This essay aims to clarify the value of developing systematic studies of ignorance as a component of any robust theory of knowledge. The author employs feminist efforts to recover and create knowledge of women's bodies in the contemporary women's health movement as a case study for cataloging different types of ignorance and shedding light on the nature of their production. She also helps us understand the ways resistance movements can be a helpful site for understanding how to identify, (...) critique, and transform ignorance. (shrink)

In modern mental health care, ‘recovery’ does not necessarily mean the same thing for clinicians, service users, and survivor groups. This divergence is especially stark where self-injury is concerned. For clinicians, recovery often refers to cessation of self-injury; for those with lived experience, self-harm may be a temporary or long-term method of navigating trauma and distress. This article explores how the survivor-led model, which regards self-injury as an understandable reaction to distress, poverty, abuse, and discrimination emerged from second-wave feminism, (...) the survivor movement, and the growth of grassroots mental health groups in the 1980s. We focus on Bristol Crisis Service for Women (BCSW), a peer-led listening service for women who self-injure, founded in 1986. We begin with the history of BCSW and how experiences of their founders and users caused them to advocate for a different model of self-injury. We then situate BCSW’s approach to self-harm and recovery within the frame of women’s mental health activism. Finally, we explore how BCSW and its allies criticised existing psychiatric paradigms of self-harm, showing how the individualised medical model was rooted in gendered stereotypes that failed to recognise the real-world concerns of many women. We argue that it remains important to see self-harm not as an individual health concern, but in relation to the structural and practical issues affecting users and survivors. Within BCSW, a peer-led service, experience of self-injury became not a deficit but a useful asset in supporting other women, indicating that recovery itself could be both collective and non-linear. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a growing number of states around the world relying on border control measures, such as immigration detention, to govern human mobility and control the movements of those classified as “unauthorised non-citizens.” In response to this, an increasing number of scholars from several disciplines, including psychologists, have begun to examine this phenomenon. In spite of the widespread concerns raised, few studies have been conducted inside immigration detention sites, primarily due to difficulties in gaining access. This body of (...) research becomes even scanter when it comes to the experiences of detained women. This study is the first of its kind to have surveyed 93 women confined in an Italian immigration detention facility. A partial mediation model with latent variables was tested through partial least structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed the negative impact that unfair immigration procedures have on detained women’s human dignity, which in turn negatively affects their self-rated physical and mental health. Overall, our study sheds light on the dehumanisation and damage to human dignity that immigration detention entails, as well as its negative impact on the health of those affected. This evidence reinforces the image of these institutions as sites of persistent injustice, while stressing the need to envision alternative justice-oriented forms to address human mobility. (shrink)

From the late 1960s onwards, the early second women’s movement encompassed all areas of West German society. This included debates about how women’s healthcare could be improved in a self-determined, women-friendly way and in line with feminist ideals. These debates were also held with regard to the general boom in psychotherapy at the time. This article explores the question of how debates around feminist therapy emerged in the Federal Republic of Germany. It also looks at the tense (...) relationship between psychology and psychotherapy. While feminist women’s counselling and therapy centers became a widespread part of a psychosocial care network from the late 1970s onwards, scientific psychology in German speaking countries remained largely closed to feminist influences. The article traces how this imbalance between feminist therapeutic practice and psychological women’s research came about. Therefore, the article sets out from 1974, when psychologists tried to introduce feminist impulses into academic psychology and feminist activists made psychotherapeutic approaches usable for the women’s movement. Many female psychologists shifted their commitment from the academic to the therapeutic field. It is argued, that this was due to the less than conducive conditions that feminist-oriented psychologists found in German-speaking academic psychology. (shrink)

