Course description:
This interdisciplinary seminar explores the history, politics, and ethics of women's health concerns. Through a combination of assigned reading, class discussion, oral presentations, and independent research, students will explore such topics as the meaning of childbirth in the past and present, the racial politics of reproductive rights, feminist analyses of women and depression, and the ongoing efforts to build a women's health movement.
Readings:
Angier, Natalie. Woman: An intimate geography.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Myths of gender.
Fine and Asch, eds. Women with disabilities.
Jack, Dana Crowley. Silencing the self: Women and depression.
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene. Am I thin enough yet? The cult of thinness and the commercialization of identity.
Leavitt, Judith Walker. Brought to bed.
Luker, Kristen. Abortion and the politics of motherhood.
Martin, Emily. The woman in the body.
May, Elaine Tyler. Barren in the promised land.
Roberts, Dorothy. Killing the black body.
Stabiner, Karen. To dance with the devil: The new war on breast cancer.
Week 1: Introduction
Discussion: What is health?
Week 2: Themes
*Ruzek, Olesen, Clarke. Social, biomedical, and feminist models of women's health.
*-- What are the dynamics of difference.
*Wingard. Patterns and puzzles.
all in Ruzek, Olesen, Clark. Women's health: Complexities and differences.
*Edward H. Beardsley. Race as a factor in health. In Apple, ed. Women, health and medicine in America.
Week 3: Women's biology
*Angier. Woman: An intimate geography.
Week 4: Politics of sexual difference
Fausto-Sterling. Myths of gender, chaps. 1-3, 6,7.
Week 5: History of childbearing
Leavitt. Brought to bed, 3-141.
Roberts. Killing the black body, 3-55.
Week 7: Motherhood and female identity
May. Barren in the promised land: Childless Americans and the pursuit of happiness.
Week 8: "Women's pathologies": menstruation, menopause
Martin, 3,6
Fausto-Sterling. Myths of gender, chap. 4,5
MIDTERM EXAMS DUE IN CLASS
Week 9: Race and reproductive rights
Roberts. Killing the black body, 104-312 (skim chap. 2)
Week 10: The abortion debate
Luker. Abortion and the politics of motherhood.
*Faludi. Backlash, chap.14.
Week 11: Mental illness
*Tomes. Historical perspectives on women and mental illness. In Apple, ed. Women, health, and medicine in America.
Jack. 1993. Silencing the self: Women and depression.
Week 12: Body image
Hesse-Biber. 1997. Am I thin enough yet? The cult of thinness and the commercialization of identity.
PAPER DUE IN CLASS
Week 13: Women and disability
*Gill. The last sisters: Health issues of women with disabilities. In Women's health: Complexities and differences.
Fine and Asch. 1988. Women with disabilities: Essays in psychology, culture and politics. Temple, selections.
Week 14: Women's health activism: toward a women's health movement
Stabiner. 1998. To dance with the devil: The new war on breast cancer.
