In 2002, in the Swedish Medical National Assembly, the question of whether there is something that can be medically defined as a male menopause and how the hormonal transition should be perceived regarding men's bodies was dealt with. The term andropause, investigated and discussed early by urologists during the 1940s has parallels to menopause and is used to describe a period characterized by reduced physical and sexual ability.
Twenty years after the Medical Assembly an expert group for endocrine diseases in Stockholm presented results which showed that more men are worried about testosterone levels and the prescription of testosterone has increased in recent years, despite the lack of studies showing the benefit of treatment in many male patients. Together, studies from 1940s up to contemporary time reflect what STS-professor Nelly Oudshoorn (1994) has emphasised, that biomedical discourses change as part of technical medical development and shift in response to changes in society. When reading through medical articles there is not much disagreement regarding general biological changes in men's bodies. So why is it important to investigate and debate the existence of andropause, and how can we understand the affective reactions today? The following paper take as a starting point ethnographic work and media material on andropause in a Swedish context. Through feminist thinking on biomedicalisation, the material about the phenomena is being analysed and issues being raised regarding masculinity, age and health in contemporary neoliberal and biocapital times.