The devastating COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying containment measures brought exceptional challenges to the health delivery system, and in particular, women’s sexual and reproductive healthcare (hereafter referred to as SRH). The re-routing of health resources and funding to mitigate the effects of the pandemic obstructed the provision of essential SRH services for women and girls. Coupled with the incessant socio-cultural and patriarchal norms and gender inequalities, the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated the pre-existing SRH disproportions already affecting women. By (...) adopting a qualitative approach and drawing on the experiences of women from three high density suburbs in Harare. Firstly, the study sought to explore the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on SRH for women and girls. Secondly, the research sought to determine key drivers that affect women’s SRH in the context of COVID-19. Participant responses indicated that the COVID-19 lockdown containment measures which confined spouses to the home setting for prolonged periods of time, which is in contrast to the norm, exposed women to SRH related challenges. Participants cited that (i) bruised male ego due to lack of employment as a result of downscaling of companies resulting from COVID-19 containment measures resulted in men asserting their masculinities through heightened sexual intercourse, (ii) restraint of movement resulted in limited time for men to visit their small houses and side-chicks or side dish (euphemisms for illicit sexual relations) therefore resulting in frequent and unprotected sex with their spouses, giving rise to unplanned pregnancies and increased exposure to STIs due to limited access to SRH services and, (iii) increased intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual abuse. Therefore, the research sought to explore the response of religious leaders and faith-based actors to providing psycho-social support and safe spaces as ways of addressing intersectional injustices giving rise to SRH challenges for women and girls.Contribution: The intersecting crises of the COVID-19 pandemic have extensively hindered progress towards the promotion of women’s SRH. Relating to sustainable development goal 3 (SDG3), the article acknowledges the trust and respect of religious leaders within communities as change agents who can encourage shifts in behaviour, beliefs and practices in ways that promote holistic SRH for women. (shrink)

Background:Women's health has received renewed attention in the last few years including health rehabilitation options for women affected by breast cancer. Dancing has often been regarded as one attractive option for supporting women's well-being and health, but research with women recovering from breast cancer is still in its infancy. Dancing with Health is multi-site pilot study that aimed to evaluate a dance programme for women in recovery from breast cancer across five European countries.Methods:A standardized 32 h (...) dance protocol introduced a range of Latin American dances presented within a sports and exercise framework with influences from dance movement therapy. Fifty-four women (M age 53.51; SD 7.99) participated in the study who had a breast cancer diagnosis 6 weeks, no indication of metastasis, or scheduled surgery/chemotherapy/radiation treatment for the duration of the intervention. Primary outcome data was collected for anthropometric and fitness measures next to cancer-related quality of life.T-tests and Wilcoxon signed ranked tests were used to establish differences pre and post intervention. Cohen's d was also calculated to determine the effect size of the intervention.Results:Statistically significant changes were found for: (i) weight, right and left forearm circumference and hip; (ii) 6 min walking, right and left handgrip, sit-to-stand and sit-and-reach; (iii) the EORTC-QLQ C30 summary score as well as the subscales of emotional and social functioning and symptoms. In all cases the direction of change was positive, while Cohen's d calculated showed that the effect of the intervention for these parameters ranged from intermediate to large.Conclusion:Changes on the above anthropometric, fitness and quality of life measures suggest that the intervention was of value to the participating women recovering from breast cancer. Results also advocate collaborative efforts across countries to further research. (shrink)

Medicine and Ethics in Black Women's Speculative Fiction engages the complex nexus of black women's health, the fraught history of medicine as it relates to black women, and the problems with the inconsistent application of medical ethics that should concern us all through the lens of black women's literary speculation.

Social factors have a powerful influence on human health and longevity. Yet the social dimensions of health are often obscured in public discussions due to the overwhelming focus in health policy on medical care, individual-level risk factor research, and changing individual behaviours. Likewise, in philosophical approaches to health and social justice, the debates have largely focused on rationing problems in health care and on personal responsibility. However, a range of events over the past two decades (...) such as the study of modern famines, the global experience of HIV/AIDS, the international women’s health movement, and the flourishing of social epidemiological research have drawn attention to the robust relationship between health and broad social arrangements. In Health Justice, Sridhar Venkatapuram takes up the problem of identifying what claims individuals have in regard to their health in modern societies and the globalized world. Recognizing the social bases of health and longevity, Venkatapuram extends the ‘Capabilities Approach’ of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum into the domain of health and health sciences. In so doing, he formulates an inter-disciplinary argument that draws on the natural and social sciences as well as debates around social justice to argue for every human being’s moral entitlement to a capability to be healthy. An ambitious integration of the health sciences and the Capabilities Approach, Health Justice aims to provide a concrete ethical grounding for the human right to health, while advancing the field of health policy and placing health at the centre of social justice theory. With a foreword by Sir Michael Marmot, chair of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. (shrink)

