Category Archives: Women's history

Reproductive Rights: Here are the Churches

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via RHReality Check, where Trusting Women asks, “On Health and Rights, What Happened to the Churches?”  TW writes about growing up in a liberal church that offered sex education classes.  She writes:

“Church was the place I first heard the word feminism.  Church was the place I first practiced putting a condom on a banana.  It was the place where I had openly gay and lesbian adult mentors and ministers.  The congregation my father grew up in gave the local Planned Parenthood their first home.  My first minister was a member of the Clergy Consultation Service, a network of liberal clergy that referred women to safe abortion providers in the days before Roe versus Wade.”

She then asks, “What happened to the churches?”   Here’s her answer:

“Liberal religions (particularly Protestants) feel guilty and ashamed on an institutional and cultural level.  Between the mid 19th and mid 20th century, liberal religion was at its apex. It lauded the possibility of human potential, placed science and empirical method right next to (if not above) Scripture, believed that human civilization was evolving morally and civically. Advances in science and medicine fueled and confirmed this hope and hubris.  Then the World Wars happened. The Holocaust happened, aided and abetted by liberal institutions, included liberal churches in Europe, governments, and academia.  Maybe evil really did exist in this world, maybe human beings were not so great after all.  Maybe the growth of liberal thought not only coincided with great democratic and medical advances, but also with brutal colonial and imperial endeavors; brutal injustices like Tuskegee Experiments and the recently revealed syphilis experiments in Guatemala. Maybe liberalism was not as perfect and wonderful as we thought…..”

My reply was:

Overall this is a thoughtful post but seriously — liberal protestant churches were solely to blame for the Holocaust?  What about the Pope? Or  Father Coughlin who blamed the Depression on an international Jewish conspiracy?

Also, what about the liberal church members, white and black, who participated in the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, and other movements for social justice in the 1960s?  Liberal clergy were also active in reproductive rights:  see Tom Davis’ book _Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and its Clergy Alliances_.”

Furthermore, look at the extensive history of reproductive rights activism outlined by the group Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.  Their most recent work includes counter-protests against Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue) , a strong presence at the March for Women’s Lives, opposition to the nominations of Supreme Court Justices Roberts and Allito, and the “Lift Every Voice for Reproductive Justice” program for voter empowerment during the 2008 election.

In other words, the activism of liberal churches on behalf of reproductive rights and other areas of social justice has not gone away.  It’s the media that has turned their back on the work of liberal churches.

Thoughts on Feminist Education in the 21st Century

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This post is in reply to Tenured Radical’s three part series on women’s education.  Part I is an argument in favor of single-sex colleges for women.  TR writes:

“One of the ironies of the educational achievements made by graduates of women’s schools, both private and public, was their demise. In the 1970s, feminists made access to formerly male bastions part of their policy agenda. As women like me entered the Ivies, public and Catholic universities, women’s colleges struggled to recruit, and many closed their doors, became coeducational, or were absorbed by male schools as part of a coeducation project.

Arguably, however, something was lost: a set of institutions that nurtured a feminist vision. So tomorrow, let’s talk about why there is still an argument for creating and supporting spaces for women’s education.”

I was the first to reply to this post, with the following observation about economic issues affecting women’s education:

“This is a good argument but most women can’t afford to attend a private women’s college (and many can’t even afford a state university like mine). I wanted to go to Smith very badly but couldn’t afford it. So, I went to the state university (Vermont). I had great feminist mentors there (some of them men) and at the coeducational graduate school I attended.”

An anonymous commenter immediately tossed out the term “class privilege,” which led to a back and forth and the following comments by  Historiann:

“Where are these arguments against “class privilege” when it comes to the other elite schools? Once again, women have to apologize for having even a dozen campuses any more that are just for women. Women’s colleges are apparently the only colleges that cost more than $30,000 a year. We only ask the women’s colleges to apologize for their privilege, beat there breasts and wail because not everyone can afford to attend a women’s college.

