2020-21 Academic Catalog

This course will explore the biopolitics of women’s health in the context of the U.S. health care system and the roles that female-assigned and women-identified people play as health-care consumers, practitioners and feminist activists in women’s health and reproductive justice movements. We will pay particular attention to the social construction, medicalization and politicization of physiological processes such as menstruation, sexual activity, reproduction and menopause. Some questions we will consider are: How do class, race, gender, sexuality and disability intersect to produce inequalities in women’s health and in their access to the health care system?  How do different communities of women mobilize for reproductive justice? What impact does the medicalization of reproductive processes have on women’s health? Why and how is violence against women a mental and physical health issue?