Dr. Sara DiazWGST 202: Gender, Difference, and PowerGonzaga University

Women and Illness

Pathologizing Women’s Bodies

•Menstruation• Child-birth•Menopause• Aging• Size (too small/too big)

Women and Illness• Hysteria• Catch-all for women’s

health complaints• Epilepsy• Located the cause of

inidentifiable illness in the uterus.• Dismissive

Women & Chronic Illness

• SO, what happens when women’s bodies actually become ill?• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome• Autoimmune Disease (Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, etc)• Fibromyalgia• Migraine• Multiple Sclerosis

• All affect more women than men.• With the exception of MS, the above were dismissed as hysteria

for many years.• On average it takes women 10 years to be diagnosed with

autoimmune disease.

Interesting Facts about HIV• In the US & Canada, HIV has become a chronic disease,

manageable w/ medication. Young people who are HIV+ are expected to live nearly as long as HIV- people.

• Globally, access to best treatments for HIV not widely available.

• In the US, 2% of babies born to HIV positive mothers are infected w/ HIV.

• Anti-retro viral drugs• Viral load

• Cesarean Section birth reduces risk• most babies are infected during childbirth and not before

• Formula vs Breast-milk.

Response Question

•What are some of the problems faced by women with HIV infections?

•How are anxieties about women’s bodies magnified for women w/ HIV/AIDS?

Racializing Disease

• Racial/Moral Panic• Ebola• Bird Flu• Swine Flu• Small Pox• HIV

Micro → Macro Connections

•We think systemically about Ebola but not about endocrine health?

• Beyond very specific “epidemics,” we focus on Micro/Organism rather than Meso/Ecosystem

• Individualizing Health

Individualizing Health

“…pregnant women are urged to drink no alcohol. … no one knows if an occasional glass of wine is harmful.

Nevertheless, caution dictates … “In ignorance, abstain.” Yet the same principle is not applied to nitrates in tap

water?”

“Why is there no public conversation about environmental threats to pregnancy? …. Why does abstinence in the face

of uncertain apply only to individual behavior? Why doesn’t it apply equally to industry or agriculture?”

Steingraber, 516-517

Health is Personal & Political

• What are the effects of individualizing health?• How does individualizing health relate to political

power?• In the case of eating disorders, in what way does

Chernik argue they are related to women’s lack of social and political power?

• How do we take back our political power?• In relation to disordered eating?• In relation to chronic health conditions?

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Power & The Body

• What conclusions can we draw based about the place of the body in our social order?• Think back to our starting place in economics.

• The derogation of the body can be seen in:• lack of access to healthcare for bodies:• female, racialized, third world, gender non-

conforming, disabled, mentally ill, or queer• condemnation of HIV positive and other chronically

ill people.• disregard for reproduction (and reproductive labor)