Bull$hit.

It’s comments like these that illustrate the continuing need for women’s colleges. If they were truly irrelevant, they wouldn’t seem so ominously threatening to so many people. Sounds like it’s time to up my contribution to the Annual Fund at Bryn Mawr.”

As I said in my follow-ups, “My point was to use my experience to illustrate that there are economic factors that need to be considered. I didn’t mention private coeducational colleges because that wasn’t one of the options I was considering at the time. . . My other point is, why should women’s colleges be the only place where women are introduced to feminism and leadership roles? Shouldn’t that be a mission of all colleges and universities?”

A commenter named Anna made a similar argument at Historiann’s blog:

“Can’t we try to make coed schools more feminist, instead of assuming that of course they can never encourage girls as much as all-girls schools?”

Further comments at both TR and Historiann seem to imply that coeducational institutions have not evolved since they were integrated in the 1960s and 1970s.  Perpetua, for example, writes at Historiann:

“Integration – of women into men’s colleges and African-Americans into white schools – was a good thing, but it did come with a bit of a price (ie the loss of strong mentorship by people from one’s own gender/race).”

Huh?  What about all the women who have become faculty over the past three decades?  In my department, women now make up half of the full-time faculty.   The percentage of women is even higher in other departments.  Are we less suitable as mentors because we work in a coeducational institution?  I think not!

In short, while I agree with TR that “Gender equality is a project, and it is, as Mary Maples Dunn said to me, an unfinished one,” it’s rather insulting to hear that the only places that this can be accomplished is at  all female SLAC that have far more resources than does my lowly state university (as usual, my trip down to Wesleyan left me green with envy at the lovely facilities with new furniture and equipment that actually works).  How about giving those of us in the trenches some credit?!

Added later:  Ms. Magazine blog has some interesting comments on the perils of single-sex education.

The Guatemala STD study and the problematic history of human subject research

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My friend and colleague Susan Reverby has been all over the news the past few days  because of her discovery of unethical studies of STD transmission conducted in Guatemala during the 1940s (great interview on PBS News Hour, Susan!).  She found the material on the Guatemala studies while researching her new book on the history of the infamous Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the Negro male.  Susan’s work on Tuskegee shows that abuse of vulnerable populations is not limited to Latin America and other areas of the developing world: it was happening within our borders long after the trials of Nazi scientists following the Second World War.

I made a modest contribution to the history of human subjects research in a talk at Wesleyan University this afternoon.  (this is a continuation of my earlier article on using students for medical and behavioral science research).  My talk was part of the launch of the Wesleyan Digital Archive of Psychology.  My talk was called “Coeds as Guinea Pigs,” and discussed the use of diethylstilbestrol (DES) as an emergency contraceptive and the controversy that ensued once it was discovered that this drug caused cancer in the daughters of women who had taken the drug during pregnancy.  Y’all are going to have to read my book for the full story, but briefly, news about the DES research was exposed at the same Congressional hearings that discussed the Tuskegee study, and research on Depo Provera using poor women of color as test subjects.   These hearings and similar exposes led to significant reforms in the treatment of human subjects in the United States.

Tell Congress to Approve Women’s History Museum

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via National Women’s History Project:

September 24, 2010 NEW YORK TIMES
Unhold Us, Senators


By GAIL COLLINS Congress is staggering toward recess. I’m going to go way out on a limb and guess that they’re not going to accomplish anything major before they leave. But as long as they’re still in town, taking up space, the least they could do is approve the National Women’s History Museum bill.


Honestly, I would not be making this plea if everybody was knee-deep in the budget or reforming the tax structure. But they can barely summon the will to open the mail. And the museum bill always has been uncontroversial. It’s a great idea; it doesn’t cost any money; and virtually everybody in office has already supported some version of it in the past.


