Redefining “Women’s Health” as Distinct from Reproductive Health
I believe wholeheartedly that women’s health needs to be understood as distinct from reproductive health, given the diverse array of identities that challenge present-day systems of gender and sexuality. These constructs have persisted throughout history as fundamental organizing structures, despite the valid, lived experiences of those outside the perceived binary. As our class readings have shown, healthcare and clinical settings are not exempt from these systems. Rather, care providers in particular must actively resist these systems of in/exclusion and be cognizant of the ways in which they and their patients operate within their surrounding sociocultural context. As such, to redefine women’s health – and human health in general – in inclusive language is an important step to ensure that bodily autonomy, agency, and wellness is accessible to all, inside and out.
A mindset that considers women’s health as synonymous with reproductive health ultimately facilitates the marginalization of queer identities relative to heteronormative constructs and cis-gendered folks, while potentially misdirecting the practitioner’s assessment of a patient’s symptoms. A study conducted in Tasmania that featured self-identified women and queer individuals found that “medical advice and treatment” was often “experienced as a form of gendered power and social control” (Grant et al. 252). The authors stressed the need for inclusive healthcare settings and communications between patient and practitioner; for instance, they suggest reframing routine appointments (e.g. pap smears and cervical cancer screenings) as checkups for people with a cervix. In effect, this approach decentralizes gender identifications as “prerequisite[s] for treatment” while underscoring the distinction between women’s health and reproductive health (Grant et al. 258). This is especially relevant in a Canadian context, since assumptions of a patient’s gender and sexuality are shown to affect the quality of care received by self-identified LGBTQ women across Canada (Baker & Beagan, Fredericks et al.).
In a clinical context, social pressures work to “depriv[e] women of full choice and control over their own bodies”, and that healthcare systems effectively “make use of technologically sophisticated medicalization to institutionalize social forces” (Beynamini & Todorova 801). Indeed, motherhood and womanhood or femininity are conflated and synonymized, thus narrowing the perceived range of possible health conditions for women and denying validity to non-reproductive health concerns. Furthermore, women who do not conform to these rigid binary systems are denied credibility and safe spaces: barriers that operate simultaneously alongside other Social Determinants of Health such as class and race.
In sum, conflating women’s health with reproductive health facilitates larger sociocultural discourses that prescribe heteronormative identities onto human subjects. The aforementioned studies stress the need for healthcare providers to do their part in changing the complex dynamic between patient and practitioner towards one more accessible, inclusive, and affirming of all bodily experiences.
Works Cited
Baker, Kelly, and Brenda Beagan. “Making Assumptions, Making Space: An Anthropological Critique of Cultural Competency and Its Relevance to Queer Patients.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, 2014, pp. 578–98. Crossref, doi:10.1111/maq.12129.
Benyamini, Yael, and Irina Todorova. “Women’s Reproductive Health in Sociocultural Context.” International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, vol. 24, no. 6, 2017, pp. 799–802. Crossref, doi:10.1007/s12529-017-9695-7.
Fredericks, Erin, et al. “Being (In)Visible in the Clinic: A Qualitative Study of Queer, Lesbian, and Bisexual Women’s Health Care Experiences in Eastern Canada.” Health Care for Women International, vol. 38, no. 4, 2016, pp. 394–408. Crossref, doi:10.1080/07399332.2016.1213264.
Grant, Ruby, et al. “What Does Inclusive Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Look Like for Bisexual, Pansexual and Queer Women? Findings From an Exploratory Study From Tasmania, Australia.” Culture, Health & Sexuality, vol. 22, no. 3, 2019, pp. 247–60. Crossref, doi:10.1080/13691058.2019.1584334.
Written for GRSJ 300: Intersectional Approaches to Thinking About Gender (2020W T2)