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Women's Health - Feminist Perspectives

Are you a girl

Course Description

Beginning with the Social Determinants of Health, students will critically analyze Women's Health and Women's Health Movements using an Intersectional and Critical Feminist framework. Issues of inquiry include but are not limited to: the politics of women's bodies; pathologization and medicalization; the history of women as healers; women and 'madness'/ women's mental health, gender and health; women and pharmaceuticals; age, beauty and status; women's bodies as capitalist interest; sexuality; violence; girls health; environmental health; occupational health; the intersecting impact of age, race, class, gender, size, literacy, (dis)ability, and sexual orientation; gender bias in health research; and advocacy as ethical nursing practice. Findings and analyses will be applied to Canadian Nursing Practice and Advocacy.

Learning Outcomes

- critically analyze current conceptualizations of women, women's health, and women's health care.
- develop an awareness of various women's health movements in Canada
- acknowledge and discuss themes of difference, diversity, and marginalization within the health care system with respect to health care provided to and by women.
- critique and make recommendations for change with respect to current developments, policies, trends, and programs which build on women's strengths and "address" women's health needs.
- Develop skill in the application of a critical intersectional framework regarding women, women's health and the role of nursing in Canada
- apply critical analyses to Canadian Nursing Practice and Advocacy.
- develop skill in the development of a scholarly photo essay pertaining to a women's health issue of your choice and as applied to our core course concepts and course literature
- participate in a public photo exhibit at York's Faculty of Health

Course Concepts

Medicalization, Pathologization
Marginalization, Oppression
Misogyny/Sexism/Androcentrism
Sizeism, Heterosexism, Classism, Racism, Ableism, Eurocentrism
Gender as a Social Construct
Women's Bodies as Capitalist Interest
Power/Freedom/Agency/Authenticity
Intersectionality
Thinking Upstream: The Personal is Political

Example Texts

1. Varcoe, C. (2007). Women's Health in Canada: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Policy. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-3939-2
2. Rochon-Ford, A. & Sailbil, D. (2009). The Push to Prescribe: Women and Canadian Drug Policy. The Women's Press.
3. Canadian Women's Health Network (2009). Special Issue on Women's Mental Health.
4. Ehrenreich, B. and English, D. (1973). Witches, midwives and nurses: A history of women healers. New York: The Feminist Press.