Please post your blog response to the week 2 readings focusing on an introduction to humanistic perspectives on reproductive and sexual health here. Remember to email me your pseudonym and to use your pseudonym, in place of your name, when you are asked to fill in your name.
In re: Rayna Rapp; Gender, Body, Biomedicine: How Some Feminist Concerns Dragged Reproduction to the Center of Social Theory.
I thought this was an effective article, quite powerfully written. The introduction gave a brief synopsis into the background of the growth of medical anthropology in combination with feminist activism and scholarship. It was interesting and made sense to see the ties to beginning of the field were works by Marx, Foucault and Bourdieu. She brought across the fact that medical anthropology is related to many fields and is dependent on context. The excerpt from Susan Bordo summed up the introduction wonderfully.
The author’s discussion of reproductive stratification segued nicely into her example of medicalization of women’s reproductive health I found to be really compelling. Her work with the FGFR3 mutation and PND (prenatal diagnosis) brought up valid fears of eugenics and prejudice. Genetic marking is fast becoming part of the reproductive stratification, joining the ranks. I appreciate her saying that we all bear the marks of stratified reproducers, awareness is a good thing but what do we do with it?
As a new epi. student interested in maternal and infant health, I feel the ideas and questions raised by these readings are central to my education. Having the ability to run a regression or identify possible confounding in some data, while important for producing “accurate” results, in no way guarantees that the conclusions I draw from these results are “correct” for the population for which they are intended, or that the questions I am attempting to answer are even relevant.
The different areas of Public Health, to a greater or lesser extent, rely on “math and science” to help formulate responses to “health issues.” This week’s readings challenge us to go beyond the use of only quantitative data and to listen to the stories of the people who’s health we are seeking to improve; not only to understand what their definitions of “health” and “improve” are, but to place their situation in the larger context of society. Understanding the role of some particular micronutrient deficiency as it relates to maternal health is of limited value if we do not understand the underlying structural effects causing food insecurity.
I’ve been exposed to the idea of using the stories of people’s lived experiences as a source of “truth” in the past, from several undergrad courses: the biology of difference, hunger in a global economy, and the political economy of women, from research I’ve done looking at food insecurity among rural poor mothers in the US, and from my experience running a soup kitchen. Along with this idea comes the realization that the many of these lived experiences, especially those of marginalized individuals, conflict with the “truths” offered by the hegemonic structures (both macro and micro) within which these people must operate.
While most of the ideas in these articles are familiar to me (and are ideas that I want/need to incorporate into my research), Inhorn’s “Defining Women’s Health” brought one issue to mind that I had not previously considered (in the context of epi. research), the reproductive essentialization of Women’s lives. Right now I am at a loss as to how to approach this issue. I understand the constraining effect of essentializing women as reproducers and I recognize how it leads to overlooking other areas of Women’s health, but when I consider disparities in maternal death rates, for example, between more- and less-developed countries or even between different populations in the US, it is clear that this is an area that demands attention.
In response to telling Sexual Stories: “The Culture of Sexual Story Tellingâ€, I thought this article was written very well. It was easy to understand the dept of the author’s thought on true life sexual experiences. I was able to see that this world links to sex in more ways than people realize. The media has contributed to spreading different views on sex and made it much more public. I liked the examples the author used as well. People are affected daily by present and past sexual experiences.
The example about Jane was very touching and shows how women deal with their past in different ways. I realized that there are women among us who suffer from terrible sexual experiences and blame themselves in the end. Other stories such as having gay parents, being in abusive relationships, coming out as a gay/lesbian, being with a sex addict, not wanting to have any sex, etc are all issues people deal with. People who hide their past sex stories are coming out now and revealing secrets they never shared with anyone. I believe these stories will help people relate to others who share similar feelings so they do not feel alone.
I found this week’s articles to fit nicely together as an effective representation of the importance of studying and paying special attention to the sociocultural aspects of women’s (and everyone’s) lives, rather than just focusing on the biological and genetic factors involved in health issues today. Of particular importance is the understanding of “intersectionality”, or the creation of personal identities through the intersections of social factors such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc. I liked that this concept was examined in both the Rayna Rapp article and the Marcia C. Inhorn article because I believe that individuals and their personal health issues, whether they are physical or mental in nature are almost always at least partially due to how one is socialized, or how one is taught to interact with and survive in (cope within) the society and location that one is raised within. I think it is highly problematic to simply ignore sociocultural factors that can be involved with, or to blame for, many of the health issues that women in particular have to deal with. In addition, Ken Plummer’s article on sexual storytelling emphasized the fact that we can have all the information in the world and have as many personal stories as we want, but we need to have the skills to make meaning of these stories through studying not just medicine, but anthroplogy, sociology, and psychology.
As a psychology major and a women’s studies minor, I could certainly relate to Mark Slouka’s displeasure with the fact that most school systems today seem to overemphasize the importance of math and science while undervaluing the importance of the study of humanities and social sciences. Although I interpreted Slouka as somewhat of a smug and bitter zealot, I did agree that our schools need to be unafraid of “upsetting people” with controversial social issues that students need to think about in order to be thoughtful and moral citizens. Indeed, if all we teach are the facts of math and science, however integral they are, then students will miss out on the importance of studying the very things that make us human, capable of making sensitive and informed decisions on how to benefit humankind.
Another concept I found really interesting was Inhorn’s idea that patriarchy can be viewed as a detrimental influence on women’s health. I was particularly moved as Inhorn described how, on a more macro level, the intersections of patriarchy, racism, poverty, and being female can create such unavoidably miserable living conditions. It made me realize how important it is to empathize with and try to understand how utterly impossible it would be to be young and female in a poverty-stricken inner city environment with no support system except for perhaps an older, drug-addicted boyfriend who lures you into his world with empty promises of love, monogamy, and financial support. It is easy to see how the young woman in this desperate situation would become involved with drugs and unprotected sex to please her boyfriend, the only other means of support she might have. It is useless to simply blame the individual as many in our society do. We are ALL the products of our social location; we are who we are mostly because of the social conditions surrounding us, and this leaves many of us underprivileged and unfairly disadvantaged.