Gender-medicine has been very successful in discovering gaps in medical knowledge, disclosing biases in earlier research, and generating new results. It has superseded a more androcentric and sexist medicine. Yet, its development should not be understood in terms of a further approximation of value-freedom. Rather, it is a case of better value-laden science due to an enhanced pluralism in medicine and society. This interpretation is based on an account of the origins of gender-medicine in the feminist women’s health (...) movement and an analysis of the debate on inclusion of women in clinical trials. Consequently, the history of gender-medicine provides support for a procedural account of objectivity that stresses the importance of a diversity of perspectives. (shrink)

Despite some significant advances in the creation and protection of rights affecting women's health, these do not always translate into actual health benefits for women. This collection asks: 'What is an effective law and what influences law's effectiveness or ineffectiveness? What dynamics, elements, and conditions come together to limit law's capacity to achieve instrumental goals for women's health and the advancement of women's health rights?' The book presents an integrated, co-referential and sustained critical discussion of the (...) normative and constitutive reasons for law's limited effectiveness in the field of women's health. It offers comprehensive and cohesive explanatory accounts of law's limits and for the first time in the field, introduces a distinction between formal and substantive effectiveness of laws. Its approach is trans-systemic, multi-jurisdictional and comparative, with a focus on six countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa and international human rights case law based on matters arising from Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Peru and Bolivia. The book will be a valuable resource for educators, students, lawyers, rights advocates, and policy-makers working in women's health, socio-legal studies, human rights, feminist legal studies, and legal philosophy more broadly. (shrink)

Increasingly, research in women's health and healthcare foregrounds women's experience. Despite the contribution that explorations of women's ‘lived life’ makes to our understandings, the concern of these feminist authors is the absence of in‐depth analysis of the complexity of experience and the contexts in which women's experiences of health are constituted. In this paper, authors extend current understandings of the lived life by complicating notions of knowledge, experience, language and ideologies. These ideas challenge taken‐for‐granted assumptions that underlie current (...) women's healthcare practices, disrupting the reinscription of patriarchal ideologies and generating new possibilities for nursing practice. (shrink)

In April 2008 over 2,600 single women marched for three days to Shimla, the state capital of the northwestern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, to demand rights to land, health care and ration cards for single women. The march was organized by a new social movement called Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, comprising divorced, abandoned, never-married women, widows and wives fleeing domestic violence who are demanding rights from the state in their own names (rather than as wives, daughters or (...) mothers); in so doing they are directly challenging the construct of the ‘dependent woman’ naturalized in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial discourses. The most radical of the demands of this new social movement is the struggle for land rights and the creation of new women-centred family formations. Through an analysis of their collective demands, I argue that the normative, dependent woman is mutually constituted not only at the intersections of gender, kinship and heterosexuality, but also spatially, through denial of rights to land. As single women disown their dependence upon husbands/fathers/brothers and demand land rights, they simultaneously re-imagine gendered selves by envisioning new marital families and re-working the division of labour. (shrink)

A major challenge in neuroscience is to understand what happens to a brain as it ages. Such insights could make it possible to distinguish between individuals who will undergo typical aging and those at risk for neurodegenerative disease. Over the last quarter century, thousands of human brain imaging studies have probed the neural basis of age-related cognitive decline. “Aging” studies generally enroll adults over the age of 65, a historical precedent rooted in the average retirement age of U.S. wage-earners. A (...) consequence of this research tradition is that it overlooks one of the most significant neuroendocrine changes in a woman’s life: the transition to menopause. The menopausal transition is marked by an overall decline in ovarian sex steroid production – up to 90% in the case of estradiol – a dramatic endocrine change that impacts multiple biological systems, including the brain. Despite sex differences in the risk for dementia, the influence that biological sex and sex hormones have on the aging brain is historically understudied, leaving a critical gap in our understanding of the aging process. In this Perspective, we highlight the influence that endocrine factors have on the aging brain. We devote particular attention to the neural and cognitive changes that unfold in the middle decade of life, as a function of reproductive aging. Next, we consider emerging evidence from animal and human studies that other endocrine factors occurring earlier in life (e.g. pregnancy, hormonal birth control use) also shape the aging process. Applying a women’s health lens to. (shrink)

This research briefly describes the main aspects of the beguinal spiritual movements and theology of the XIII century.

