BEYOND "A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE"- FEMINIST IDEAS ABOUT REPRODUCTIV RIGHTSRosalind Petchesky The feminist ideas on Reproductive Rights are deeply affected by two major views that are presented in this essay. These two ideas shape the way society perceives abortion and methods of birth control as both a decision and an option. The major aspects that are debated in society about abortion are the individual dimensions and the social dimension (374). These two subjects do not only relate to women in general but also society, culture, genders and classes.
There are many ideas about Reproductive freedom and who should gain control over such abortion rights and birth control methods. A woman must be able to control her own body and make her own decisions on whether or not certain contraceptives or abortion are good for her. At the same time these decisions are based on the propaganda and influences that society places on such issues. Women feel their biggest gain in power is their ability to reproduce and by sharing such reproductive rights with men is something women are not sure they are ready to handle. Women believe that their body is apart of their privacy and this includes their ability to reproduce. This privacy gives women a sense of individualism from man and also gives women a certain personality that men do not possess. "Reproduction affects women as women; it transcends class divisions and penetrates everything- work, political and community involvements, sexuality, creativity, dreams" (376).
The control of a woman's body is deeply influenced by culture and everyone is a society. The most widely used form of birth control is sterilization (377). Sterilization as a material fact, because the ability of reproduction is stopped. It is not something a woman will always choose, but sometimes is the only thing a woman can do. For instance some places in order to keep a job a woman must become sterilized. This is not a choice it is something that is inflicted upon by society.
Women are split between both nature and society when it comes to reproduction. Women face the challenges of nature through the decisions they decide to inflict on their bodies. Whether it is sterilization, abortion, or even child- birth, a woman must face these issues within her own body and her own soul. Society also plays an important role when it comes to a woman, because it is the male who makes reproduction occur, and it is the society who punishes a woman for her decisions. Society wants to become involved in all aspects of a woman's choice of birth, but they do not want to be responsible for the outcome. "Men must be ready to share the responsibility of full-time, universal child care as a social priority" (386). When this occurs, then men can perhaps speak their opinions on women and reproduction.
THE POLITICS OF REPRODUCTIVE BENEFITS:
U.S. INSURANCE COVERAGE OF CONTRACEPTIVE AND INFERTILITY TREATMENTS
Leslie King and Madonna Harrington Meyer
The main idea of this essay is the government is trying to control the population of minorities by making contraception accessible while making infertility treatments inaccessible. The authors point to the fact that the insurance companies and government highly finance contraception to poor people and minorities while endorsing white middle class women to have kids. They not only endorse contraception to poor people but they keep infertility treatment inaccessible to poor people. The government as well as the insurance companies, know that infertility treatment is very costly yet they offer very little money if any at that, to the poor and minorities.
The authors go on to make the point that "no group has actively championed the goal of equal distribution of both infertility and contraceptive benefits to all women regardless of socioeconomic benefits" (394).
~Maryum T.
FEMINIST POLITICS AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: THE CASE OF BRAZIL
Jacqueline Pitanguy
This essay deals with the plight of women in Brazil. This country still does not give women complete reproductive rights, but nonetheless women have come very far. Women started out with practically no rights, no recognition and no voice. By the middle of the century women had already struggled for and obtained primitive rights such as the right to vote. However, there were many other rights that women were not given, namely ones relating to health and reproduction. Over the next few decades Brazil underwent many changes in government and society which had an affect on women's movements. It was not until 1975, that women actually banded together and feminism arose as an organized social movement. Until that point women's demands for control of their body had been deemed impertinent.
In 1964, Brazil's government started to experience changes that greatly affected the role of women from that point on. In the past Brazil was run by its military, but starting in 1978, the government started transforming into a democracy. This is an important factor in the recognition of women's rights because the country's government evolved into a system of governing where the officials had to be elected into office. This is important because the people that were running for offices needed to address public issues in order to get their vote. This included women's issues. However, not all women's issues received the same recognition in political debates. Discussions about education and labor were often the only ones initiated and any talk about sexuality and reproduction was rejected.
Today in Brazil, the same issues that were left undiscussed before, are unresolved and women are still fighting for a change. It may look to someone that not much has changed in Brazil in the last thirty years, but that is not true. Women have gained a voice in society and they have opened the doors to women's issues in politics. They have not yet achieved all of their goals, but they are certainly on their way. They now have a voice to express their views with and we, the group, think they will soon start to see results from all of their determination.
~Candice O'Donnell
MAN MADE MEDICINE AND WOMEN'S HEALTH:
THE BIOPOLITICS OF SEX AND GENDER:
RACE ETHNICITY
Nancy Krieger and Elizabeth Fee
This article is mainly discussing the issues surrounding health care and race/ethnicity. At first, it discusses the erasure or lack of ethnicities such as Native American, Asians, and Pacific Islanders in most health reports. What was interesting is that the authors mention (341) that the health reports seem to show that overall white women and men seem to have the best health at all ages, yet every other race show major signs of disease. This shows a broad generalization, much like the skit that was performed by our group. (Verbal explanation of similarities between the article and skit). Another interesting point was the notion of the injustices within the health care system in general. For example, it mentions that in most hospitals, the majority of doctors are white men, the nurses white women, and the kitchens, laundry and janitor workers are Black and Hispanic. Also in the hospitals, there is a color line division between who receives immediate and good care instead of long and lousy treatment. This was also the demonstrated skit.
19th Century Gender and Racial Injustices within Health Care
Women's inequality started with traditionalists who used the Bible to say that Eve created difficulties for women as a whole so therefore women should be inferior to men (342, 343). Later on, doctors used medical tests to conclude that women are the weaker sex and that their bodies are delicate in form.
In regards to racial injustice within health care during this time period, many public officers in the south believed that Blacks, by natural selection, would be eliminated and also claimed that Blacks were an inherently degenerate, syphilitic, and tubercular race" (344).
Early 20th Century Gender and Racial Injustices within Health Care
Many biological breakthroughs (1905) such as the delivery of the sex chromosomes and hormones were used to determine which types of jobs women could and could not do. In the next decades, women's health was divided into such fields as obstetrics and gynecology. Further women's health needs were also addressed.
Also, statistics have linked racism ad health to people's environment. For example, many toxic waste dumpsites were found in poor, black neighborhoods. Some further breakthroughs were the examination of other racial/ethnic groups to see why they were supposedly more at risk for diseases than others were.
Overall, the entire article mainly focused on the social/racial/economic roles and not necessarily gender roles.
~Adrena Cunningham
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