When I first printed the readings, before I even read the titles, I worried that I would be reading a lot of feminist-style literature that I’ve seen in some women’s education classes I’ve taken over the course of my studies. Instead I began to read a very nuanced discussion of women’s health and how it should be defined.
The first packet I read, Dehumanized, set me up to read the other packets. It suggested that our capitalist national focus on the sciences and math has led us to ignore the more personal narratives that can be found within subjects labeled “humanities”. We marginalize individual experiences to increase productivity and make more money. We also prevent educated discourse on important topics because disagreement limits productivity and limiting productivity limits profit. The math and science fields help us put public health issues into a neat little package and explain them away by believing that everything can be solved by scientific advancement. When we look at it this way we can move on and keep producing.
This segued nicely into one of the other packets, Defining Women’s Health. At first I cringed because even though I’m in a women’s health class I thought I would be reading something about how the male headed society keeps women down. I feel like that argument is becoming dated and is exclusionary and limiting our understanding of gender and gender differences within society when women’s education classes focus solely on being equal with men or believing men keep women down. Instead I became really intrigued because I’ve never thought before about society’s focus on health as being something scientific and how medicine can cure everything totally disregards the really important issues relating to women’s health. It turns female issues like menopause and premenstrual syndrome into something dirty that should be fixed and hidden away instead of understood on a woman to woman basis.
Another aspect of that particular packet that interested me was that the author commented on reproduction and about how women’s health is often understood only as reproductive health and how this once again limits our real understanding of women’s health issues. At the same time the author keeps talking about reproduction because it’s nearly impossible to separate women from reproduction. I sometimes get tired of reading articles about reproduction and pregnancy health but at the same time I was born with this unique capability that is inseparable from my overall health needs so I can’t just ignore it.
I found this week’s articles to fit nicely together as an effective representation of the importance of studying and paying special attention to the sociocultural aspects of women’s (and everyone’s) lives, rather than just focusing on the biological and genetic factors involved in health issues today. Of particular importance is the understanding of “intersectionalityâ€, or the creation of personal identities through the intersections of social factors such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc. I liked that this concept was examined in both the Rayna Rapp article and the Marcia C. Inhorn article because I believe that individuals and their personal health issues, whether they are physical or mental in nature are almost always at least partially due to how one is socialized, or how one is taught to interact with and survive in (cope within) the society and location that one is raised within. I think it is highly problematic to simply ignore sociocultural factors that can be involved with, or to blame for, many of the health issues that women in particular have to deal with. In addition, Ken Plummer’s article on sexual storytelling emphasized the fact that we can have all the information in the world and have as many personal stories as we want, but we need to have the skills to make meaning of these stories through studying not just medicine, but anthropology, sociology, and psychology.
As a psychology major and a women’s studies minor, I could certainly relate to Mark Slouka’s displeasure with the fact that most school systems today seem to overemphasize the importance of math and science while undervaluing the importance of the study of humanities and social sciences. Although I interpreted Slouka as somewhat of a smug and bitter zealot, I did agree that our schools need to be unafraid of “upsetting people†with controversial social issues that students need to think about in order to be thoughtful and moral citizens. Indeed, if all we teach are the facts of math and science, however integral they are, then students will miss out on the importance of studying the very things that make us human, capable of making sensitive and informed decisions on how to benefit humankind.
Another concept I found really interesting was Inhorn’s idea that patriarchy can be viewed as a detrimental influence on women’s health. I was particularly moved as Inhorn described how, on a more macro level, the intersections of patriarchy, racism, poverty, and being female can create such unavoidably miserable living conditions. It made me realize how important it is to empathize with and try to understand how utterly impossible it would be to be young and female in a poverty-stricken inner city environment with no support system except for perhaps an older, drug-addicted boyfriend who lures you into his world with empty promises of love, monogamy, and financial support. It is easy to see how the young woman in this desperate situation would become involved with drugs and unprotected sex to please her boyfriend, the only other means of support she might have. It is useless to simply blame the individual as many in our society do. We are ALL the products of our social location; we are who we are mostly because of the social conditions surrounding us, and this leaves many of us underprivileged and unfairly disadvantaged.
The readings as a whole tended to question certain paradigms present in women’s health research today. Specifically the strong focus placed on the scientific evidence and market forces while lacking a more holistic approach. This holistic approach is necessary as Slouka put it so well in “Dehumanized”, “Our primary function… is to teach people, not tasks; to participate in the complex and infinitely worthwhile labor of forming citizens, men and women what’s best about us and forestalling what’s worst” (p. 34.) This quote was specifically aimed at the changing foci of the American education system from valuing math, science, and quantifiable ideas over the humanities and creative growth. However, this article certainly applies to the present state of public health studies. Slouka explains, “To put it simply, science addresses the outer world; the humanities, the inner one.” (p. 39) This statement hits suggests the idea of holism.
Although analytical facts are paramount in public health they only get one so far. As the article by Inhorn, “Defining Women’s Health”, asserts anthropology has much to offer to public health because it sees more that just numbers and data. Ethnographic research considers issues from the inside out. Inhorn states, ” NIH has defined women’s health research priorities in strictly medical and public health terms…. As such it reflects a fragmented view of women’s health and women’s bodies. Furthermore, it almost entirely neglects the sociocultural matrix in which women’s ills develop. including in the context of poverty, partriarchy, and other life stresses.”