Significant improvements in human rights and democracy have been made since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948. Yet, human rights, especially women's rights, are still being violated in many parts of the developing world. The adverse effects of such violations on women's and children's health are well known, but they are rarely measured. This study uses cross-national data from over 145 countries to estimate the impact of democracy and respect for (...) human rights on various measures of women's health while controlling for confounding socio-economic factors such as income, education, fertility and healthcare. It finds that democracy and regards for human rights contribute positively to women's health outcomes, as do socio-economic variables. (shrink)

This article documents the increasing participation of poor women in social movements in Latin America, focusing on movements centered around human rights and collective consumption issues, such as the cost of living or the provision of public services. It analyzes the factors that have contributed to the increased participation of poor Latin American women in social movements and why they have chosen the state rather than the workplace as the principal arena of confrontation. Although these movements are undertaken in defense (...) of women's traditional domestic role, collective action appears to be contributing to a greater consciousness of gender subordination among Latin American women and to their greater legitimacy in the public sphere. (shrink)

This essay examines Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) in light of new archival findings on the medical practices of Dr. James Norcom (Dr. Flint in the narrative). While critics have sharply defined the feminist politics of Jacobs’s sexual victimization and resistance, they have overlooked her medical experience in slavery and her participation in reform after escape. I argue that Jacobs uses the rhetoric of a woman-led health reform movement underway during the 1850s (...) to persuade her readers to end slavery. This essay reconstructs both contexts, revealing that Jacobs links enslaved women’s physical and sexual vulnerability with her female readers’ fears of male doctors’ threats to modesty and of their standard bleed-and-purge treatments. Jacobs illustrates that slavery damages women’s health as much as heroic medicine, and thus merits the political activism of her readers. Specifically, Jacobs dramatizes her conflicts with the rapacious physician-master at moments that are crucial to women’s health: marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. Ultimately, this essay advances a new understanding of the role of health reform in social change: it galvanized other movements such as women’s rights and abolition, particularly around issues of bodily autonomy for women and African Americans. (shrink)

Over the past decade AIDS research has turned toward the use of pharmacology in HIV prevention, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP): the use of HIV medication as a means of preventing HIV acquisition in those who do not have it. This paper explores the contradictory reasons offered in support of PrEP—to empower women, to provide another risk-reduction option for gay men—as the context for understanding the social meaning of the experimental trials that appear to show that PrEP works in gay men (...) and heterosexual couples but not single women. The PrEP debates reveal the different ideas about “demedicalization” in the earlier gay health and women’s health movements and highlight the relationship between health activism and critique of research ethics in the context of a global pharmaceutical market. (shrink)

The feminist movement was from its start in the 19th century involved in the struggle for better health care for women. The first feminists aimed at better information on birth control and sexuality. The second feminist wave focused on the unequal division of power roles between men and women. A lot of the problems women experienced could be seen as a consequence of their subordinate role in society. At the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s, the (...) discipline women and health or women and medicine was developed. In this introduction to the theme, the developments in this discipline are described. The starting points of the new discipline followed the principles of ‘women’s health care’. These principles can be summarized as the emphasis on control and autonomy by the patient, demedicalization, the importance of the psychosocial context of complaints, empowerment of women and good information and communication. The central issue of the article is: what is the actual scientific state of the art and what important changes have been made on the subject gender and health? The article ends with ideas for future research. (shrink)

