medical knowledge and that health apps targeting women often reinforce neoliberal and postfeminist ideals. Therefore, dominant discourses about endometriosis and female biology that pathologise women’s bodies and behaviours limit the potential for apps to offer women empowered and agentic subject positions.