I think that Ihorn couldn’t be more correct about the need for ethnographic research and a holistic look into health problems. A strictly western focus often fails when a policy has to be implemented in a non-western setting, because a western view is limited. Often times what makes big differences are relatively small actions. One such example is that of micro-loans. Such has been unbelievably effective in alleviating poverty which has had a influence on health. Compared with aid money micro-finance has in many cases proven much more effective, especially if one considers costs for benefits. I would argue this is because micro-finance allows for the personal freedom that comes from communities and individuals. This idea connects with the holistic perspective that the articles speak of. Micro-loans are not determined by third-parties but by the individuals. Individuals determine what is needed. Inborn says, “a great deal about women’s health can be learned by letting women talk…” (p. 367) Although science may tell us how a disease is contracted and the effective remedies for treatment it does not make a difference if it is not implemented in a manner which will affect the people. Even if donations of the medicine are made it does not mean that the medicine will be allocated. Culture plays intimately in notions of illness, recovery, access, education, and ideas of medicine and treatment (just to name a few.) Without a holistic understanding public health studies will be limited to theory- and the theory will not transfer into practice.
The article “Defining Women’s Health†has brought up the important question: What constitutes women’s health? This complicated subject focuses on topics ranging from reproductive essentialization of women to the effects of patriarchy on health. I found section four, regarding increasing medicalization of women’s lives particularly interesting. It has become more apparent to me after reading this section that many natural things that occur during a woman’s life have become viewed as disorders. Natural bodily processes such as menarche and menopause have been assumed to be a condition and often hold a stigma in modern day society.
This section also brought to my attention the unnecessary medicalization of child birth in the United States. Robbie Davis-Floyd makes the point that childbirth has become a technological event. The majority of women are no longer experiencing natural births at home with the assistance of midwives or respected elders. Delivery more often takes place in hospitals, controlled by drugs, and monitored by expensive technology. Although giving birth in a hospital is absolutely essential for some women who may have complications, I believe that a hospital birth can diminish some of the importance and rituals that are a part of the event.
The readings this week for me were a good introduction to women’s health. The article titled Dehumized was making a case for the importance of humanities. The article had a great quote “That we are more nurture than nature; that what we are taught, generally speaking is what we become; that torturers are made slowly not minted in the womb.†The article touched on what society dreams important and ultimately is always tied back to the economy. The message on what is important is what is taught in a particular culture is emphasized in learning institutions. Following the thought process of the quote, if we as a society focus only on what will we think contributes to the economy, we are mistaken.
I found the article “The culture of sexual story telling†interesting. It is true that sex sells and this idea is used even in health related advertising. The article sort of chronicles the era of sexual story telling. I looked at this article in regards to HIV/AIDS that plagues the so called third world nations. The article included vignettes from various people in developed countries. I could not help but wonder how this would look in countries where talking about sex ,sexuality and anything related in still taboo even in the face of HIV/AIDS. I think that the more open people are about sex and sexuality may translate to their sexual health
In her work Defining Women’s Health, Marcia C. Inhorn highlighted many themes that affect women globally and domestically. However, I felt that her writings depicted an almost chiding tone towards hard science research. In her very first message, “the power define women’s health†she criticized the NIH by finding their list of priorities, for the Office for Research on Women’s Health, lacking. Their listed was mostly made up of issues such as cellular research, chronic disorders, infections, cancer, neurobiology, organ systems ect. The author seemed to believe that they had over looked a large important part of research, social science. She went on to say that public health is not focusing on the same issues, as most women are. She mentioned that the CDC was spending effort and money on researching bacterial vaginosis (BV), an illness which affects many African-American mothers and their newborns. Inhorn then goes on to list that a study from an primarily African American community Harlem listed many other concerns that have nothing to do with BV. They listed housing, low wage jobs, violence ect. The authors point was that “big science†was not focusing on what is important to the people. And I agree and disagree.
I agree that much of “top down†science focuses on issues not central to people’s concerns. However, I feel that scientific research in it’s own right is very important. Yes, Harlem has issues that need to be address. That does not mean that BV should not be studied by those most qualified to do so. And I believe the author herself was leaving out major groups of people on her assumptions about women’s health. Her list of major themes in women’s health would not have mirrored my own families concerns. To be honest when my grandmother had a stroke last spring, “the increasing biomedical hegemony over women’s health†meant little to nothing to me, and the “neurobiology field†meant everything. Yes science is mostly run by oppressive forces. We should work on changing that, but it’s important to help encourage the growth of science and medical technology.
I was also interested in Inhorn’s analysis of reproductive health and women’s health. Why so much of energy is funneled into reproductive health. I found it interesting that she mentioned, that this is a medical field where some women may feel more comfortable then some men based on their gender. Perhaps reproductive has become a female club house? I also noted her explanation that one of the reasons may be due to that fact that women are valued often only as producers. But I feel, it is also important to note that women often care about their children (and their future children) more then they care about themselves. It is likely we worry about baby-making issues, because we worry about our babies.
I found it interesting as well that author listed three places in her works where it may be safer to have children at home then in a hospital, Benin in West Africa, she spoke of unsafe infertility medicines Egypt and in Tamil Nadu south India. The author never mentioned efforts on how these clinics may improve, therefore becoming safer. She seemed in favor solely of the women having their children at home again.
And lastly, I was interested deeply in her mentioning of young girls who are prone to become exposed to AIDs because of their older boyfriends. Also women who decided to not use condoms because it is a sign of commitment. There are a lot of questions that go behind those statements, which are worth investigating.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to read an article outlining the concept of intersectionality and its relation to women’s health in addition to the greater political economy (“Defining women’s healthâ€). I’ve found in many other courses that issues of race & class are totally absent, with its focus on white middle- to upper-class women. In many discussions of the medicalization of birth, lay or nurse midwives have been portrayed as the ideal provider with little to no mention of the accessibility of such services. Similar to this is a question that has come up many times with myself and other classmates as to whether one would be more effective in terms of the politics of birth as a midwife or as an obstetrician. Many of my professors have encouraged students to go the path of midwifery, completely ignoring the financial toll such a job can take. Lay midwifery schools rarely have financial aid & the pay is quite different from that of an obstetrician. Such assumptions made by professors or students can not only alienate students, but also show a somewhat naïve view of the greater socio-political context of the subject.