The legislation would simply allow a private group, conveniently named National Women’s History Museum, to buy an unlovely piece of federal land on Independence Avenue for the site. “We will pay fair market value and pay for construction,” said Joan Wages, the president. The bill allows five years to raise the money and break ground. If the group fails, the land would revert back to the government, which would get to keep the purchase price.


The problem, Meryl Streep pointed out at a fund-raiser for the museum this week, is getting the government to take the money. At the gala, Duane Burnham, the former chairman of Abbott Laboratories, announced a donation of $1 million in honor of his four granddaughters. Streep then put up $1 million herself.


“I was a little mad that a man did it first,” she later said to me. “I was just jumping on his caboose.” She was en route to London to play Margaret Thatcher in a movie and was inspired to make a grand, albeit non-Thatcherian, gesture.


As Streep likes to point out, Washington already has a postal museum, a textile museum, a spy museum and the Newseum. You may be wondering why there is any problem getting Congressional support for a women’s history museum. Especially since the bill has already passed the House unanimously and come out of its Senate committee with unanimous approval. And since the bill, which is sponsored in the Senate by Susan Collins of Maine, has 23 co-sponsors from both parties. The Senate itself passed a different version of the plan unanimously a few years ago when the museum people were hoping to lease a government building rather than construct a new one.


The answer – and, people, how many times have you heard this story? – is that two senators, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, have put holds on the bill. A hold is one of those quaint Senate traditions that ensures that each individual member of the chamber will have the power to bring all activity to a screeching and permanent halt.


The bill’s supporters seem to feel that DeMint, who is now famous as a leader of the new Republican far right, is the chief obstacle to getting the project sprung. He was raised by a single mother who helped support her family by running a dance studio. He also has daughters. Perhaps he just puts holds on things as a matter of habit, like a compulsive twitch, and does not have any actual objection to celebrating the American women’s story in the nation’s capital. Perhaps he will call up Collins on Monday and tell her it was all a terrible mistake.


Coburn’s office said the senator was concerned that taxpayers might be asked to chip in later and also felt that the museum was unnecessary since “it duplicates more than 100 existing entities that have a similar mission.”


The office sent me a list of the entities in question. They include the Quilters Hall of Fame in Indiana, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas and the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Washington.


There also were a number of homes of famous women and some fine small collections of exhibits about a particular locality or subject. But, really, Senator Coburn’s list pretty much proved the point that this country really needs one great museum that can chart the whole, big amazing story.


Beginning in the late 1960s, the restrictions and prejudices that had hobbled my sex since the beginning of Western civilization began to be questioned, repudiated and overturned. It happened so fast that it was easy to forget all the women who had dreamed and fought for that moment but never lived to see it. And it was easy for the next generation to grow up unaware of what happened.


I lived through what was perhaps the greatest social shift in the history of our culture. You all did, too, unless you’re young enough to have been born into a brand-new platform of gender equality that was created, really, just for you. There will never be a time more appropriate to celebrate this great fact.
Please Sign Petition Calling on Congress to Act on Stalled Legislation

National Women’s History Project
3440 Airway Dr Ste F
Santa Rosa, CA 95403
http://www.nwhp.org
(707) 636-2888

Symposium: 20th Anniversary of Office of Research on Women’s Health

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x-post Women Historians of Medicine:

[My note:  To be fair, this is a scientific symposium on the future of research on women’s health, not the history of the ORWH.    As to Green’s r concerns about the Women’s Health Initiative — that was actually funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.  The Office of Research on Women’s Health held a celebratory conference on the WHI in 2006.  I imagine that Dr. Healy would mention this in her address. Also, the ORWH has sponsored many projects on a variety of women’s health issues and even women’s health history – for example, they co-funded my current project on the history of emergency contraception. Attendees would no doubt be familiar with the findings of the Women’ Health Initiative and/or Bernadine Healy would cover this in her opening address.  ]

For those unfamiliar with this office, here’s a brief institutional history.]

