Women and Health: Power, Technology, Inequality and Conflict in a Gendered World
PREFACEOver the years of working on this book, I have grown to appreciate how vibrant the study of women's health is. It has become a flourishing arena of popular literature and social science research, with exciting new books, articles, journals, and newsletters appearing regularly. Given the scarcity of material a few years ago, the shear amount now can seem overwhelming. This book adds to that growing scholarship, with the intention of providing a map for the reader with limited knowledge of the breadth of women's health writings, and a critical introduction to important issues.This book provides an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing as it does on scholarship in sociology, history, women's studies, anthropology, political science, psychology, and medical science, as well as writings in the popular press. Throughout, the book challenges traditional viewpoints on women and health; questions the values, power, and politics embedded in women's health; and highlights the importance of ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and able-bodiedness, as well as gender.The book addresses issues of social justice, ethics and public policy. Its integration is shaped around an understanding and a critique of the dominance of the biomedical model, an analysis of the power of for-profit forces and the seductiveness of technology in health care, and an examination of health decisions and practices in a gendered world. For each chapter I have written lengthy overviews, provided an extensive bibliography, and included the work of other writers on more specific issues. As a reader, you will hear the voices of scholars from many disciplines, as well as those of activists, a farm wife, a mother, doctors, lawyers, and journalists. Fighting the tendency of sociologists to write in an obscure way with needless jargon, I have worked to make this book accessible not only to undergraduate social science students, but also to a more general audience.The book covers many topics in women's health, but inevitably excludes others. It only infrequently mentions women outside the USA; it is about women, not girls. It hardly touches on sexuality, STDs, alcohol and substance abuse, mental health, or eating disorders, among other things. Space considerations dictated the omission of these and other important topics.I owe an indirect debt to the many women from the Boston Women's Health Book Collective and the National Women's Health Network who have been trailblazers in women's health. More directly, several people helped me with the book. Denise Anthony and I co-authored the Body Image chapter while Terry Plum and Evan Sabatelli co-authored the Resources chapter. Jane Wilkie, Claire Healy, and Davita Glasberg gave feedback on several chapters; Greg Williams and Sydney Plum made editorial suggestions. My husband, Richard — also a sociologist — and son, Charles, assisted in writing the Birth Control and Abortion Chapter and the Technology Assisted Conception Chapter; my daughter, Emily, helped with the bibliography and world wide web searching. Myra Marx Ferree has no idea what is in this book, but she has been a wonderful role model for nearly 20 years.I am also indebted to graduate students Kim Yanoshik, Cindy Barerre, and Marita McComisky, and to undergraduates Stephanie Gladwin, Meredith Wells, Maggie Callahan, and Dena Marder, all of whom were active class participants, teaching me as they learned. Many of these former undergraduates are now pursuing careers as nurses and doctors. I honor the memory of Christine Guyon, whose persistent questions stimulated my thinking.I dedicate this book to the memory of my parents, who taught me the importance of activism in health with their life-long involvement in Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound and their take-control attitude at the end of their lives.