Journal of Iranian Social Studies

Women’s Intended and Unintended Consequences in Promoting Modern Medicine: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Periodicals Shokoufeh, Danesh, and Alam-e Nesvan

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Simin Kazemi

MD, PhD in Sociology, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22034/jss.2026.2095392.1981
Abstract
Background and aim: Women were not merely passive victims of medicalization but often actively participated in bottom-up medicalization. This study examines how female actors in the late Qajar Iranian press engaged with modern medicine and the medicalization of the female body.
Data and method: This qualitative study utilized thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke’s six-phase approach) to identify core themes and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough’s three-dimensional model) to interpret power relations and socio-historical contexts. Three women’s periodicals were purposively selected for their focus on hygiene and health: Shokoufeh, Danesh, and Alam-e Nesvan.
Findings: Seven main themes were identified: (1) rejection of traditional knowledge; (2) necessity of hygiene and modern medicine; (3) construction of physicians’ authority; (4) discourse of modernity and the modern Other; (5) social discipline as a tool for medical establishment; (6) medicalization of the female body; and (7) reproduction of gender roles. Critical discourse analysis revealed that these periodicals introduced modern medicine into the domestic sphere by marginalizing traditional medicine and normalizing hygienic practices. While this discursive practice empowered women’s agency against patriarchal oppression and aligned with modernity, it inadvertently reproduced gender roles, transforming the female body into a site of biomedical discipline and surveillance.
Conclusion: Medicalization in the late Qajar era was not solely a top-down imposition; it functioned as “bottom-up medicalization”, a strategy used by women to redefine their agency and right to health, despite unintended consequences regarding biomedical dominance over their lives.

Keywords

Medicalization
Women
Hefz al-Sehheh (Public Health)
Modern Medicine
Critical Discourse Analysis
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Journal of Iranian Social Studies
Volume 20, Issue 2
Summer 2026
Pages 71-43

  • Receive Date 23 July 2026
  • Accept Date 16 October 2026
  • First Publish Date 16 October 2026
  • Publish Date 22 June 2026

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