——

From Monica Green:

Dear WHOMers,

I just got this notice from the OSSD (Organization for the Study of Sex Differences).  This sounds like a major event but, alas, aside (perhaps) from the keynote by Bernadine Healey, there no historical perspective on how the Office of Women’s Health came to be established and how its trajectory has been set.  (Shockingly, at least from the titles, I see nothing at all about the Women’s Health Initiative and allied studies and how they blew away standard thinking on hormone replacement therapy.)

Is anybody on the list planning to go to this?  If so, might you send a brief report of the discussions to the list?

—
Monica Green
Professor of History
4th floor, Coor Hall
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ  85287-4302
Monica.green@asu.edu
https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/384868

—— Forwarded Message
From: Viviana Simon <webmaster@ossdweb.org>
Reply-To: <webmaster@ossdweb.org>
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2010 09:41:42 -0700
To: Monica Green <Monica.Green@asu.edu>
Subject: ORWH 20th Anniversary Scientific Symposium and Celebration

Dear OSSD Members,

I wanted to make you aware of the following symposium celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the NIH. If you are in the area, you may consider attending.

Best,
Viviana

Scientific Symposium
Date: September 27, 2010
9:00 a.m.- 5:15 p.m. (Registration will open at 8:00 a.m.)

Location: Natcher Conference Center
(NIH Campus in Bethesda, MD)

On September 27, 2010, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will hold a symposium to highlight some of the scientific advances that have increased our understanding of women’s health, differences between males and females, and implications for sex/gender-appropriate clinical care and personalized medicine. At this exciting event, the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) will launch the third scientific agenda for women’s health research for the coming decade, entitled A Vision for 2020 for Women’s Health Research: Moving Into the Future with New Dimensions and Strategies.

The daylong event, to include a reception, will provide a forum to recognize some of the major contributors to the establishment of ORWH and will celebrate progress in the field of women’s health research realized through the dedicated work of investigators, clinicians, and scientific colleagues from a wide range of disciplines and arenas-women and men. The 20th anniversary celebration will acknowledge the role of the many advocates who have worked tirelessly to energize support and set the stage for the realization of a vision-ensuring NIH-wide attention to research on women’s health issues across the lifespan and the role of sex/gender in health and disease.

This symposium is open to the public.

Agenda: http://www.orwhmeetings.com/20thAnniversary/PDFs/ORWH_20thAgenda.pdf

Why We Need Palin of Our Own

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via- NYTimes.com, where Anna Holmes and Rebbecca Traister make a good case that while the Left has good reason to be outraged by Sarah Palin’s nonsense, they should also be critical of  “their own failings as much as Ms. Palin’s ascension. Since the 2008 election, progressive leaders have done little to address the obvious national appetite for female leadership. And despite (or because of) their continuing obsession with Ms. Palin, they have done nothing to stop an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, socialist-bashing Tea Party enthusiast from becoming the 21st century symbol of American women in politics.”

This article has been discussed widely on other feminist blogs — I’d like to address some comments made by Amanda Marcotte at Double X:

“Liberals can’t be fed a fantasy woman because we don’t even agree on what our fantasy is. Many liberals are openly uneasy with feminism, lured by conservative arguments about how women having too much freedom would mean the end of sexual fun for men but the beginning of a sea of dishes and nagging. Many male liberals, particularly in positions of power, are openly made uncomfortable by feminist demands, even when they agree intellectually that women should have rights. (Witness the way that Democratic men in Congress erupted into childish giggling when asked by their female colleagues to listen to a presentation on the economic value of contraception subsidies.)  Even when liberal men can manage not to squirm, many still have a tendency to dismiss “women’s issues” as second-tier concerns, as if half the population were a narrow special interest group, like people who want ferret-owning to be legal in New York City.”

Uh, yes that’s exactly the problem — progressive men tend not to take women’s issues seriously and can be quite sexist when discussing women (see Melissa McEwan’s excellent coverage of sexism in the 2008 presidential campaign.  As ‘Liss likes to say, if you’re not a feminist, you’re not progressive, you’re  fauxgressive).