These thoughts however, make me question where public health ends and other disciplines begin. “Dehumanized†concentrates on the de-emphasis of the humanities, but I think the biggest issue is including interdisciplinary approaches to many fields including health. While popular culture might view science & math as ‘real’ intelligence, in the world of the university, the humanities are (in my experience) quite emphasized. That said, my school may put more focus on writing than others, no matter the subject. Nevertheless, I think combining qualitative & quantitative forms of data gathering is necessary, especially in regards to health. It is just as important to know how a disease effects the body biologically as it is to know what is causing the disease to exist at all. This is shown in a commonly used (albeit morbid) parable in critical medical anthropology where a doctor is on a river bank and finds a person floating downstream, half-drowned. Just as the doctor jumps in the river and fixes up the person, she finds another person floating down the river and yet another. Little does the doctor know there is someone upstream pushing people into the river. The problem, however, is that the doctor isn’t a mediator, she is a doctor. Is it her responsibility to stop the pusher or someone else’s?
This weeks reading was very interesting on my different levels. The Dehumanized reading made me think critically about how our society views and values education. As a student who takes many liberal arts courses I found myself agreeing with many parts of the article because sometimes I feel overlooked and saddened when I am not taken seriously because of the material that I have decided to study. I liked how the Dehumanized article illustrated that other disciplines besides math and science have merit and are needed to make responsible citizens. The article seemed to make the argument that because of moneyed interests only math and science are taken “seriously†in this country and how this approach to education is short sighted.
The article Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds, was very revealing because the author of the article expresses the sometimes difficult nature of collecting people’s personal stories and what to do with them when collected. I thought it was very interesting when the author described how he had encountered many people with different stories and after he had complied all of these different stories he wasn’t sure what to do with them so they sat in a drawer before he decided to write a book. Especially because more and more sexual stories are becoming more and more common and I think the author tried to come up with several different ideas how these stories can be engaged.
Defining Women’s Health and Gender, Body, Bioscience were my favorite readings for this week because they really tried to explain what Women’s health is. When I say that I am interested in Women’s health people usually give a nod of the head and assume that my interests lay within the realm of reproduction, which may be true…to an extent. I liked how these articles addressed that there are many other aspects to Women’s health that may be related to, but are not specifically about reproduction. I liked the global perspective that Defining Women’s Health took because it is very important to understand the context in which women see their personal health needs and they way these may or may not be realized in their own communities. Gender, Body, Bioscience also addressed the ethical concerns that color many aspects of women’s health, especially reproduction. I really liked the paragraphs that referred to women as ethical pioneers when having to make difficult decisions about new reproductive technologies. The main message that I took away from all of these readings is that behind all the numbers and statistics, there are real people, and they all have their own stories to tell. That it is important to not forget about the personal side of health and healthcare.
I was most interested in Slouka’s “Dehumanized†article, not because it had to deal extensively with health and health care issues, but because it spoke of the underlying problems which I believe are within our society. This article addresses the fact that there is an ever-growing standard of living present in America by touching upon issues such as the education system.
Slouka states, “What is taught, at any given time, in any culture, is an expression of what the culture considers important.†I think that this is especially prevalent in terms of the general health of our society – there are often many different phases and crazes which people go through regarding their health, most of which are not too healthy to begin with. This idea proves that we generally have a set goal of what we would like to accomplish, and then work to do everything we can in order to achieve it.
In the example which Slouka uses, it is the idea of standardized testing as the touchstone of achievement for which students are taught towards, instead of allowing them to learn in the ways that they wish. In the case of public health, we often have a rigid idea of a perfect body, which generally does not correspond to what a healthy body should be. This idea may also change with the times, though the need for a healthy body should not. I believe that Slouka is trying to prove that we as Americans are so often drawn to the idea of maintaining a positive end result from our hard work that we fail to realize we are working towards something which is distorted, and this message is an important one to recognize throughout the public health world.
Each of the articles stresses the importance of an individual’s role in contributing to health and understandings of health. The individual is a powerful component in society, and particularly in health matters, and we learn the significance of individuals and their personal narratives in Ken Plummer’s The Culture of Sexual Story Telling.
Plummer makes us think about how personal stories are told, why they are told, and how they can tell a great deal about (in this particular case) sexual health. Personally, this article made me think how personal narratives can take on a much broader social context. By making a once private, personal struggle an open, public matter, it is possible to understand real, lived experiences of health. In Marcia Inhorn’s Defining Women’s Health, she also addresses this phenomenon; she discusses the negative impact of defining women’s health based on larger populations and physical bodies rather than on individual experiences of health and cultural factors. As a student designing my own major and concentrating on “social health perspectives,†I have recognized that health is far more than a physiological process, despite what our modern biomedical society may depict. Both of these articles criticize mass assumptions of health as biomedical and stress the need to approach health from a cultural perspective to better understand the complexity of various health influences on individuals.
Out of each of the articles, I found the Inhorn and Plummer articles to be the most interesting. One particular theme that struck my attention is the idea of public and private spheres. Having a basic understanding of feminist theory, I am aware that under patriarchy, women have traditionally been placed in private domains, particularly in terms of labor and mothering, while men are allowed access to the public (labor) sphere. An additional, slightly different concept of private and public spheres, however, is addressed in these two articles. Plummer discusses how “sex†has become much more public today. Sex and sexual stories were once private, personal matters, but today, we see an overflow of sexual narratives intended for public hearing. This domain switch from private to public is very interesting and parallels one that Inhorn discusses: the medicalization of childbirth. Childbirth, she claims, has moved from “home to hospital†(Inhorn 357), and this transition is certainly an example of a public to private domain switch. With these two examples, I can’t help but wonder why certain components of “women’s health,†such as childbirth and sexual stories, have moved from private to public spheres, and whether this is a direct result of feminism and the desire to diminish the confinement of women solely in a private sphere. I also wonder what are the consequences (if any) of certain parts of women’s health becoming public, such as with the medicalization of childbirth?
