Medicalization is a process that takes normal everyday processes and turns them into medical and biological conditions or diseases (Conrad, 1992). Women are a prime target for this due to their lower status in society compared to men. Over the past several decades, women’s rights and status in society has definitely changed for the better. There are many people in the world that are trying to prove women’s lower status like medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies. They have led women to feel like they should be embarrassed about everyday processes or that they cannot do things that their bodies were made to do. Or if they cannot have children because their bodies will not let them, then they are selfish for not seeking medical interventions. …show more content…
Most births will take place in a hospital under the watch of a medical professional, with drug and surgical interventions (Shaw, 2013, p. 522). By medicalizing pregnancy and childbirth, women are losing control over their own bodies. Many women are being convinced that pregnancy is something that needs to be closely monitored because there are many risks that come with it. In Jessica Shaw’s paper titled “The Medicalization of Birth and Midwifery as Resistance,” she talks about how medicalization of childbirth has disempowered women by taking over every aspect of the birth and crushing their confidence (Shaw, 2013, pp. 528). What this means is that the medical professionals are making women feel like they do not know their body making them feel uncertain and weak. Medical technology in this day and age does not allow a women’s body to do what it is supposed to do ‘naturally’ (Brubaker & Dillaway, 2009). What society is trying to tell women to push them down in social status, is that a process there body is made for is actually a condition that needs to be closely …show more content…
Women tend to feel more comfortable in hospitals where everything is available if something goes wrong. To keep women in the lower status, men are trying to scare women into thinking that something will go wrong and they are putting their lives and the lives of their unborn child at risk by not going to a hospital. Women do not believe they can do something on their own, with the help of another woman, because of males saying things that they really do not know much about.
Alongside pregnancy and childbirth, infertility has also become largely medicalized. If a woman is not able to bear a child, there is said to be something wrong with her body that is stopping this. Society will even go as far as to say that, “those who are childless are stigmatized as selfish and uncaring” (Becker & Nachtigall, 1994). Although times have changed, and women have received more rights, it is still embedded in society that women are supposed to be able to have children and raise them, so a woman who goes against this is considered
Preventative medicine comes with the potential for making our lives both better and worse. Today the world in which we live in has faced steady medicalization of daily existence. Many factors have contributed to the rise of medicalization. For instance the loss in religion, the increase of faith in science, rationality, progress, increased prestige and the power of the medical profession. The medical profession and the expansion of medical jurisdiction were prime movers for medicalization. Medicalization has also occurred through social movements. Doctors are not the only ones involved in medicalization now, patients are active collaborators in the medicalization of their problem. Critics try to argue for or against the idea that this leads to a favorable versus a non -favorable outcome. This increased establishment and development of medicine, including technoscience, has resulted in a major threat to health. The medicalization of normal conditions, risks the creation of medical diagnoses that are widely inclusive and that hold the potential for further expansion. Many biologically normal conditions, like shortness, menopause, and infertility, are currently considered medical problems. These naturally occurring states are now regarded as undesirable and deviant. This process is referred to as medicalization. Although they are considered deviant, however, the process of medicalization also removes culpability: a person’s problems can be ascribed to a chemical imbalance rather than seen as reflecting his or her character or accomplishments. Some of the articles I will be looking into are Dumit’s “Drugs for life” as well as Healy’s “Pharmageddon” and Cassel’s “Selling Sickness” to explore if this process of overmedicalization has le...
Mary Zimmerman framed that women have not had ultimate control over their own bodies and health as a fundamental assumption underlying women’s health movement. Men control and dominate a huge portion of the of decision making roles in the healthcare field, such as health related research, health policy etc. Whereas women are more seen in social positions. According to the article “The Women’s Health Movement” by Mary K. Zimmerman, the concept of medicalization is the “increasing tendency to apply medical definitions and control to phenomena not previously thought of as medical problems (Zola, 1972; Conrad and Schneider, 1980). In the 1950’s a drug called Thalidomide was created by a German company, claiming that it was safe for pregnant women. Although many women were still using this drug during this time, in 1961, reports began to surface that this drug was causing several birth defects and other health problems. The author presented the Thalidomide case as an example of medicalization by showing us the potential consequences of a style medical
Internationally, issues revolving around the female body and reproduction are extremely controversial. For a woman, her body is a very private matter. At the same time, however, a woman's body and her reproduction rights are the center of attention in many public debates. Several questions regarding women's reproductive rights remain unanswered. How much control do women have over their bodies? What kind of rules can be morally imposed upon women? And who controls the bodies of women? Although the public continues to debate these topics, certain conclusions can been made concerning women and their reproductive rights. An undeniable fact is that government has a large degree of control over female reproductive organs. All around the world, time and time again, several national governments have implemented policies, enacted laws, and denied women control over their reproductive organs. Several governments have crossed the border between intimate and public matters concerning women's reproductive organs, by making laws about contraceptives, abortion, and family planning programs.
