Course description:
This seminar explores the history and politics of women's health primarily in the United States by focussing on three broad and interrelated questions: How has the physical functioning of the female body been interpreted by the scientific community? How have scientific and broader cultural interpretations of the sexualized female body shaped the type and quality of medical care offered to women? What have women done to change ideas about women's bodies and health and the medical care offered to women? We will devote a considerable amount of time to the social and cultural history of women's reproductive functions including menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause as well as the development of obstetrics and midwifery. We will also explore such topics as women's entry into the male-dominated medical profession, the changing diagnosis and experience of anorexia nervosa, the cultural meanings of madness, and the politics of women's healthcare today.
Readings:
Brodie, Janet Ferris. Contraception and abortion in nineteenth century America.
Brumberg, Joan. 1988. Fasting girls: The history of anorexia nervosa.
Hine, Darlene Clark. Black women in white.
Hubbard, Ruth. The politics of women's biology.
Leavitt. 1986. Brought to bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950.
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina. Sympathy and science.
* indicates reading is part of photocopied packet available from instructor
Week 1: Introduction Discussion: What is a feminist history of medicine? Is gender relevant to understanding science? Is science/medicine sexist?
Week 2: Theoretical framework: Gendering science/gendering the body Reading: Hubbard, chaps. 2,3,7-10 (22-42, 87-140).
* Schiebinger. Selections from The mind has no sex? and Nature's body.
* Fausto-Sterling. Myths of gender, ch. 7, 205-222.
Week 3: Reproduction and childbirth in America: A history. Reading: Leavitt, intro., chaps. 1-5 (3-141)
Week 4: Reproduction and childbirth: Cultural analysis Reading: Leavitt, finish
*Martin, chaps. 1,2,8,9,11
Week 5: The control of reproduction Reading: Contraception and abortion, selections.
PAPER #1 DUE
Week 6: Menstruation and menopause Reading: *Martin, chaps. 3,5,6,10
* Bullough and Voght. 1973. Women, menstruation, and nineteenth-century medicine. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 47, 66-82.
*Fausto-Sterling, ch. 4, 90-122
*The curse, selections
Week 7: Treating "women's diseases"
*Ehrenreich and English. For her own good, chap. 4. The sexual politics of sickness.
Morantz-Sanchez, ch. 8.
Discussion of final projects
Week 8: Gender and madness Reading: * Showalter. The female malady, chs. 5, 6.
* Theriot. 1993. Women's voices in nineteenth century medical discourse. Signs, 19:1-25.
Week 9: Disease as cultural symbol: History of anorexia nervosa Reading: Brumberg, chaps. 1- 6
Week 10: Politics of body size Reading: Brumberg, finish
* Bordo. Anorexia nervosa. Reading the slender body. In Unbearable weight: Feminism, western culture, and the body.
*Haiken, Venus envy, selections
PAPER #2 DUE
Week 11: Women as health care practitioners: nurses Reading: Hine. Black women in white.
Week 12: Women enter the medical profession I Reading: Morantz-Sanchez, ch. 3-7 (47-202)
Week 13: Women enter the medical profession II Reading: Morantz-Sanchez, ch.9-12 (232-361)
Week 14: Women, culture, and "alternative" healing Reading: Choose from list of books distributed in class
Week 15: Conclusions. Presentations of final research projects.