When women won the vote in the United States in 1920 they were still routinely barred from serving as jurors, but some began vigorous campaigns for a place in the jury box. This book tells the story of how women mobilized in fifteen states to change jury laws so that women could gain this additional right of citizenship. Some campaigns quickly succeeded; others took substantially longer. The book reveals that when women strategically adapted their tactics to the broader political environment, (...) they were able to speed up the pace of jury reform, while less strategic movements took longer. A comparison of the more strategic women's jury movements with those that were less strategic shows that the former built coalitions with other women's groups, took advantage of political opportunities, had past experience in seeking legal reforms and confronted tensions and even conflict within their ranks in ways that bolstered their action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The 2004 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesFrances S. AdeneyThe 2004 meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies was held in San Antonio, Texas, 19–20 November 2004. This year's theme was "Dealing with Illness and Promoting Healing: Buddhist and Christian Resources." During the first session panelists Laura Habgood Arsta, Jay McDaniel, and Beth Blizman presented Christian views on dealing with illness, and Rita Gross responded from a Buddhist (...) perspective. The second session focused Buddhist resources for promoting healing by panelists Francis Tsio and Grace Buford, with Laurel Curran presenting a Christian response.Laura Habgood Arsta presented research done by undergraduate students in border communities between the United States and Mexico. The topic was the connection between the Pentecostal movement and environmental health. Pentecostal Christianity (250–400 million members worldwide) emphasizes the signs that accompany the presence of Christ, evidenced by experiences of spirit baptism and faith healing.Their sample indicated that poor and minority people don't identify with the environmental movement until personal health problems emerge. One possible reason for Pentecostal religion thriving, according to this research, might be that exposure to toxins and poverty draws people to healing, a theological pillar of Pentecostalism. Religious services provide an emotional outlet and inspire self-confidence, which can become a mental health component of a healing solution. Women are free to share and lead services, finding leadership opportunities and a social group in churches. As an inexpensive alternative to medical care, healing in the Pentecostal church provides a sense of physical healing as well as help in overcoming addictions.Beth Blizman informed the group of the toxicity of the Lake Erie area of northern Ohio. Cancer is becoming normalized in this region, which has the highest level of multiple cancers in the United States. Beth feels called to heal her own body and become part of the healing process of that region. She argued that an attitude that disrespects the earth leads to disrespect of one another. "How can healing be found?" she asked. She discussed many resources from ancient monastics to modern women religious, from process and feminist thought to new cosmologies. Finally she connected [End Page 149] Audre Lourde's work on the rejection of difference to the bioregional studies that she has been doing on toxicity and illness.Jay McDaniels followed by giving a Christian perspective on Alzheimer's disease as an ecumenical Christian influenced by Buddhism. He addressed three questions that Christians ask in this situation. The first question is "Where is God now? Is God inside my loved one? How?" In response to this question, Jay outlined an evangelical view of God that understands God as a transcendent being, "way up there, watching from a distance." He contrasted this view with a process view of God as an "umbrella of compassion that envelops the world without smothering it." In this view, God is the great companion, sharing the confusion and anxiety of the ill person.So where is the person as they experience personality changes caused by the disease? Jay addressed this second question through process theology, stating that in process theology the person is defined in Buddhist terms, inheriting from the past and contributing to the future. A person is constantly in flux or transformation, so the person with illness may be a different person than they once were but can be embraced as the person that they are now. The multidimensional universe of process theology allows for a person to live "with one foot on earth and one foot in heaven."Help for dealing with Alzheimer's disease, Jay's third question, can be found in the Benedictine vow of obedience, stability, and ongoing conversion. The deepest need for those with Alzheimer's is to be with them, being available to others to listen. Stability is the vow to stay with the relationship through these changes. Ongoing conversion can come through Alzheimer's as those with this disease invite us into a space of creative imagination and a new kind of respect.Rita Gross responded to the three presentations by arguing that how one perceives a situation changes it tremendously. Two Buddhist principles that apply here are... (shrink)

In the highly contentious abortion arena, the new oral abortifacient technology RU486 is one among many actors. This article offers an arena analysis of the heterogeneous constructions of RU486 by various actors, including scientists, pharmaceutical compa nies, medical groups, antiabortion groups, women's health movement groups, and others who have produced situated knowledges. Conceptually, we find not only that the identity of the nonhuman actor-RU486 -is unstable and multiple but also that, in practice, there are other implicated actors—the downstream (...) users and consumers of the technology. If we try to follow all the actors, we find a fuller and more historicized arena, and, ironically, we too can be construed as implicated actors in it. (shrink)

