Breast cancer runs in my family, discussed by us for many years only in Southern whispers and associated with deep remorse. It also runs among close friends, whose families are less reserved, but who struggle with deep grief. My family whispers about breast cancer are oxymoronic given the number of books about the women’s health movement that line my bookcases. The women’s health movement ferrets out myths that mainstream science perpetuates about women’s bodies. Sometimes, even today, it’s still hard to distinguish “fact from fiction” in mainstream science without a copy of  Our Bodies and Ourselves, though. Is it true that childlessness causes women soRead More →

A recent visit to the ophthalmologist reminded me of the marriage plot and how much it’s woven into the fabric of our everday lives – even down to medical records for health care where marriage is irrelevant. Why does marital status affect eye care? The marriage plot is the standard narrative arc of stories that culminate in middle class, heterosexual romantic bliss. It’s the two-kid, picket-fence story of heteronormativity, i.e., not just heteronormativity or compulsory heterosexuality, but compulsory heterosexuality come to closure with marriage. Why does my eye doctor care if I’m married? Why check a box indicating married, divorced, or single? How is thatRead More →

Today I had a hot flash in my office, which is a feat since my office is ice-box cold. My cheeks got red, my hair clung to my neck, and I got prickly both emotionally and physically. It was a full-fledged where’s-my-chainsaw inferno. To celebrate the hotflash in this blog entry, I searched for an amusing yet affirming cartoon-like picture of a uterus – something Alison Bechdel might draw or Betty White might have laughed at, oh, thirty years ago. All the uteri out there are hungry for babies, not old and happy to retire.  Pictures abound of pregnant women, women with headaches,  and relativelyRead More →

The biggest threat from ObamaCare, according to the Humanix Books’ ObamaCare Survival Guide, is the influx of the mass uninsured populace into the healthcare system.  The logic behind this argument boggles the mind. The short version: there aren’t enough doctors to handle the sudden mass increase in patients and the existing pool of doctors will all quit in frustration. Consequently, everyone’s health care will suffer. The odds of anyone going to medical school to replace this pool are low and no one will be trained in time to treat all these new patients or fill in the gap. How is it that this influx ofRead More →

This week I received many Facebook messages urging me to tell my friends “where I like it” in my Facebook status. I’ve seen my friends post such mysterious statuses as “I like it on the chandelier” and “I like it on my car seat.” This morning I posted, “I like mine without pinkwashing.” Many people didn’t understand my status or why the meme makes me so angry. I have two simple answers: 1. I hate pinkwashing. 2. This is nothing but Facebook slactivism. Put differently, I do not believe that if I post an “I like it…” status on Facebook, I have done something significantRead More →

See? It just proves it! Everyone’s crazy and the Left is losing it because of ObamaCare. Today, in the wake of the “historic” ObamaCare bill signed by the “historic” black president, the liberal blogosphere has been crowing, there is a lot of Republican post-mortem-ing  on both sides of the aisle (Hey! I verbed that noun!), and everyone’s ranting about the failures of right-wing fear mongering and obstructionism. This is disturbing. The Democrats cheer because the bill was resuscitated after near death, and they applaud that the bill went through with enough votes that Democrats didn’t need to rely on parliamentary shenanigans such as reconciliation. Admittedly,Read More →

Over Thanksgiving I had a conversation with my mother-in-law about women doctors. She explained that she had to see a woman eye doctor because her regular doctor was unavailable and that this made her uncomfortable. Some people are uncomfortable with women doctors even today. Comfort with a doctor is an emotional thing, not something you can necessarily address rationally. With each generation this discomfort will lessen. Still, when I play the very old doctor riddle with students in class, most can’t solve it. Here’s the riddle: A man and his son were in a car and had an accident on the highway. The boy wasRead More →

Today I visited the gynecologist’s office for my annual exam. The visit reminded me intimately of why I’m a feminist, and why feminism is still necessary today. Times have changed since the emergence of the women’s health movement in the 1960s (see Into Our Own Hands by Sandra Morgen), and since I read and studied Mary Daly’s Gyn/ecology and the early versions of the Boston Women’s Health Collective’s Our Bodies, Ourselves. Or, perhaps not. My visit was utterly..well…disheartening – even if you pretend all the problems about women’s reproductive freedom, the medicalization of women’s bodies, and women’s health were off the table. I waited anRead More →

I’m grateful that I even -have- insurance but they are really annoying businesses. I decided to see a nutritionist. I found one in Baton Rouge who is also a therapist. Just what I need, right? A food therapist. So I called the insurance company, and they won’t pay for a nutritionist unless it is for either A) a protein deficiency or B) diabetes. The customer service representative said the company definitely won’t cover a nutritionist for weight loss. That makes no sense. According to BlueCross/BlueShield, Louisiana ranks 4th in the country for obesity, and obesity-related diseases account for nearly half of Louisiana’s state health careRead More →