Women’s health messages and more

June 16, 2013

 Sometimes, we have a bit of a summer camp at my house. Here are my daughter and niece making candles. When I get to share time with my three sisters and my sisters-in-law, all their daughters, my mother, my daughter and daughter-in-law, and my granddaughters–I feel grateful and blessed. They all know that I will eventually somehow end up talking about health messages. But they don’t mind. Most of them have read my co-edited book, ‘Evaluating women’s health messages’ [http://www.amazon.com/Evaluating-Womens-Health-Messages-Resource/dp/0761900578/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371768886&sr=8-1&keywords=evaluating+women%27s+health+messages]. And even though it was published it 1996, it’s still relevant because it tells the history of bringing women’s health and medical research onto the political agenda. It was, after all, only 1990 when the Office of Women’s Health was formed. And until that time, it was just taken for granted that funded medical research should systematically exclude women for all the biological reasons that make us women. What research included women focused mostly on their reproductive health, leaving men out of the reproductive equation just as women were being left out of all the rest of the human health equation research–things such as heart disease research, for example.

The gap in health and medical research is still reflected in society’s norms and language. ‘Reproductive health’ as an expression automatically brings up an image of a woman. Just as ‘outdoorsman’ of course brings up an image of a man. So imagine my surprise when I went to do some shopping online at Bass Pro. A store I dearly love, I usually wait for visits to cities where they are located. but yesterday, I googled them and went to their site and was greeted by, ‘Welcome Outdoorsman’–huh?

Yes, I found the contact information and emailed them promptly. And, yes, they answered promptly. Let’s see what happens next!

Author: Roxanne

I have always loved to learn. After years of trying to pick a major as an undergraduate, I met a professor who guided me to graduate school. And from graduate school, I learned that I could always go to school and keep on learning. And so I have... View all posts by Roxanne