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health continues a trajectory of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence that undermines the normative foundation of public health — the idea that the state is obligated to provide a robust set of supports for healthcare services and the underlying social determinants of health. Dobbs furthers a longstanding ideology of individual responsibility in public health, neglecting collective responsibility for better health outcomes. Such an ideology on individual responsibility not only enables a shrinking (...) of public health infrastructure for reproductive health, it facilitates the rise of reproductive coercion and a criminal legal response to pregnancy and abortion. This commentary situates Dobbs in the context of a long historical shift in public health that increasingly places burdens on individuals for their own reproductive health care, moving away from the possibility of a robust state public health infrastructure. (shrink)

In contemporary histories of psychology, William Moulton Marston is remembered for helping develop the lie detector test. He is better remembered in the history of popular culture for creating the comic book superhero Wonder Woman. In his time, however, he contributed to psychological research in deception, basic emotions, abnormal psychology, sexuality, and consciousness. He was also a radical feminist with connections to women's rights movements. Marston's work is an instructive case for philosophers of science on the relation between science and (...) values. Although Marston's case provides further evidence of the role that feminist values can play in scientific work, it also poses challenges to philosophical accounts of value-laden science. Marston's work exemplifies standard views about feminist value-laden research in that his feminist values help him both to criticize the research of others and create novel psychological concepts and research techniques. His scientific work includes an account of the nature of psycho-emotional health that leads to normative conclusions for individual values and conduct and for society and culture, a direction of influence that is relatively under-theorized in the literature. To understand and evaluate Marston's work requires an approach that treats science and values as mutually influencing; it also requires that we understand the relationship between science advising and political advocacy in value-laden science. (shrink)

If there is one ethical concept considered to be central to human social life it is the idea of justice. Although there are several competing principles of justice, the core concept of justice embodies the obligation to treat like cases alike, in relevant respects. Women may differ from men in some respects, but the fact that women get sick, become injured, and die from preventable causes renders them similar to men in the need to carry out biomedical research, develop therapies, (...) and attend to health problems specific to women. An ethical perspective on women’s health begins and ends with principles of justice. Although particular circumstances and conditions differ in developed and less developed countries, the ethical conclusions regarding justice are the same for women in all societies. (shrink)

Empirical evidence confirms the existence of health inequalities between women and men in developing countries, with women experiencing poorer health status than men, as well as less access to vital health services. These disparities have different sources and take different forms, some of which result from cultural factors, others from discriminatory laws and practices, and still others from the biological fact that only women undergo pregnancy and childbirth, a major cause of maternal mortality. The injustice lies in (...) the fact that many of these disparities result from socially controllable factors, while others could be remedied, especially in cases of violations of human rights. Past and recent policies and practices of the United States Government can be faulted for both actions and omissions that have contributed to such inequalities. Different conceptions of global justice are explored, with implications for who owes what to whom regarding these disparities. (shrink)

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; (...) and reproductive rights. (shrink)

Numerous issues confront women's healthcare today, among them the medicalization of women's bodies, cosmetic genital surgery, violence against women, HIV, perinatal mental health disorders. This volume uniquely explores such difficult topics and others at the intersection of clinical practice, policy, and bioethics in women's health care through a feminist ethics lens. With in-depth discussions of issues in women's reproductive health, it also broadens scholarship by responding to a wider array of ethical challenges that many women experience in (...) accessing health care. Contributions touch on many themes previously tackled by feminist ethics, but in new, contemporary ways. Some chapters expand into new fields in the bioethics literature, such as the ethical issues related to the care of Indigenous women, uninsured refugees and immigrants, women engaged in sex work, and those with HIV at different life stages and perinatal mental health disorders. Authors seek to connect theory and practice with users of the health system by including women's voices in their research. Bringing to bear their experience in active clinical practice in medicine, nursing, and ethics, the authors contemplate new conceptual approaches to important issues in women's healthcare, and make ethical practice recommendations for those grappling with these issues. Topical and up-to-date, this book provides a valuable resource for physicians, nurses, clinical ethicists, and researchers working in some of the most critical areas of women's health and applied ethics today. (shrink)

