Medicalization, colonization of the female body and investment in women's genital anxiety: the case study of Labiaplasty

This study conducted with the aim of investigating the role of gynecologists in construct the ideal female genitalia and normalizing and expanding cosmetic medical interventions with an emphasis on labiaplasty. The study method was qualitative with a content analysis approach. Data were collected from advertising videos on the subject of labiaplasty that were published on the Instagram pages of 12 gynecologists. The number of samples was determined based on the theoretical saturation method. Then data were converted to texts, encoded, and classified into subcategories and then main categories. This study’s findings show that gynecologists describe dark, long and asymmetrical labia minora as ugly؛ and they pathologize non-ideal labia as a condition that needs treatment. They promote labiaplasty as a solution for women's problems and portray themselves as women's heroes and saviors who solve women's physical, psychological and social problems with surgery. In these videos, the role of the treating doctor has changed to a cosmetic doctor and the patient to a beauty seeker, and a new model of doctor-patient relationship has been created. In labiaplasty advertisements, medicine is seen as a business in which doctors, moving away from professionalism, are engaged in promoting beauty commody, altruism is replaced by commercial behavior, and they follow the rules and requirements of the market. The study indicates that the medicalization of the female body has provided the conditions for the colonization of the women's body; And with the rise of commercial medicine, surgeons invest on women's genital anxiety by pathologizing non-ideal labia minora.