Course description:
This interdisciplinary course critically examines issues in women's health. Biological, sociocultural, psychological, historical, and political processes that shape and define women's health and healthcare experiences will be explored, including ways in which medical knowledge has been constructed and applied to women's bodies. It is a primary goal to explore these significant questions: How has the physical functioning of the human female body been interpreted by the scientific community? How have these interpretations shaped the type and quality of medical treatment available to women? What has been done to change ideas about women's bodies and the health care offered to women? What are the links between cultural perceptions of women, women's status, and the management of women's bodies?
The objectives of the course:
· to examine the physiology underlying women's health and illness experiences
· to examine the methodology used by scientific research in the study of women's health
· to examine women's health issues in their social, cultural, and historical contexts
· to expose hidden issues in women's health
Goals for the students:
Upon completion of the course the students will be able:
· to interpret statistical data related to women's health issues
· to examine data using contextual analysis
· to demonstrate an understanding of the social, cultural, and historical factors that affect the ways that women's bodies are conceptualized and women's health issues are viewed
· to assess the strengths and limitations of research in the field of women's health
· to critically analyze policy issues and decisions made about women's health and healthcare
· to understand the link between gender relations and women's status in contemporary society and medical treatment and research
Student responsibilities:
· Group project - oral presentation and written self-assessment
· Journal (to be handed in twice during semester)
· Reaction papers (3-4 pages, 3 per semester)
· Class participation, small group work, and email discussions
Group presentations:
Possible topics: teenage pregnancy; sexually transmitted diseases; breast cancer; cardiovascular disease and treatment; alcoholism; exercise; abortion; Lamaze and natural childbirth; women with disabilities; cosmetic surgery; female genital mutilation; environmental racism.
Course topics and readings:
Week 1: Introduction
Who are we as a class? What do the students want out of this class? What are the goals and interests of the students? Body image exercise
Week 2: The big picture
How is gender relevant to science? Is medicine/science dexist? What is the impact of a person's gender, race, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation on the quality of the health care they receive? Readings:
Cool, Lisa Collier. Forgotten women: How minorities are under served by our health care system.
Hales, Diane. What doctors don't know about women's bodies.
Martin, Emily. The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles.
Northrop, Christine. Physician, heal thyself.
White, Jocelyn, and Wendy Levinson. Primary care of lesbian patients.
Week 3: Body image I
Fat as a feminist issue. Thinness as chic. Media images of the female body. Readings:
Bordo, Susan. The body and the reproduction of femininity.
Bordo, Susan. Reading the slender body.
Orbach, Susie. Fat is a feminist issue.
Smith, Christine. Women, weight and body image. FILM:Slim hopes: Advertising and the obsession with thinness
Week 4: Body image II
Metabolism: the story behind fat. The culture of diet. The history of obesity and anorexia. Readings:
Hare, Sara. You're not fat, you're living in the wrong country.
Marini, Bartholomew, and Welch. Nutrition and metabolism.
Northrop, Christine. Nourishing ourselves with food.
Pike, Kathleen, and Ruth Striegel-Moore. Disordered eating and eating disorders.
First reaction paper due
Week 5: Female hormones and the myth of PMS
Menstrual cycle/ovarian cycle. Why do only American women experience PMS? Medicalizing natural body changes into "symptoms." The culture of menopause. Readings:
Angier, Natalie. Suckers and horns: The prodigal uterus.
Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. The body's new timetable: How the life course of American girls has changed.
Tavris, Carol. Misdiagnosing the body: Pre-menstrual syndrome, post-menstrual syndrome, and other 'normal' diseases.
Martin, Emily. Medical metaphors of women's bodies: Menstruation and menopause.
Week 6: Social Politics I
Midwives and women healers. Scientific motherhood. Childbirth and science. Readings:
Apple, Rima. Constructing mothers: Scientific motherhood in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Leavitt, Judith Walzer. Birthing and anesthesia: The debate over twilight sleep.
Martin, Emily. Medical metaphors of women's bodies: birth.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. 'The living mother of a living child': Midwifery and mortality in post-revolutionary New England.FILM:A midwife's tale
Week 7: Social Politics II
Birth control and abortion. Reproductive rights. Women and welfare. Readings:
Blackmun, Harry. Segment of Roe v. Wade, 1973.
Gordon, Linda. Voluntary motherhood: The beginnings of feminist birth control ideas in the United States.
Ross, Loretta. African American women and abortion, 1800-1970. About welfare: Myths, facts, challenges, and solutions.
Second reaction paper due
Journals due
Week 8: Sexual Health and Sexual Disease
AIDS. Racism, sexism, classism, Heterosexism in AIDS. International issues and AIDS. Readings:
Anastos, Kathryn, and Carola Marte. Women - the missing persons in the AIDS epidemic.
Treichler, Paula. AIDS, gender, and biomedical discourses: Current contests for meaning. African-American women respond to AIDS/HIV. Addressing Africa's agony, Time article. Many women at risk for HIV still not using condoms. FILM:AIDS: The women speak
Week 9: Biological and social constructions of mental health
Depression: biological or cultural? Impact of gender, race, class and culture on mental health care. Readings:
Abelson, Ellen. The invention of kleptomania.
Leibenluft, Ellen. Why are so many women depressed?
Tavris, Carol. Misdiagnosing the mind: Why women are sick, and men have problems.
Third reaction paper due
Week 10: Gendering of addictions
Physiology of addiction. Usage and treatment. Cultural images of female vs. male addicts Readings:
Cornell University national center on addiction and substance abuse. Substance abuse and the American woman, (packet of readings).
Jumper-Thurman, Pamela, and Barbara Plested. Health needs of American-Indian women.
Vogeltanz, Nancy P., and Sharon C. Wilsnack. Alcohol problems in women: Risk factors, consequences, and treatment strategies.