Prenatal ultrasound use is skyrocketing despite limited evidence of improved outcomes. One factor driving this trend is the widely recognized psychological appeal of real-time fetal imaging. Meanwhile, considering imperfect safety evidence, U.S. professional guidelines dictate that prenatal ultrasound—a screening test—should be governed by expected clinical benefits—an opportunity for intervention. However, when women’s healthcare professionals themselves are pregnant, their access to ultrasound technology permits informal, personal use that may deviate from standard-of-care, e.g., for reassurance. Highlighting a poignant case wherein a (...) pregnant obstetrician’s personal ultrasound use had unforeseen negative consequences, we explore this issue within context of professional ethics and informal medical care. We discuss how women’s health professionals’ self-care may influence and inform prenatal care at large. We advocate curtailing informal prenatal ultrasound use, but also potentially broadening accepted indications for or relaxing proscriptions against ultrasounds for patients. Further research and updated, evidence-based, ethically-sound guidelines are needed. (shrink)

_New research on broader determinants of health has culminated into the new paradigm of social determinants of health. The fundamental view that underlies this new paradigm is that socioeconomic and political contexts in which people live have significant bearing upon their health and well-being. Unlike a wealth of research on socioeconomic determinants, few studies have focused on the role of political factors. Some of these studies examine the role of political determinants on health through their mediation (...) with the labour environments and systems of welfare state. A few others study the relationship between polity regimes and population health more directly. However, none of them has a focus on women's health. This study explores the interactions, both direct and indirect, between democracy and women's health. In doing so, it identifies some of the main health vulnerabilities for women and explains, through a conceptual model, how democracy and respect for human rights interacts with women's health._. (shrink)

This article considers challenges facing the pro-life movement after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022). It identifies four questions the movement must face: (1) whether to adopt a combative or conciliatory rhetorical stance; (2) how to prioritize new legislative goals; (3) how to define the limits of acceptable compromise; and (4) how to respond to Americans with ambivalent attitudes toward abortion. The article argues that each of these issues could precipitate serious division in the pro-life (...) movement that will impact likelihood of future success. (shrink)

This article tackles caste-based poverty by a focus on the position of Dalit women in India. Of 200 million Dalits, nearly 50% are women, often referred to a ‘thrice Dalit’, as they suffer from the triple oppressions of poverty, being female and being female Dalits. They are frequently let down by both the Dalit movement itself as well as the women’s movement in India that focuses more on social problems like dowry deaths—more relevant for caste women and (...) not those outside the caste system. Many Dalit women are denied access to education, to meaningful employment, health provision and are the first to suffer the negative effects of globalization. Access to upper caste wells is forbidden. Worst of all, Dalit women are exposed to many forms of violence and are frequently raped as a way to humiliate Dalit men. The degrading work of ‘scavenging’—removing human excrement-falls mostly on Dalit women, since men are more likely to be ‘upwardly-mobile’. Despite all of this, a new strength now emerges in challenging caste boundaries, contributing to self esteem and a stronger sense of identity. The strong spirituality of Dalit women has sustained strength through songs and stories, and in some cases by subverting patriarchy through ironically re-shaping traditional myths. The article ends by suggesting forms of action from Church, society and feminist theology to show solidarity and effect social change for Dalit women. (shrink)

As COVID-19 keeps impacting the world, its impact is felt differently by people of different sexes and genders. International guidelines and research on gender inequalities and women’s rights during the pandemic have been published. However, data from Taiwan is lacking. This study aims to fill the gap to increase our knowledge regarding this issue and provide policy recommendations. This study is part of a more extensive project in response to the fourth state report concerning the implementation of the Convention (...) on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in Taiwan in 2022. We have drawn on the guidelines and documents published by the United Nations human rights bodies, conducted interviews with advocacy and professional practitioners, and hosted a study group comprising students and teachers from the National Taiwan University College of Public Health to supplement the interview data. The data were analyzed thematically. The results include five themes: (1) particular health risks to carers (primarily women); (2) COVID-related measures’ impact on women’s health and health behaviors; (3) highly gendered psychological maladjustment; (4) increase in gender-based violence and domestic violence; and (5) mental health inequities and intersectionality. The study has global implications for societies of similar sociopolitical contexts and developmental statuses. To truly live up to the standard of CEDAW and other international human rights principles, we ask that central and local government be more aware of these lived experiences and adjust their policies accordingly, accounting for gender sensitivity. (shrink)

