New dimensions in women's health

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Chikako Takeshita

The intrauterine device (IUD) is used by 150 million women around the world. It is the second most prevalent method of female fertility control in the global South and the third most prevalent in the global North. Over its five decades of use, the IUD has been viewed both as a means for women's reproductive autonomy and as coercive tool of state-imposed population control, as a convenient form of birth control on a par with the pill and as a threat to women's health. Takeshita investigates the development, marketing, and use of the IUD since the 1960s. She offers a biography of a multifaceted technological object through a feminist science studies lens, tracing the transformations of the scientific discourse around it over time and across different geographies. Takeshita describes how developers of the IUD adapted to different social interests in their research and how changing assumptions about race, class, and female sexuality often guided scientific inquiries. The IUD became a politically versatile technology, adaptable to both feminist and nonfeminist reproductive politics because of researchers attempts to maintain the device's suitability for women in both the developing and the developed world. Takeshita traces the evolution of scientists concerns, from contraceptive efficacy and product safety to the politics of abortion, and describes the most recent, hormone-releasing, menstruation-suppressing iteration of the IUD. Examining fifty years of IUD development and use, finds a microcosm of the global political economy of women's bodies, health, and sexuality in the history of this contraceptive device. From publisher description.

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Catherine Ingram Fogel and Nancy Fugate Woods

The tremendous forces of political and social change experienced by women in the 1980s have altered their perceptions, expectations - and demands. In the medical arena, this has meant the advancement of a more proactive role for women in the choice and direction of their individual health care. Documenting the shift toward increased personal responsibility, Women's Health Care analyzes myriad women's health issues in a sociological context. Opening with the presentation of vital demographics, the editors structure their initial exploration within specific age groups. The second section focuses on women's experiences as recipients of nursing care, both receiving treatment and seeking preventive care. The next section addresses the promotion of women's health in terms of current theory and research, including such topics as nutrition, exercise, and fertility control. In the final section, the authors consider several common health concerns that are specific to women. Essential reading for practicing nurses and advanced students in nursing, public health, and gender studies interested in women's health issues, Women's Health Care provides an encompassing study of this crucial area.

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Sarah Hentges

"This book explores and explodes common representations and experiences of American fitness. It takes women's experiences as the center of inquiry toward an understanding of the function of fitness in our lives. This book considers a broad range of topics from an interdisciplinary perspective: generations, cultural appropriation, community development, art choreography, methodology, healing, and social justice"--

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Raymond M. Lee

Researchers sometimes work in settings which are potentially dangerous to their health and safety. For example, they can be vulnerable to violent confrontation, verbal abuse or infectious diseases. This volume explores the contexts, settings and situations which pose high physical risk to the fieldworker.