Such are the ranges of Cesarean birthing experiences and corresponding women’s movements that will be explored alongside the politics of birth in this Birthquake research project.
Reflection Paper 1 Timothy Jenkins CEP 215 New Mexico State University Upon viewing “More Business of Being Born” (Epstein, 2011), I learned a lot about the different pros and cons of Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC). Women are often deprived of the choice of the method of delivery of their children after they’ve previously had a cesarean birth. The cause of this is that there exists medical fright about a rupture of the uterus which often leads to the death of mother and baby (Epstein, 2011). In the mid twentieth century, it became common saying that “once a cesarean, always a cesarean” came about. This saying perpetrated the fear and understanding that women have to go about having another cesarean, depriving them of choice (Epstein, 2011).
Women's reproductive health is a debated and complex issue in today's society. Nowhere is its severity more prevalent than in areas of extreme poverty such as south and Central America. The resolution to these problems is far from simple. Yet, women are increasingly taking control of their lives and forming groups to combat many of the prejudices that hold them back. However highly debated some tactics for resolution may be it is hard to miss the shear urgency with which the issues of women's rights and health call us. The fight for gender equality cannot overlook the importance of equality in health care and control over one's own body. Women's health is an issue that passes along its concerns to another generation every time a child is born.
Women have adamantly battled for political and social reproductive rights since, in particular artificial insemination, have become mainstream phenomena in the recent decade with a focus on rights of women. In fact, doctors have experimented with the procedure for nearly a century. However, with the women¹s liberation movement of the 1970s, physician-assisted and self-insemination has become more and more popular among heterosexual career women and lesbians.
The debate concerning abortion still exists and is causing a lot of controversy. One of the biggest is an issue concerning mother’s who are experiencing health compilations during p...
...o find a balance between interventional and non-interventional birth. With this being said, I also understand that there are strict policies and protocols set in place, which I must abide to as a healthcare provider, in any birth setting. Unfortunately, these guidelines can be abused. Christiane Northrup, MD, a well recognized and respected obstetrician-gynecologist has gone as far as to tell her own daughters that they should not give birth in a hospital setting, with the safest place being home (Block, 2007, p. xxiii). Although I am not entirely against hospital births, I am a firm believe that normal, healthy pregnancies should be fully permissible to all midwives. However, high-risk pregnancies and births must remain the responsibility of skilled obstetricians. My heart’s desire is to do what is ultimately in the best interest of the mother, and her unborn child.
For one woman, this vision of childbirth is not the norm. Ana Rhodes is a midwife, and she is one of the only birth attendants available to...
With infertility on the rise in women, many women do not even understand they develop it until they try to hold kids and it might be too late for them. Infertility has increased in the United States by 4 percent since the 1980s, mostly from problems with fertility due to an increase in age in women. Worldwide between three and seven percent of all couples or women endure an unresolved problem of infertility. Many more couples, however, experience involuntary childlessness for at least one year. With more people wanting answers the problem is growing exponentially.
There are many women who had huge influences in the advancement of heath and medicine. Many people don’t realize how much women do and how much they have contributed to the medical world and its advancements. From Lillian D. Wald, who worked with the less fortunate and children in schools, to Virginia Apgar, who worked with mothers and their newborns and also came up with the “Apgar Score,” and Eku Esu-Williams who is an immunologist and an AIDS Educator. Even though women did so much, many people were sexist and didn’t want to acknowledge what they did or give them the chance to do things, such as become doctors. I want to inform people on how much these women have contributed to the world of healthcare and medicine so that people won’t be so sexist towards women.
According to the cliché rhyme,“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” What happens, though, if the “baby in the baby carriage” never comes to fruition? Millions of couples struggle with infertility every year. Despite relentless effort and sometimes even therapy, many relationships become strained by the curse of sterility. Both partners in a childless (yet child-wanting) couple feel the tension of the struggle to become parents. One literature-based couple that struggles with infertility is Shakespeare’s Macbeths. Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth yearn for a child and react to their unsuccessful attempts at becoming parents in psychologically understandable ways.
The state plays a significant role in controlling and regulating women’s reproductive healthcare. The idea of “the personal is political” as a key feature of feminist politics is discussed in depth in Connell’s article. Connell mentions that the idea of the personal is political is “a link between personal experience and power relations,” these power relations can be found in personal life and matters that can be considered as private such as child rearing and reproduction. Connells idea of power relations controlling the private matters of citizens of the state is an important theme in this novel. Midwifery in the novel is a traditional means by which the majority of the women chose to deliver their children. Dr. Thomas is a male doctor working
Women’s reproductive rights are a global issue in today’s world. Women have to fight to have the right to regulate their own bodies and reproductive choices, although in some countries their voices are ignored. Abortion, sterilization, contraceptives, and family planning services all encompass this global issue of women’s reproductive rights.