I was most interested this week in the article “Defining Women’s Health†by Marcia Inhorn. The article presents the idea that the systems that control how women’s health is viewed and what kind of research is funded are concerned with very different illnesses and priorities than those of actual women. Many health-related issues faced by women are a result of the society and culture in which they live, and Inhorn correctly points out that the systems that create the agenda of what is studied are more concerned with biological causes of disease. It seems clear that women’s health and the direction of research in women’s health needs to be defined in terms of what real women feel are the most important issues they face.
The second issue Inhorn addressed was that women and their health care needs are defined and determined by women’s ability to bear children. Not only does this ignore in large parts any other issues women may face in terms of their health, but it also invalidates the number of women who are unable to reproduce or who don’t ever plan on reproducing. Before reading this article I never noticed that women’s health is largely preoccupied with women’s ability to reproduce even though I don’t want children and never plan on having any of my own. By focusing on women’s ability to become pregnant and have children, women’s positions and all the possible health problems related to women as professionals or athletes or anything else are ignored. In order to nurture a whole person approach to wellness, other factors need to be taken into account, and Inhorn presented that message very well in the article.
While reading the article “Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change & Social Worlds” it was clear to see that it was attempting to reveal how many different types of sexual stories there are and how certain people are affected by them. I also believe that the article was highlighting how things that happen in life directly affect how people’s sexual lives, either consiously or unconsiously. Throughout the reading, I thought it was interesting to hear how the world around us is completly obsessed with sex and how our whole world basically is driven by it. As the article mentions, we have “sex movies, sex music, sex thrillers, and sex comedies”. That society, especially ours, produces so much intollerance about people’s sexual lives, fantasies, and any other form of it. I think that through the telling of these stories it allows people to take away that false pretense and open up through shared experiences. I think it is healthy to express the feelings that most people have because it creates a common bond.
The article gave primary examples of people sharing their sexual stories with the author in an attempt to gain a better understanding of why they act the way that they do. One of the many examples of this was a student of the author was gay and that in class he was afraid to be truthful with his classmates, but when the author and student ran into one another outside of class, he quickly admited his fear. He thought that if he opened up about himself, that he would be judged and shunned. She says that these stories of opening up are pleas of help by the ones telling them. They want to be able to talk to someone about the issues that they are experiencing, but do not know who to turn to.
I think that it clear that in order to gain more acceptance of sexual health people need to open up about it more and have healthy discussions about the issues that they are having. It would be better for society if such stigmas were not attached to sexuality, and in order to get rid of them it is up to the people of society to become more understanding.
In the Dehumanized by Mark Slouka he discusses this idea of how we as Americans are dehumanized due to the lack of education that we have compared to other countries such as Singapore. There is a quote where he says, “What is taught at any given time, in any culture, is an expression of what that culture considers important.†He basically is saying that what we’re taught as important is a reflection of what we are. He feels that we are dehumanizing ourselves because we downgrade our education instead of putting importance in our education to help better ourselves. The better our education is, the more we excel and are more human because we are not limiting ourselves. He addresses how we spend more time caring for the economy instead of addressing other things that should also be considered important. This concept is very interesting to me because if we try to educate ourselves beyond our limits and learn more about things beyond what we are expected to know then we are upgrading our education. If we look past this idea of just making money and try to learn about other things that are also important to being human we will better ourselves in the process. In the reading the culture of sexual storytelling, you learn the expression of sexual storytelling and how compelling it is. As said in the reading “sexual stories can be seen as issues to be investigated in their own right. They become topics to investigate, not merely resources to draw open.†It helps us understand the being human through story telling. We learn about how human we can be through our stories and not only do we hear about these sexual stories but we learn as well through the stories from the experiences of others showing that we are all human.
With in this week’s articles there are many points brought up that I would not have thought about before. Many of my previous classes focus mainly on the facts and the numbers, but the article “The Culture of Sexual Story Telling†argues that we would learn more through telling stories. This is a very interesting fact and it is one that we often already do in day to day life. When I thought about telling stories I thought that I already talk about my day with my friends. Why I do this is the question that kept going through my mind. What does telling my friends about my day and experiences really do? The more that I thought about it the more I realized that the article is right. We learn more from the stories and experiences that we share rather than the books and statistics that we read.
Along with thinking that our stories are the most important tool to teach with there are other sides to this argument. “Dehumanized†argues that Math and Science are to take over in education and jobs. I know that many of my classes have been centered around the science side of health and I never thought that I was adding to the “all-purpose shorthand for intelligenceâ€. This article touches a lot on the different aspects of humanity and how we live our lives. It demonstrates just how diverse the Public Health field is and I also am very interested to see where else this semester has to offer with women’s health.
After reading this week’s articles, I understand the point of introducing the subject of the humanistic perspective towards reproductive and sexual health. These articles, just as an introduction, prepares us to pay attention to the health issues that humanity deals with. And also gives a broad view on how people view this issue.
The article “Dehumanized” by Mark Slouka made a very interesting point on how the school system in America is disheveled. Our school system exaggerates how important it is to succeed in math and science and minimizes the importance of any other subject, such as humanities. Don’t get me wrong math and science are important subjects, but as a whole it is important for one to know to deal with certain matters in life.
Which brings us into the second article “The culture of sexual stories telling”. Reading the different stories of other’s sexual or health experience, I was able to better understand the point of the first article. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression that because of the education in America only focuses on math and science, school’s do not prepare us students to deal with the health issues of our everyday lives.
In Sexual Story telling, we heard different stories from gay/lesbians coming out to the world to individuals who were sexually abused by close family members. I believe this course is going to teach us just how to fix things mentally and verbally, rather than physically.
