The Womens Health Movement

1
The Womens Health Movement

• began with rise of feminism in late 1960s early
  1970s
• Movement reflected womens dissatisfaction with
• quality of healthcare paternalistic doctor /
  patient relationships
• unnecessary surgeries
• lack of options / information (e.g. breast cancer
  treatments, contraception)
• Natural processes being turned into medical
  problems (e.g. childbirth)
• demeaning treatment, especially of minority women

2
Early Womens Health Movement

• formed local grass roots health collectives
• educate women re their anatomy, physiology
• improve doctor/patient relationships
• share health experiences
• provide advocacy services
• National Womens Health Network
  (http//www.womenshealthnetwork.org/ )
• demystified female body empowered women
• Significant progress in many areas!
• Film Taking Back our Bodies (1974)

3
Womens Health Movement

• In 1990s, attention turned to inequities in
  research on womens health and illness
• Example of problem lack of info on heart disease
  in women (MR. FIT study)

4
Reasons cited for exclusion of women from
clinical research studies

• concerns about liability for effects on
  conception, reproduction and fetal development
• confounding variables (e.g. cyclic hormonal
  variation)
• low disease prevalence
• difficulty with subject recruitment
• study cost
• lack of regulatory authority or granting agency
  requirements for inclusion of women

5
Womens Health Movement

• NIH created Office of Research on Womens Health
  (ORWH) in 1990
• Worked with NIH to strengthen and revitalize its
  guidelines for including women in medical
  research
• To ensure implementation, Congress passed NIH
  Revitalization Act of 1993
• Mandated that women and minorities be included in
  all NIH clinical research studies in adequate
  numbers

6
Womens Health Initiative

• ORWH implemented Womens Health Initiative (WHI)
  in 1992
• 14 year study funded annually by Congress
• objective reduce prevalence of three major
  causes of death and disability in middle-aged and
  elderly women
• major foci cardiovascular disease, cancer, and
  osteoporosis

7
WHI Studies

• impact of diet, lifestyle, hormone replacement
  therapy (HRT), obesity on risk examined
• efficacy of clinical interventions also examined
• examples of ongoing studies
• effects of HRT on colon cancer, breast cancer
• influence of Ca and vitamin D intake on risk of
  osteoporosis and colon cancer

8
Other ORWH activities

• identifying opportunites for research on womens
  health (WHI)
• promoting participation of women in clinical
  trials by identifying and overcoming barriers to
  participation
• increasing the number of professional women in
  biomedical research

9
Women Scientists

• Phenomenon of the leaky pipeline
• Fewer women with Ph.D.s in biology than men
• Many with Ph.D.s hold nontenure-track positions
• NIH awards 20 of grant money to women
  investigators
• Fewer female mentors in the field

10
Lowered Expectations for Women?

• Findings of Sadker and Sadker (1994)
• Boys get more eye contact, attention from math
  and science teachers
• Females rewarded for being quiet, cooperative
• Boys more likely to receive probing follow-up
  questions
• No data to support idea that females are inferior
  to males re analytical skills
• By high school, only 28 of females have taken 3
  years of math and science (compared to 40 of
  males)

11
Lowered Expectations, contd.

• Female professional scientists continue to face
  sexism
• Reviews of research papers
• Applications for teaching positions at
  universities
• Student assessments of professor performances

12
The Culture of Science

• Evolved when most scientists were male (single or
  with stay-at-home wives)
• More often, women have to choose between family,
  career
• Result higher loss of women from science at
  upper echelons
• Two-body problem
• Lack of mentors

13
Women Physicians

• For recent statistics re women in medical field,
  refer to http//www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/
  171.html
• 24.6 of total practicing physicians are women
  (2001)
• Female representation at level of medical school
• 48 of applications
• 46 of enrolled students
• 44 of graduates

14
Women Physicians

• Representation within medical school faculty
  (2000)
• Full professor 10
• Associate professor 19
• Assistant professor 50

15
Other feminist issues within medical field.

• Medicalization of natural processes
• Pregnancy
• Childbirth
• Menstruation
• Negative terminology
• Hysterectomy (root hysteria)