health 1

 Read the assigned readings and lecture materials below and watch the embedded videos. Then, complete and submit the Google Doc: 

I attached the google doc that needs to be submitted

 Medicine, Health, and Reproductive Justice – Introduction to Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies 

https://youtu.be/0RdZDUPKsRw

 

Our physical and mental health impact every aspect of our lives. And just like other aspects of our lives, our health is impacted by our gender and other aspects of our identities, like race, sexual orientation, economic status, etc.

Consider this: Women are less likely to have health insurance. This is in part because women are more likely to be part-time workers or to work full-time jobs that don't offer benefits. Women are also more likely than men to be on insurance as a dependent, through their spouse's insurance, which means that in cases of divorce or separation, they will be without health insurance. Other factors impacting health include access to healthy foods, and things like gym memberships (plus time to go to them!) and people with more wealth are more likely to have access to these.

Additionally, consider gender stratification and the fact that characteristics associated with men and masculinity are more valued and more "normalized" (androcentrism). In the case of health, the male body is considered the "norm" against which all other bodies are measured. So, women are often not the subjects of studies for new medications and medical procedures, so it's not clear how these will affect women with their very different hormones. For example, "Baseline data for heart monitors were based on middle-aged white men, causing serious complications for patients who did not fit this description" (see citation below). In fact, women and men experience heart attacks differently. The dramatic heart pain we associate with heart attacks is more common in men, so it can be harder for women to even recognize when they have a heart attack! Also, more money is spent on diseases that affect men more than women (Parkinsons, heart disease, lung cancer), while medical concerns that are specific to women receive the least amount of funding and are subjects of far fewer studies.

Plus, the normal functions of a woman's body are often medicalized, which means that normal functions of the body get categorized as being indicative of disease, and thus require medical intervention. Consider everything about a woman's experience that is cyclical or episodic: menstruation, pregnancy, lactation, menopause. Our culture tends to pathologize these in addition to medicalizing. To pathologize is to treat something normal as if it is abnormal, or bad. Consider all the jokes about menstruation making women "crazy." Or the fact that breastfeeding in public is controversial. Pregnancy and birth, in particular, are treated as experiences that require a lot of medical intervention; women are often treated as if they know little about what is best for their own bodies, as if only doctors can make decisions for them regarding their pregnancy and birth. 

Gender stereotyping is also a problem in women's health care. Consider the phenomenon of "provider bias," in which a medical professional makes assumptions about a person's symptoms based on their own personal assumptions about gender, race, and other factors--and medical providers are often not aware that they're doing this unconsciously. For example, it's well-documented that women's complaints about their physical health are often dismissed as "anxiety," or the women are viewed as overreacting or being overly emotional, as you saw illustrated in the assigned reading about hysteria. As a result, not only do women's physiological problems often go untreated, but they are far more likely to be prescribed anxiety-mediating and mood-altering medications, which come with side effects. (All of this information is from Chapter 7 of Gendered Voices Feminist Visions 7th edition, Shaw and Lee.)

And of course, anyone identifying outside the male-female binary may fear even going to a doctor to seek basic treatment, and will often face mistreatment and undue stress when they do. This is in part because non-cisgender and non-heterosexual gender identities and sexual orientations have also been pathologized in society. They have, at points throughout recent history, been treated as a disease, or something that needs to be cured, as in the 90s when scientific research was conducted to try to identify the "gay gene." (There isn't oneLinks to an external site., by the way.) 

Additionally, women of color face the intersecting challenges brought on by medical racism. For example, Black women in the US still suffer fromhigher rates of maternal mortalityLinks to an external site. and poorer health care in general.

These issues can lead to subpar medical care that causes great harm, and may lead individuals to avoid seeking medical care altogether. 

All of this has a long tradition, and we could talk about this for an entire semester. (And  the WGS department does have a whole class on women's health, WGS 103!) 

What it comes down to:

Because men and male bodies are "normalized," women and female bodies have historically been pathologized. In part because of this pathologizing, women's bodies are more likely to become medicalized. What all of this means is that women often do not have agency over their own bodies. Their bodily autonomy has often been--and continues to be--controlled by men: husbands, doctors, and now, politicians and policy makers.

Hysteria

Throughout the illustrated reading "The Dark History of Hysteria"Links to an external site. by Beguez, we see depictions of various men throughout history expressing opinions about what ails women. In fact, we hardly see women speak at all. While the author details the history of hysteria, she also illustrates who controlled the fate of women's bodies throughout this history: men, especially medical professionals. And while hysteria is no longer an official diagnosis, the tradition of not allowing women to speak, not listening to women in health care settings, and attributing women's physical complaints to something deemed feminine (in modern times, anxiety, or "it's all in their head") endures.

Reproductive Justice

The readings by hooks and Kang et al discuss reproductive justice, a movement that combines "reproductive rights" with "social justice," to acknowledge that people experience reproductive rights differently, and the framing of reproductive rights as opposed to justice, privileged the needs and experiences of predominantly white, materially privileged women. Reproductive justice, then, attempts to take a more intersectional approach.

While reproductive justice tends to be portrayed as primarily concerned with abortion, hooks points out in Chapter 5 that reproductive justice also includes "basic sex education, prenatal care, preventive health care that would help females understand how their bodies worked, to forced sterilization, unnecessary cesareans and/or hysterectomies, and the medical complications they left in their wake" (26). Hooks also ties reproductive justice to sexual freedom when she says that "there could be no sexual liberation for women and men without better, safer contraceptives--without the right to a safe, legal abortion" (26).

Most importantly, hooks notes that

"If women do not have the right to choose what happens to our bodies we risk relinquishing rights in all other areas of our lives" (29).

Watch the video below for more about reproductive justice:

https://youtu.be/I4mwQhKLBiM

 

One aspect of reproductive justice mentioned in the chapter from Kang et al as well as the chapter from hooks is eugenics, which sometimes comes in the form of forced sterilization. "Forced sterilization" is exactly what it sounds like--people are forcibly sterilized so they can no longer have children, usually by tubal ligation (having their "tubes tied") or through vasectomy, when they are deemed "unfit" by a powerful entity, like the state or federal government. In the U.S., Black Americans, Latinas, Native Americans, people with disabilities, poor people, and incarcerated people have all been targeted as subjects of forced sterilization. Women are the primary targets of these eugenics campaigns, but men have been sterilized as well. You will learn more about this in the next lecture. 

Key Terms/Concepts

As you move through the course, take notes on your copy of the Key Terms/Concepts spreadsheetLinks to an external site..

Key Terms/Concepts in this lecture or readings:

• medicalization
• pathologizing
• hysteria
• reproductive justice
• eugenics

What to Submit

This Google Document: Health 1 ActivityLinks to an external site.