After reading this week’s articles, it is clear that there is still no clear way to define women’s health. A sum of the reading was anthropology related and stressed an ethnographical approach. However, what about the psychological aspects of women’s health? Sociological? Political? It is easy to say that women’s health is simply the total sum of all psychological, physical, and mental health aspects of women but I find that too broad and an easy way out. In an effort to summarize women’s health, these articles left me with more questions than answers.
The article I enjoyed the most is “The culture of sexual story tellingâ€. As someone who is interested in pursuing sexual health education, I found the overall message of great importance: we need to talk, and we need to talk more. Even in today’s modern society, many topics (related to sexuality or not) are still taboo in many cultures. It seems that every day there is another talk show or news report about rape survivors, men and women coming out, sexually active teens, etc. but it always is so ‘new’ and ‘shocking’. While I do not want negative impacts such as rape and sexual harassment to become the norm, why is it so taboo to talk about them?
Lastly, I found Jane’s story about her sexually abusive history very touching and powerful. I find that women’s health is often shortened into female-specific diseases and maternal/child health. This story shows that women’s health covers many more topics, especially the taboo ones.
After having read the readings, I always find myself realizing how sexuality ties into everything else that surrounds us. I also find myself constantly learning something new. Which then leads me to start questioning everything! I especially enjoyed reading the article about sexuality and how it surrounds us now and how it used to surround us. It discusses that homosexuality before was not really spoken about and if it was it was looked down upon and people did not understand it and sometimes it was looked at as a medical concern. It touches on how we are much more open and accepting these days. Here are my thoughts though. And my choice of words are based off of what the reading used.
People are constantly saying, we have come a long way. The way they believe we have come a long way is because now there are gay bars and gay clubs and trans bars etc. There are some states that allow gay marriage and gay people can hold hands in public. That it no longer matters if you are homosexual or heterosexual. This is what people seem to believe these days, that this makes it enough to say that we are all comfortable and accepting of one anothers gender identification or sexual preference and so on. Truth is, if as a society we were so accepting, then why is marriage treated as a privilege and not as a right to every single person who wants to be wed? Why is there a separation of certain people at clubs and bars? Is it because people still could possibly not be comfortable with one another? Or is it easier to form a community that way? There are so many whys, I could go on for days.
My point is, that I find it ironic how people think we have come a long way. I understand change takes a lot of time. But we are human beings and although we are entitled to our own opinions and our own beliefs and practices then why can we not be accepted that way?
I think that public health ties in a lot to this, because I think that happiness ties into peoples mental and physical well being and that is what public health works on. It is a form of prevention and I believe that people as they are need to be supported and they also need to have all forms of information and resources. Stigmas and generalizations that people have about homosexuals for example need to be educated and properly informed. Lack of education leads to a lack of understanding and sometimes a lack of acceptance or an easy way to judge. Not being accepted and being treated equally can lead to physical and mental problems and I believe public health is very much tied into sexuality. I could go on for days though on this topic. The road to understanding and acceptance is being paved, but we still have a long way to go…
“Dehumanized”, now here is an article that challenges the American education. According to the author, the American education is forming people for employment and not a formal education in which there are true values, in which people want to make a difference. I totally agree with the statement that the market is controlling the education system because the market only values people that can help with profits and advancement and nothing like being creative. Though, there was a section where the author mentioned that creativity and culture are becoming more and more popular because they have been integrated in the current modern market strategies. Therefore the question to me is, what is the American education and why are so many people after it? To be honest, it looks as though people from other countries are using the American education as a way of polishing themselves. For instance, many immigrants come to the U.S. where they go to school and eventually go back to their native land where they get employed rather quickly and are making more money than many all because they received an American education. Though, what’s hidden is the fact that the American education is failing because it does not prepare people to follow their dreams but rather choosing a career that will help them pay the enormous school bills.
Apparently our school system is so bad that the only justified or more likely qualified schools with the best educations are the “white suburban schoolsâ€. Therefore that means that the majority of us received poor educations. I do agree with this statement by the author because looking at the freshmen that are coming to UMass, many of them still do not know what’s good or bad, what to say or not to say. When knocking on someone’s door and they announced to the whole room that “it’s a random Black chickâ€, then you know there is a problem. But the difference is that this problem comes from the “white suburban schools†where diversity and other cultures as not valued as much as they would in a diverse school. Maybe I am then grateful that I did not attend an uptown private school. Though I would have been smarter with books but have childish and poor judgments.
Now the concern is that we have been dehumanized to a point where the most important things do not matter, what matters the most is making money anyway, anyhow. We have been dehumanized to a point where certain subjects do not matter but rather health and science seem to control a major part of the market. Though science and health is wonderful, the author mentioned how scientists tend to get lost when they “step outside of their labsâ€. So what needs to be done? How can we reform the American education? Perhaps with time and ambition.
The article, “Telling Sex Stories”, touches upon sex stories told in the media and sex stories told personally. In America, sex has become a more comfortable topic and is seen and heard about everyday. More and more people are able to share their stories because they can relate to other’s. The author illustrates this by using real life experiences. These experiences show the many different ways sex is expressed, both good and bad, and the influential power it has.
The story about Jane was the most touching. Jane was scared to tell anyone about her father raping her throughout her childhood. After hearing about other people in her situation, she built up the strength to let friends and conselors know. She concludes that it still hurts her to hear that others still suffer as she does but its a relief that she can now go on with her life without carrying the guilt; “I don’t want to be just another victim, I’m a suvivor”.
I believe that it is wonderful that people are more open to share their sexual experiences today. I have always been comfortable about sex and I help others feel the same way. It’s important to express your sexual experiences and your feelings about sex so that others can learn from that and incorporate it into their own lives.
After reading “ Defining Women’s Health†article, I came to understand that Women’s health is a discipline which can view women holistically within the
context of their own lives. Physical, psychological, spiritual, developmental-
socioeconomic, cultural, historical, and political aspects of women’s
lives are involved; and women are acknowledged to be both consumers
and providers of women’s health care.
