Final Project Ideas

This will be a research paper, and my audience is all women.

I sought to answer the question, how can women seek to take control of their own health and the power of education? Availiablity of information is one important aspect that needs to be addressed.

The specific example that prompted me to think about all of this was the article about Norplant. I can use Norplant as an example of how restriction of access to personal health information can have a negative impact on women. First, I should talk about a general background on birth control and The Pill, making light of the major changes it brought for women. Norplant was used as contraceptive that which women didn’t have to remember to take everyday. The main problem with Norplant was that its implantation would be paid for by Medicaid, however, not to remove them except for ‘medical reasons’. “They were told that they would have to pay $300, and reimburse the state the cost of insertion if they had implants removed before the end of two years,” (284 Petchesky). Norplant is referred to by some “as a means to curb the fertility of poor women, particularly those on welfare…and to reduce the underclass and urged incentives for inner city black women on welfare,” (138 May). This brings up the point that women must have the right to question medical treatment and to seek a second opinion if they so wish. However, many women still have trouble exerting their power. While is it certainly not the women’s fault for being purposefully mislead in the transactions of implanting this birth control in their arm, it is that there did not push the doctors to give them the information. In a way, they allowed the drug companies policies to take place. Eventually Norplant fell out of favor due to all of the lawsuits filed against it. “Out of one million women using the drug, 25,000 signed on to a lawsuit against it,” (140 May).

Nadia Farah wrote an article “The Eqyptian Women’s Health Book Collective” about how health education around the world is redefining itself. For example, she says it is important for health education to be taught “from the perspective of women,” (133 IWS) and also should go into more detail about all the different aspects that affect health, such as work, nutrition, social pressures etc. The goal is to cover more topics and information.

Other things I might touch on:

-What does this mean as a result of learning about our bodies, the health care alternatives and availabilities? There are obviously positive aspects, but are there negative consequences?

-Another thing I want to explore is about how mainstream media addresses the stigma of gaining information. Mass media has a big effect on what products are used regularly by women, as well as tells us what women should do to stay healthy. They do this by advertising products from drugs to face wash.

I already have a bunch of things I am thinking about and researching, but is there anything big I am overlooking?