Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged women's health

Orgasm Inc.

The orgasm. Feminists laud it, good lovers work hard to give it, pharmaceutical companies make it a business model. The inability to experience an orgasm is thought to be as devastating as the inability to delight in the joy of wine, sunrise, spring flowers, and other wonderment. But this is hardly an overstatement. Last week in London, I had the sheer privilege of attending a hugely popular talk by a doyenne of second wave feminism, Shere Hite.

Balance Your Hormones, Balance Your Life: Achieving Optimal Health and Wellness through Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and Western Science

Though I enjoy a good yoga session as much as any middle-class white woman my age, my natural state is one of tooth-chattering anxiety. Anyone who knows me well could tell you that my yin and yang are not harmonious, but now I have the endocrine profile to prove it—a set of chromosome repeats in my DNA that has manifested itself in serious hormonal disruption, a.k.a. premature ovarian failure, a.k.a. early menopause.

Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916-1939

This past May, the birth control pill celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. News outlets all over the country covered the story, yet the early years of the birth control movement were seldom mentioned. A lack of academic research has led to the history of the early birth control movement being plagued by misinformation, myth, and appropriation by the right, particularly regarding the history of the movement’s founder, Margaret Sanger.

All of Us

Emily Abt's emotionally stirring documentary, All of Us, takes us not just on a journey from the South Bronx to Ethiopia and back, but to a place deep within ourselves. The film follows Dr. Mehret Mandefro, as she embarks on a mission to uncover the truth behind the startling statistics regarding women of color and HIV infections in the United States. According to the film, African-American females compose approximately 12% of the population, yet according to the 2005 CDC report, a staggering 66 % of this minority accounted for new infections with the virus in the United States.

In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play (8/29/2010)

“Please turn off anything that beeps, buzzes, or vibrates.” And with that comic admonishment to the audience, Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer Sarah Ruhl’s play about the advent of vibrators began. The setting is Dr. Givings home, where his living room is located next to, and within earshot of, the “surgical theater.” Here, Dr. Givings (played by Eric Hissom) treats hysteria, a “medical ailment” dating back to about 300 BC, when Hippocrates thought women’s madness stemmed from their womb.

New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation

When I first picked up New Blood, I immediately thought about Sarah Haskins, the feminist comedienne who does the segment ‘Target Women’ (on Current TV), in which she uses humour and sarcasm to draw attention to ridiculous media representations of women and female stereotypes.

Willing and Unable: Doctors' Constraints in Abortion Care

Ninety-three percent of all abortions are done in abortion clinics. Only three percent of non-metropolitan counties in the United States had an abortion provider in 2005, while thirty-one percent of metropolitan counties had at least one. After completing their residency, half of physicians who plan to perform abortions as part of their practice actually do so.

Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women’s Activism in the Beauty Industry

In Beauty Shop Politics, Tiffany M. Gill documents the central role that Black beauticians played in the struggle against Jim Crow laws. Beauty shops were one of the few industries that offered Black women some economic stability and upward mobility in the face of segregation. The industry also offered Black women a respectable alternative to domestic labor, as well as a chance to not work for White people.

The Uterine Health Companion: A Holistic Guide to Lifelong Wellness

In The Uterine Health Companion, Eve Agee brings her training as a medical anthropologist and as a holistic healer to bear on the subject of life-long uterine health. She begins the book by explaining both holistic health and the structure and function of the uterus to her readers. Then she outlines a plan for optimal uterine health, with chapters on emotional/spiritual and mental health, the power of nutrition and the importance of a strong body.

Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

In the original 1997 edition of Living Downstream, Sandra Steingraber was the first to compare data on toxic releases with data from U.S. cancer registries. In the last ten years since this edition was published, there has been rapid growth in the understanding of environmental links to human cancer and new published findings that corroborate the evidence Steingraber compiled in 1997. With a Ph.D.

Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist's Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain's Healing Power

"Depression hurts," chimes the television announcer. Most people have been depressed at some point in their lives, whether from a life-changing event or simply a bad patch of circumstance. I am willing to wager that if you haven’t been there yourself, you know someone who has suffered from depression. The pharmaceutical industry is now doling out pills to treat depression and a large portion of our population is taking them, some with marked results, some going from pill to pill searching for the perfect cocktail that will relieve them of pain and anxiety, fear and restlessness.

Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Cost of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us

Maybe I’m wrong, but in my understanding of war, combatants will do whatever it takes to destroy the opposing side. And that’s not what has happened in the conflict over abortion. Instead, one side, the anti-abortionists—from the Army of God to the Lambs of Christ, from Operation Save America to The National Right to Life Committee—have organized a multitude of campaigns to stop what they call “the murder of innocents.” Diverse tactics, from the ballot box to the bullet, have been used.

Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank

When researching medical or social history, one of the things that often becomes apparent is the level of mystery that surrounded women’s bodies and bodily functions. This mystery and speculation is the subject of Randi Hutter Epstein’s Get Me Out. As the title suggests, Hutter Epstein, a medical journalist, presents an overview of ideas related to conception, pregnancy, and childbirth spanning from antiquity to the modern day.

make/shift: feminisms in motion (Issue 6)

Make/Shift aims to thrust the ignored populations into the greater recognition. Native Americans living in urban settings rather than rural reservations tend to be invisible in our nation’s consciousness. Society shies away from the combination of disability and sexuality, and when it comes to women’s prisons, many question the validity of empowerment through peer education health programs.

The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife’s Memoir

By the time Patricia Harman finished writing The Blue Cotton Gown, she was no longer working as a midwife. Instead, soaring malpractice fees had caused The Women’s Health Clinic of Torrington, West Virginia, a practice Harman runs with her husband, Dr.

Brainscan #22

As a lesbian with an incredibly regular menstrual cycle, I generally don’t ever really think about birth control. It’s not something that affects my life, and other than the random conversations about birth control that I have with my friends and loved ones who do use it, I don’t usually find literature on the topic particularly interesting.
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