Download - WGST 202 Day 18 Women and Illness
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Dr. Sara DiazWGST 202: Gender, Difference, and PowerGonzaga University
Women and Illness
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Pathologizing Women’s Bodies
•Menstruation• Child-birth•Menopause• Aging• Size (too small/too big)
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Women and Illness• Hysteria• Catch-all for women’s
health complaints• Epilepsy• Located the cause of
inidentifiable illness in the uterus.• Dismissive
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Women & Chronic Illness
• SO, what happens when women’s bodies actually become ill?• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome• Autoimmune Disease (Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc)• Fibromyalgia• Migraine• Multiple Sclerosis
• All affect more women than men.• With the exception of MS, the above were dismissed as hysteria
for many years.• On average it takes women 10 years to be diagnosed with
autoimmune disease.
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Interesting Facts about HIV• In the US & Canada, HIV has become a chronic disease,
manageable w/ medication. Young people who are HIV+ are expected to live nearly as long as HIV- people.
• Globally, access to best treatments for HIV not widely available.
• In the US, 2% of babies born to HIV positive mothers are infected w/ HIV.
• Anti-retro viral drugs• Viral load
• Cesarean Section birth reduces risk• most babies are infected during childbirth and not before
• Formula vs Breast-milk.
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Response Question
•What are some of the problems faced by women with HIV infections?
•How are anxieties about women’s bodies magnified for women w/ HIV/AIDS?
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Racializing Disease
• Racial/Moral Panic• Ebola• Bird Flu• Swine Flu• Small Pox• HIV
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Micro → Macro Connections
•We think systemically about Ebola but not about endocrine health?
• Beyond very specific “epidemics,” we focus on Micro/Organism rather than Meso/Ecosystem
• Individualizing Health
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Individualizing Health
“…pregnant women are urged to drink no alcohol. … no one knows if an occasional glass of wine is harmful.
Nevertheless, caution dictates … “In ignorance, abstain.” Yet the same principle is not applied to nitrates in tap
water?”
“Why is there no public conversation about environmental threats to pregnancy? …. Why does abstinence in the face
of uncertain apply only to individual behavior? Why doesn’t it apply equally to industry or agriculture?”
Steingraber, 516-517
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Health is Personal & Political
• What are the effects of individualizing health?• How does individualizing health relate to political
power?• In the case of eating disorders, in what way does
Chernik argue they are related to women’s lack of social and political power?
• How do we take back our political power?• In relation to disordered eating?• In relation to chronic health conditions?
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Power & The Body
• What conclusions can we draw based about the place of the body in our social order?• Think back to our starting place in economics.
• The derogation of the body can be seen in:• lack of access to healthcare for bodies:• female, racialized, third world, gender non-
conforming, disabled, mentally ill, or queer• condemnation of HIV positive and other chronically
ill people.• disregard for reproduction (and reproductive labor)