The reading made me think, what actually constitutes women’s health? In today’s society, standards of treatment for many common health problems are based on trials with men only. All the issues throughout a woman’s life are commonly observed as disorders. It is very important to clarify how women’s health problems differ through men’s experience. Section four of the article struck me a lot where medicalization of women’s lives was discussed in a very interesting way. It has become more obvious to me that how all the issues throughout a woman’s life play an important role; it could be anything from puberty, through birth control, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause.
Earlier today,I was watching the news and it came to my attention that the rate of natural births and the jobs of midwives are getting very low in the United States. Once upon a time, women’s only childbirth option was to give birth at home. As medicine evolved, doctors’ offices and hospitals became the norm for labor and delivery, which created an entire industry, but not necessarily to the benefit of women and children. The majority of women are afraid to experience natural births at home, which is making the midwives loose their professions. Most of the deliveries take place in the hospital settings where the woman’s body is constantly monitored and controlled by the drugs. Although hospitals are committed to bringing the ultimate technology experience, and their services are useful if the gynecologist has determined that a woman will need medical assistance during the childbirth process, but the cold atmosphere of a hospital room can never be compared with the warmth of the bedroom. In the end I only want to say that as the gatekeepers of health, women should be informed about what constitutes good health in all its forms.
“The Culture of Sexual Storytelling” pointed out the fact that our culture has become one that is very open about their sexual stories. All through history people have told their stories but up until very recently it hadn’t been as widespread. Thanks to TV, the internet, and other forms of media one persons story could be shared with an entire community, state, country, or even worldwide. I think that this is both good and bad.
I think the increase in sexual storytelling is important in the cases of rape and awareness for diseases. It is very effective when a major celebrity has been a victim of rape or abuse and they tell their story. I think that when people hear the story of celebrities they realize that they are not the only one that this tragedy happened to and that it is ok to talk about with someone. Whenever Oprah does a show on touchy topics such as rape or sexual abuse there are always stories that arise that people were so greatly moved by it that they saught help themselves or they reached out to others that may have been in this circumstance. Also, it is important that these stories are heard so that others know that these crimes are out there. People need to know what to look for and how to protect themselves before they get hurt. It is also important to show that some people do still practice abstinence. When celebrities openly say that they are abstinent it shows teens that they are not alone. Unfortunately, the celebrity of my generation (Britney Spears) ended up not stayng true to her word. It has become very important (as noted in one of the quotations) for gays in lesbians to encourage them to “come out” to their family and friends. It makes the process easier knowing that other people have gone through it.
On the other hand, there’s the negative side that peoples lives are broadcasted on the news. Recently there was a girl that worked for ESPN that was video taped walking around naked in her hotel room. There were so many cites with a copy of the video that it can never be removed from the internet. This tape has made her paranoid and upset to get back on camera for work. This is certainly a case that proves that some sex stories are unfortunate to be told.
Reading the chosen articles for this week were a definitely a good way to start off the course. They provided a good general introduction into women’s health. I am quite interested in reproductive and maternal health, so I was fascinated by each article. I found the article Gender, Body, Biomedicine: How Some Feminist Concerns Dragged Reproduction to the Center of Social Theory by Rayna Rapp very interesting. It is very helpful in understanding the reproductive history for women and to understand the growth of medical anthropology, and how much it was grown from feminist concern. So much has happened in the past for feminists to overcome, and today’s generation is completely different than the early years with the theories and politics brought on by Marx, Foucault and Bourdieu, as well as other scholars who have studied embodiment. To quote Rapp in her conclusion “it has been a collective achievement of feminist anthropologists and fellow travelers who saw reproduction as invisibly central to social life to have dragged that topic to the heart of our empirical and theoretical work.†This just shows how far feminists have come and the importance of the reproduction of children and families, and how much it is valued.
The first article, Dehumanized, was particularly interesting to me. I found that the way education was talked about hit a nerve for me. “We teach whatever contributes to the development of an autonomous human beings.” I feel that as students, we’re either getting an education because it will help us earn more than if we didn’t attend, or because we truly have a passion for knowledge in certain areas. I believe there is more to being educated than a future paycheck and hope that more students would go for what they’re passionate about, not where they’ll find a job with substantial pay following graduation. I also liked reading that creative arts are becoming more popular for funding because it brings humanity back to our youth. Creativity makes individuals who can shape our country and diversifies the population for the better. We currently use the economy to determine our success as a country when that isn’t what should truly matter to us as a whole. This reading was a great opener to begin thinking differently about what we value as individuals and as a country.
The article Culture of Sexual Story Telling, is based on how sexual stories emerged from the perspective of the modern western world. After the revelation of Confessions by Rousseau about his deepest sexual desires, people became more open to share their own stories not only by word of mouth, but through poetry, songs, narratives, movies, telephone, and computer. The media became sexualised and the public embraced this movement and used it to tell their own personal stories about personal pleasures, sexual identities, sexual dislikes, rapes and assaults and many other desirable or painful experiences. Although sexual story telling reveals deep secrets and personal cravings, it does much more than just that. These stories can be seen as issues to be investigated in their own right. These stories become issues and topics to explore and further investigate, not to just use as resources. It is important not to only focus on what people are saying in their stories, but he complex social processes involved in the tellings.
While I was working with the production Vagina Monologues last Spring, I learned a great amount from the girls as well as the individual pieces. Vagina Monologues is a production based on interviews with more than 200 women about their sexual experiences. It celebrates female sexuality and shares woman’s stories of intimacy, fantasies and fears, vulnerability, and sexual self-discovery. When I first joined, I could barely say agina out loud without feeling embarrassed, but after the production I felt more comfortable with everyone’s shared experiences and pieces. One memory comes to mind from my experience that I felt was very moving and empowering for women. Each person from the cast wrote a sexual memory from their past on a piece of paper and we had all thrown them into a hat. Afterward, we went around picking a piece of paper out of the hat and sharing an anonymous secret. These secrets ranged from funny stories about sexual experiences to sad and painful stories about rape and assault. We could not grasp that someone actually sitting in the room with us had gone through something so difficult. This activity brought us closer and we became more united and comfortable to talk about these issues and what we could do to prevent them.
