Women's Health: Complexities and Differences

Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997. 1st ed. hardcover. Near fine in a very good DJ in an archival mylar sleeve; light edgewear to dj; slightly bumped back bottom corner in very good dust-jacket. White dj, orange cloth quarto; xix, 689 pages: illustrations; 23 cm. Uncommon in cloth (hardcover). Contents: I. What is women's health? Social, biomedical, and feminist models of women's health / Pattern and puzzles: the distribution of health and illness among women in the United States / What we share and how we differ. What are the dynamics of differences? / The last sisters: health issues of women with disabilities / Creating women's health: health practices, working and living conditions, and medical care. Women, personal health behavior, and health promotion / The ergonomics of women's work / "Less than animals?": the health of women workers in garment manufacture, agriculture, and electronics assembly / Access, cost, and quality of medical care: where are we heading? / A note from Louise: understanding women's health in Appalachia / Culture and complexities. Beauty myths and realities and their impact on women's health / Old woes, old ways, new dawn: Native American women's health issues / Asian/Pacific American women and cultural diversity: studies of the traumas of cancer and war / Issues in Latino women's health: myths and challenges / Intersections of race, class, and culture. African American women's health: the effects of disease and chronic life stressors / Women, power, and mental health / Who cares?: women as informal and formal caregivers / Older women: income, retirement, and health / Power and social control. Responses to stigma and marginality: the health of lesbians, imprisoned women, and women with HIV / "You can be safer, but--": different women, many violences. Women's lived experiences of abuse / The battered women's movement; Rape / A survivor speaks about the Victim Input Program / Anti-lesbian violence / Sexual harassment / The ongoing politics of contraception: Norplant and other emerging technologies / Challenges and choices for the twenty-first century. Research to improve women's health: an agenda for equity / Strengths and strongholds in women's health research / Conversing with diversity: implications for social research / Challenging purely biomedical definitions of women's health, Women's Health: Complexities and Differences draws attention to social, cultural, and behavioral elements crucial to a broader understanding of the issues. The contributors to this volume raise important questions about the directions currently being taken to improve women's health in the United States: Is women's health merely the absence of disease? What have been the consequences of promoting narrow biomedical models of health? What do the pervasive patterns and puzzles in the distribution of disease, illness, and death among different groups of women tell us about the sources of ill health? How well do national agendas address all women's health care priorities? What are the implications for social action? Particular attention is paid in this collection of essays to how race, class, gender, and culture shape and in turn are shaped by treatment options and health care for certain subpopulations among Native American, Latina, Asian American, and African American women. Discussions of reproductive health, mental health, violence, and the treatment of stigmatized women raise perplexing issues about choice, chance, and social change.