So, yes we need a progressive version of Palin who isn’t afraid to use the “f-word” (feminism) in public and will stand up for other women — ’cause the menz sure as hell aren’t doing it for us — see this hilarious satire from Name It, Change It:

In Your Face

Abortion after IVF and the economics of choice

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via  XX Factor.  In this article Amanda Marcotte comments on  the alarm raised over a small number of women who decide to have an abortion following IVF.  I agree entirely with Marcotte’s criticism of people who argue “that the women who have abortions after IVF are bad people, too fickle to deserve rights.”  If we really trust women, we should respect all choices.

That said, I need to observe the problem with this article  is that it only addresses a tiny percentage of women in the United States who are privileged enough to have health insurance that will pay for IVF and abortion  (in fact, the story grew out of cases in Great Britain, where both IVF and abortion are covered by the National Health Insurance).

What about the millions of women who are denied access to abortion because it’s not covered by Medicaid (and under the new “health reform” package will not be covered by private health insurance either)?  Or the millions of women whose choices to reproduce are constrained by economic circumstances, or if they do find the resources to reproduce, are condemned as being “selfish”?

This isn’t the only article at XX Factor that bugs me — it seems this column is aimed almost entirely at privileged women who have the money and leisure to worry about things like Snooki and denim-colored diapers.

Seriously, is this sort of writing really advancing rights for all women? Or is this type of women’s blogging simply feeding into a larger addiction to snark?  Maybe I’m expecting too much. . .

Think You Know Your Herstory?

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via Ms Magazine Blog.

Well, as a matter of fact, I do!  And while I’m being a smarty pants, I might as well point out that before the National Women’s History Project held their Summer Institute in 1979, the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women was already well established.  Cheers to NWHP for taking women’s history out of higher education and bringing it to the K-12 curriculum.

The Pill: Can We Expand Access While Respecting Diverse Experiences?

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x-post from RHRealityCheck.org.

I’m writing in reply to Amanda Marcotte’s article, “The Pill: A Counter to ‘Over-the-Counter.’” As I observed on my own blog, this is not the first time that the Pill has been considered for a switch from prescription only (Rx) to over-the-counter (OTC). The first time this issue was raised was in the early 1990s.  Historically, the arguments in favor of OTC status for oral contraceptives have tended to come from public health experts who, like Marcotte, see the prescription as paternalistic and an unnecessary barrier to timely access. While I think this is a legitimate point, I also think it’s unfair to characterize the work of Laura Eldrige as simply “freaking out about the pill.” I also think that Marcotte’s claim that complaints of side effects and criticisms of the Pill itself are due to our culture’s “sex panic” is a simplistic analysis of the situation and overlooks a long history of feminist activism on behalf of women consumers.

For example, the work of Barbara Seaman and the National Women’s Health Network in the 1970s and 1980s exposed serious ethical lapses in human subjects research involving women, especially women of color, and that the possible health risks of various forms of contraception — including the Pill, the Dalkon shield IUD, Depo Provera, and Norplant, were underplayed at the expense of women’s health.

In my opinion, Marcotte’s claim that women’s symptoms while on oral contraceptives are merely the result of “sex panic-driven fears” is just as paternalistic as saying women need a prescription for the Pill.   This same argument was made in the 1960s when the first serious side effects from the Pill were reported, i.e. that women who reported problems were just “hysterical” and subconsciously felt guilty about taking the Pill.

I think Laura Eldridge follows in the same tradition as her mentor Barbara Seaman and other founding members of the feminist health movement such as the authors of Our Bodies, Ourselves.  In my opinion, providing women with accurate information about the benefits AND risks of various contraceptive methods is an important way to empower women to make their own reproductive health choices.  We can have a balanced discussion about this without feeding into “right-wing misinformation.” Indeed, I think a nuanced evaluation of the historical and scientific arguments in favor and against various methods of contraception can help combat conservative opposition.  I also think we should respect women’s choices about contraceptive methods, even if they aren’t what we would choose for ourselves.