I believe that our society today has truly been sexualised and the media has made it much easier to talk about sexual story telling as it is advertised daily though commercials, movies, and the music industry. Our society has also provided more resources for people that need to tell their stories or are seeking help from their experiences. I believe that we can learn a lot by listening to sexual story tellings and investigate them to fully understand how these stories connect to stories of others.
The Rapp article, discussing women as reproducers showed how rooted the medical system is in the unequal status of women. One solution to this challenge which I felt should be discussed is that women must find themselves in the highest levels of the medical field- policy making, education, and medical administration. If men continue to occupy the highest positions in our societies, they will continue to be able to make decisions about women’s and bodies. Women must be made to believe that they can be experts in their own bodies. I have always been concerned with the separation of the health care system where women’s health issues (reproduction) are to be handled in the OBGYN office but other women’s health issues must be handled by other specialists. I know this does a disservice to women and impacts the continuity of care they receive.
Eradicating poverty is absolutely essential in health promotion. Poverty predisposes women to illness, and we must look at the conditions of life and work to fully address illness. We need to talk about intersectionality of race, class, gender, sexual orientation when we discuss any issue and I was pleased to see it discussed in relation to women’s health.
The “A womb of one’s own” reading reminded me of a favorite quote by Philip Harter, MD, FACEP, Standford University, School of Medicine. It says,
“If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be: Fifty-seven Asians, 21 European, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south, 8 Africans; 52 would be female, 48 would be male;70 would be nonwhite, 30 would be white;70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian; 89 would be heterosexual, 11 would be homosexual. Six people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth… and all 6 would be from the United States. Eighty would live in substandard housing; 70 would be unable to read; 50 would suffer from malnutrition. One would be near death; One would be near birth, One (yes, only one) would have a college education. One would own a computer (a year ago, no one had a computer).
How could the wealthy 6 live in peace with their neighbors? Surely they would be driven to arm themselves against the other 94… perhaps even to spend, as Americans do, about twice as much per person on military defense as the total income of two thirds of the villagers.
When once considers out world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.”
Like the author stated in “A womb of one’s own”- “Too many people monopolize too many resources. The problem is not one of absolute scarcity but one of distribution.”
I agree with this statement and the argument that overpopulation is a complex issue and is perhaps more about resource allocation than over scarcity of resources. However, I do question how much the article pushes that overpopulation is not a problem. Many of the “myths” it debunked concerning environmental issues etc. are complex and I think the author correctly places such issues into perspective. However, this does not mean that overpopulation does not exist and is not an issue. I would argue that overpopulation is a severe issue presently because at the time we do not allocate our resources in a manner in which the masses are benefited. I believe that we have a job to do now- take care of those who are already living before we state that overpopulation is not a problem. If we are to continue growing population or even if we are to maintain the population we presently have there must be changes in how we live. The article did say this but it stressed that overpopulation was not really an issue at all. I think it is. We must begin to “reduce, reuse, and recycle” if we expect to be sustainable as a population.
The author critiques Ehrlich saying, “Like many biologist, he sees the human species through the same lens with which he views animal and plant populations which mulitiply beyond the carrying capacity of their environments and subsequently die off.” There is some truth in what Ehrlich is saying though. Humans are animals- by definition. They may make rational choices for themselves individually speaking but they do not make rational choices on a society level all of the time. Hypothetically, consider a human saving him or herself by not admitting to carrying a particular illness so that they will not be isolated. That person makes a decision that could easily infect healthy populations with such a disease. This person is obviously acting in his or her own self interest- not group self interest. This is the reason we have governments and laws. People as a whole benefit to some extent when individual choice is hindered. On this note- are we that different than any other animals that Ehrlich refers to? In other words, I think that it is a mighty lofty self-righteous idea to say that unlike every other living thing in this world we don’t reach carrying capacities. Why then do certain epidemics continually occur at particular points in time or in history? Look at plagues for example.
I agree with the author concerning their looking at overpopulation from a multi-tiered holistic perspective but think it is short sighted to say that this suggests that overpopulation does not exist. The author critiques others for oversimplifing overpopulation when in turn they debunk myths and assume that overpopulation does not exist.
Also, in “The Real Population Problem” the author states:
“Implicitly, it is women’s fertility which is out of control; it is as if women have never consciously exercised control over reproduction, except in modern family planning programs.”
This get to two points. One of which is what we were discussing in the last class about men not enrolling or inquiring about this class and reproductive health. I think the problem is not that men are not interested in reproductive health but that reproductive health has been defined academically and socially as women’s health. In my experience with men they are often as concerned with my use of contraception as I am. Women I believe are given the large focus in reproductive health because their bodies physically display sexuality (such as is discussed in the ethnograpy “Veiled Sentiments” ) and they physically birth children and produce the fruit of reproduction. This is more of a societal issue I would argue. Even this class title was labeled something along the lines of Reproductive health/ Women’s health where they were both placed together.
My second comment may be less of a comment but an observation from childhood. Growing up I spent some time of farms. Once I was asked why there were all cows and only one bull. Of course I didn’t know the answer and was dumbfounded that unlike humans farms were full of all female animals with the exception of a couple of males. It was then explained to me that it is not the number of males that determine population size but instead the amount of females. Women are the determinant of population size and reproduction in many ways.
— Now it is important that I clarify that I am not saying that humans are equivalent of cows because I do certainly think that they actively practice control over their reproduction unlike farm animals would. However, since I was speaking of the notion that reproductive health is considered by many to be women’s health this anecdote came to mind.