The advertising discourse on urinary incontinence: “silent disease”

Abstract

The article problematizes the condition of urinary incontinence in women, especially in the media culture, which is thought as a possibility of bodies’ education, asking the question: how incontinent women are positioned by an advertisement? As a corpus of analysis, we use the advertising campaign from Plenitud®-Histórias Corajosas: Lorena brand. The methodological resource operates the technique of discourse analysis by Foucaultian perspective. The advertisement links urinary incontinence to an object, the disposable underwear. It educates for consumption, it limits different perspectives of treatment and sug-gests the use of “panties” as a solution to the problem. It establishes the women as mother and it reinforces, discursively, that urinary incontinence is a silent disease. Subtly, it reaffirms stereotypes related to the limitation of sexually active life as a result of the disease.