Women’s health activists laid the groundwork for passage of the law that created the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1906. The pharmaceutical and food industries fought regulatory reforms then and continue to do so now. We examine public health activism in the Progressive Era, the postwar era and the present day. The women’s health movement began in the 1960s, and criticized both the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment. In the 1990s, patient advocacy (...) groups began accepting industry funds; thousands of commercially-funded groups now dominate the advocacy landscape. As pharma funding became normalized, concerns arose regarding a) the lack of transparency and public accountability regarding funding, b) the distortion of groups’ agendas, and c) the ability of pharma-funded groups to dominate the discourse and override less well-resourced patient and health advocacy groups. Although industry-funded groups argue that funding allows them to provide useful services, the trade-off in health risks, exorbitant prices and distorted information is far too high. Sincerity is beside the point; patients and the industry have differing interests when it comes to drug safety and efficacy, drug information and drug prices. A growing resistance movement is asserting the values of its activist predecessors and opposing the prevailing culture of pharma-funded advocacy. (shrink)

Beginning by reading a 1992 feminist appropriation of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam – in a cartoon in which the finger of a nude Adamic woman touches a computer keyboard, while the god-like VDT screen shows a disembodied fetus – ‘Virtual Speculum’ argues for a broader conception of ‘new reproductive technologies’ in order to foreground justice and freedom projects for differently situated women in the New World Order. Broadly conceptualized reproductive practices must be central to social theory in general, and to (...) technoscience studies in particular. Tying together the politics of self help and women's health movements in the United States in the 1970s with positions on reproductive freedom articulated within the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the NAACP in the 1990s, the paper examines recent work in feminist science studies in several disciplinary and activist locations. Statistical analysis and ethnography emerge as critical feminist technologies for producing convincing representations of the reproduction of inequality. Untangling the semiotic and political–economic dialectics of invisibility and hypervisibility, ‘Virtual Speculum’ concludes by linking the well-surveyed amniotic fluid of on-screen fetuses and the off-frame diarrhea of uncounted and underfed infants in regimes of flexible accumulation and structural adjustment. (shrink)

In most countries in Africa, the epidemiologic profile of HIV/AIDS is significantly different from that of the USA or Europe. Women in Africa are as likely to be HIV positive as men, while young women are significantly more likely to be HIV positive than young men. How can health research in Africa be made more responsive and relevant to women’s health needs? And how would a human rights perspective change the conduct of biomedical and social scientific research (...) on gender and HIV/ AIDS in Africa? The application of a human rights framework to HIV/AIDS typically has focused on social justice issues employing national and international legal structures to legislate and advocate for HIV positive persons. This essay, however, offers some broad considerations of the links between the health of African women, biomedical and social scientific research, HIV/AIDS, research ethics, and the human rights movement. (shrink)

Karen L. Baird, Beyond reproduction: Women’s health, activism, and public policy, Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009, reviewed by Amanda R. Clarke.

This text brings together what is known about liberal feminist and socialist movements for the emancipation of women all over the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

This article examines the Palestinian women's autonomous movement that emerged in the early 1990s, emphasizing changes in the sociopolitical context to account for the movement's emergence, dynamics, and challenges. Using interviews obtained during fieldwork in Palestine in 1992, 1993, and 1994, and employing historical and archival records, I argue that Palestinian feminist discourses were shaped and influenced by the sociopolitical context in which Palestinian women acted and with which they interacted. The multiplicity of views voiced by the women (...) I interviewed attests to the impossibility of homogenizing and flattening women's experiences, while the range of actions and strategies employed by different groups and organizations calls attention to contextual limitations on social action. (shrink)