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The Healthcare System And Women 's Rights Essay

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Throughout the course of history, the field of healthcare has always been in a state of flux; however, healthcare has also had one steady aspect and that is women have always been at a disadvantage when it comes to traversing the system. Women have and still do face many obstacles within the health care system. These obstacles include research androcentrism, medicalization, gender stereotyping, reproductive rights, differential treatment, and fertility issues, among others… These obstacles must be explored and analyzed in order to better help women navigate the healthcare system and to support women’s rights in the present and future. Women presently face multiple challenges in the healthcare system. Things such as research androcentrism, medicalization, and gender stereotyping are all things women must overcome in today’s society. Research androcentrism or male centeredness in the field of health care is used to describe how men are used as a baseline for medical research and standards of care (Shaw & Lee 368). By using only men, generally white men, as a baseline for research, the effects of drugs and procedures are not adequately studied; a lack of research on other groups of people, specifically women, can prove to be dangerous because certain drugs may affect women differently than men. Another challenge pertaining to research androcentrism is the fact that women are not always included in clinical trials (Shaw & Lee 368). Until recently, the biological differences

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