Bernice L. Hausman

Today, the availability of birth control is taken for granted. There was a time, not long passed, during which the subject was illegal (“Margaret Sanger,” 2013, p.1). That did not stop the resilient leader of the birth control movement. Margaret Sanger was a nurse and women’s activist. While working as a nurse, Sanger treated many women who had suffered from unsafe abortions or tried to self-induce abortion (p.1). Seeing this devastation and noting that it was mainly low income women suffering from these problems, she was inspired to dedicate her life to educating women on family planning—even though the discussion of which was highly illegal at the time (p.1). She was often in trouble with

Motherhood was an expected part of the wife’s life. Woman would have a large number of babies right after each other although some babies would not survive. “High mortality rates must have overshadowed the experience of motherhood in ways difficult to

There has always been a stigma surrounding the topic of women’s health, especially the reproductive kind, as the world has set standards for a how a woman’s body should be. The stigma begins where, unfortunately for the world, women’s bodies oftentimes do not comply with these standards. Because of the rifts between expectation and reality girls are shamed, oftentimes unconsciously or via systemic responses and interactions. It becomes an ingrained and understood conduct, teaching girls that their bodies exist for objective purposes, and it lays the foundation for developing insecurities. Bodily insecurities tend to run so deeply that even women in adulthood shy away from taking proper care of themselves. Because of how taboo discussing women’s

“Without a lifespan view of women’s health… we are unlikely to be successful in advancing women’s health” (Woods 2009, pg. 400). A Global Health Imperative (2009) by author Nancy Fugate Woods explains the issues about health status and opportunities for the health of girl-children world-wide, which includes sex and gender disparities. Girl and women’s health is important, but just not as important as men’s health. Woods gives example of women’s health issues that are extremely serious. “Health issues or problems that occur predominantly in women are breast cancer and menopause” (Woods 2009, pg. 400). Women all over the world have the risk of getting breast cancer, HIV and Aids. Women that are affected by these diseases in some countries may

Margaret saw first hand the devastation of infant, child and maternal mortality while serving as a visiting nurse in the poverty stricken lower east side of New York City.  This mortality resulted from the culmination of self-induced or illegal abortions that ultimately ended up in infection, causing death to partakers.  Margaret saw a need in society for education on the topic of birth control to prevent such mortality.

Susan Sherwin’s view on abortion is primarily focused through the lens of feminist philosophy. Her article focuses primarily on how the feminist view provides more holistic, and less cold view on the topic of abortion that is more inclusive of the mother. The feminist view of abortion is primarily focused on looking at the factors that affect the mother through the process of the abortion, such as a woman’s feelings around the fetus, is conception, her partner, and her obligations. These are all factors that are not usually thought of by non-feminist thinkers. This is usually because the discussion around this topic is, as the author puts it “generally grounded in masculinist concepts of freedom (such as privacy, individual choice, and individuals’ property rights with respect to their own bodies)” (Sherwin.1997, 100). This view, as she puts it, primarily focuses on the morality and legal aspects of abortion. The basis of Sherwin’s paper centers around a feminist model from which to look at abortion. This model takes into account the emotional impact that an unwanted pregnancy has on the woman, who will be impacted most by this event. It gives sole power of design to the woman, who “may make mistakes in their moral judgements, but no one else can be assumed to have the authority to evaluate and overrule their judgements”. (Sherwin.1997, 102) Sherwin also advocates against the division of the mother and the fetus as separate entities during bioethical discussions. This also

Mary Fissell’s book Vernacular Bodies: The Politics of Reproduction in Early Modern England can be classified as a medical journal of women’s bodies and how people viewed women’s bodies, in Medieval Europe. Using midwife manuals, and other books dedicated to pregnancy and the birthing process, Fissell takes the reader back in time, to show what women in the medieval ages, had to go through. The most important aspects that Fissell talks about are during the 15th and 16th centuries, when women were beginning to “come into their own” so to speak, and speak out for themselves, while still under the stereotypes that men had of them.

The modern world is in the midst of reconstructing gender roles; debates about contraception, reproductive freedom, and female inequality are contentious and common. The majority now challenges the long established assertion that women’s bodies are the eminent domain of patriarchal control. In the past, a woman’s inability to control her reproductive choices could come with ruinous consequences. Proponents of patriarchal control argue against reproductive independence with rhetoric from religious texts and with anecdotes of ‘better days,’ when women were subservient. Often, literature about childbearing fails to acknowledge the possibility of women being uninterested in fulfilling the role of motherhood.

Drawing heavily on de Beauvoir (1953) she highlights the constraints placed upon women by their reproductive biology; that menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth are not only detrimental to her physical strength and health but also confine her to the ‘mere reproduction of life’. This stands in contrast to man, who is free to assert his

The most controversial field of feminist’s actions is women’s rights to the control over their bodies with respect to fertility, sexual relationships, rape and medical power over women’s health. Male control over women’s bodies has also traditionally expressed itself through

Regardless of one’s views on the topic of contraception, Margaret Sanger’s Woman and the New Race helped to break new ground through encouraging women to take control of their bodies. Early in her writing, Sanger brings up overpopulation and how women’s primary role as mothers have contributed to this issue. “While unknowingly laying the foundations of tyrannies and providing the human tinder for racial conflagrations, woman was also unknowingly creating slums, filling asylums with insane, and institutions with other defectives. She was replenishing the ranks of the prostitutes, furnishing grist for the criminal courts and inmates for prisons. Had she planned deliberately to achieve this tragic total of human waste and misery, she could hardly have done it more effectively.” This artfully formed passage shows the passion behind Sanger’s beliefs. While on the surface it may seem that she is attacking women, the point of her idea is to frame the passive nature of women in Western Society up to this point.

Anthropologist Emily Martins book” “The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction” is an ethnographic study of male-oriented metaphors for women 's reproductive processes and women 's real thoughts about those processes through interviews.

Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America by Leslie J. Reagan reveals the danger and worry expecting mothers encountered when faced with German measles. While no one was immune from the disease, pregnant women were at high risk, as the disease was particularly harmful to their unborn children. Reagan demonstrates that women of all classes were at the heart of the discussion, and these same women shaped the nature of the movement due to their gender.

Women make up just slightly over half the U.S population (US Census Bureau, 2010) and should not be even considered a part of a minority group. The female population should acquire the same equal research attention as men do, especially when it comes to health issues. The unavoidable, yet quite simple realities of breastfeeding, menstruation, menopause, along with pregnancy require special scrutiny from medical experts. Those medical specialties are generally referred as gynecologists or obstetrics, who focus on the exclusive needs of a female’s reproductive health throughout their lifespan. Historically, the health needs of women have been disregarded as well as their fundamental rights. However, over the past few decades, it has grabbed the media and the government’s attention causing some major changes in support of women’s rights and health care.

And the versions of reality can be used to conceal complex political, economic and social relationships. These debates influence culture anthropology in general and medical anthropology specifically. An important outcome has been the development of critical medical anthropology, a perspective that coalesced in the 1980s and 1990s (Brown, Closser, 2016). Critical Medical Anthropology tries to analysis an event of an individual by connecting their entire contexts from a macro level orientation. It also shows us that how economics, politics, and cognitive structure control our behavior in a large context and became a disease risk. Considering the western the solution, critical medical anthropology tries to break this conception and here the conception of Michel Foucault took place. So, critical medical anthropology learns how to relate a context with a problem theoretically and practically. Critically medical anthropology of reproductive health sees reproductive health as the integrating process of cultural practices which include economic, political and Environmental relations. As we know that illness is not an isolated event, rather it is a social process – a mixture of socio-cultural, politico-economic and environmental organizing