P.S. Speaking of choices — here’s a top ten list of contraceptive options from Ms. Magazine Blog.

Should the Pill be Set Free from the Prescription?

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via Newsweek, which reports on the work of the Over-the-Counter Oral Contraceptives Working Group.  As it so happens, this is not the first time this question has been asked — something I’m exploring in an article I’m revising for a edited volume on The Prescription in Perspective: Therapeutic Authority in Late 20th Century America edited by Jeremy A. Green and Elizabeth Siegel Watkins for Johns Hopkins University Press.  Historically, the arguments in favor have tended to come from public health experts who see the prescription as paternalistic and an unnecessary barrier to timely access.  This is the position taken by Kathleen Reeves at RH Reality Check, who says that the prescription “seems like a holdover from the days when contraception was forbidden: when women who wanted it were reprimanded and those who provided it were jailed.”

[P.S. here’s another article on this same subject from RHReality Check].

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Kissing over at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research’s blog re:Cycling has this to say:

“I have mixed feelings, myself. I’m in favor of just about anything that makes contraceptives more accessible to the people who need them, but I fear that the likely increase in cost of OTC pills means the availability won’t benefit those who most the need them – the young and the poor. Also, there are some contraindications for pill use, such as high blood pressure, history of migraine, and use of certain anti-seizure drugs for epilepsy. And despite the happy, shiny images of Yaz and Seasonique commercials, some women just can’t tolerate the side effects, for any number of reasons.”

This is pretty much the argument that was made by the National Women’s Health Network and other consumer protection groups the last two times this issue was raised — in 1993, and again in 2000.   Despite claims by FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research direct Phillip Corfman that the Pill was “safer than aspirin” and should therefore be sold over the counter, these consumer protection advocates argued that the pill was just too dangerous for OTC use.

Now the issue has come up again, no doubt because the success in getting emergency contraception sold, well, not quite OTC, but at least behind the counter without a prescription.   The OTC OCs working group includes representatives from NWHN and others who were against nonprescription status for birth control pills.  It will be interesting to see how this develops, and whether it will get in my paper.  Now, this is the problem with doing very recent history — the history keeps on happening while you’re writing it and there are continual updates!

According to the OTC OCs Working Group’s July newsletter, the Newsweek article does a nice job of summarizing the issue, but here are some corrections:

  • Regarding the timeline for an OTC switch, the article says, “They hope to have a proposal before the FDA within the year and an over-the-counter pill available in five years.” When I spoke with the author, I said that we hoped to have a meeting within a year (and hopefully this year) with the FDA to get feedback on the draft study protocols and labeling the working group has developed. The actual use and label comprehension studies would need to be completed before an application could be submitted, and those studies will take time–and additional funding. The working group is still in the process of exploring partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, since such a company would likely be the sponsor of a switch application to the FDA. I also said that the five-year goal of having an OTC pill on the market depended on a lot of factors, including an assurance that low-income women would be able to access such a product.
  • The article confuses the FDA advisory panel’s recommendation on the EC product ella with an actual approval, and incorrectly describes ella as containing progestin when it is composed of ulipristal acetate.
  • The article misquotes the Pharmacy Access Partnership’s national survey, which asked women about pharmacy access to hormonal contraception, rather than OTC access.
  • The article references our paper on contraindications among Mexican OC users, but that paper did not find “that women who buy pills directly from pharmacies often have greater understanding of the contraindications than women who visit clinics.”
  • The working group is currently supported by a grant from the Hewlett Foundation, which is misspelled in the article.

So, what do readers out there think?  Should women be freed from the tyranny of the prescription?  Or do we need the Rx to protect us from unsafe products?  [remember there’s a class action lawsuit against the manufacturers of Yaz and Yasmin filed by women who have suffered strokes and blood clots and other serious side effects)?