Communicating Women’s Health: Social and Cultural Norms that Influence Health Decisions

Summary

This volume explores the conditions under which women are empowered, and feel entitled, to make the health decisions that are best for them. At its core, it illuminates how the most basic element of communication, voice, has been summarily suppressed for entire groups of women when it comes to control of their own sexuality, reproductive lives, and health. By giving voice to these women’s experiences, the book shines a light on ways to improve health communication for women.

Bringing together personal narratives, key theory and literature, and original qualitative and quantitative studies, the book provides an in-depth comparative picture of how and why women’s health varies for distinct groups of women. Organized into four parts—historical influences on patient and provider perceptions, breast cancer the silence and the shame, make it taboo: mothering, reproduction, and womanhood, and sex, sexuality, relational health, and womanhood—each section is introduced with a brief synthesis and discussion of the key questions addressed across the chapters.

Table of Contents

Introduction  Annette Madlock Gatison  Part I: Mothering and Reproduction  1. Women's Childbirth Preferences  Edith LeFebvre and Carmen Stitt  2. "Hush, Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word": Nursing Narratives through New Media  Andrée E. C. Betancourt and Elise E. Labbé  3. What Do Prenatal and Postnatal Women Discuss With Their Healthcare Providers? Findings From the Los Angeles Mommy and Baby (LAMB) Survey  Yuping Mao and Lu Shi  4. Depression and Suicide under the Japanese Patriarchal Family System  Kimiko Akita  Part II: Womanhood, Sexuality and Relational Health  5. It’s Getting Hot in Here: Chemotherapy and Surgically Induced Menopause Effects Sexual Health in BRCA Previviors and Survivors, It’s more than a Personal Summer  Annette Madlock Gatison  6. Breast Cancer and Shame: Problematizing the Pink Ribbon in Locations of Women’s Breast Healthcare  Sarah Hochstetler  7. Pink is for (Survivor) Girls: Late-stage Breast Cancer, Silence, and Pink Ribbon Culture  Elizabeth M. Davis  8. An Examination of the American Discourse on Menstruation: Iterating a Taboo on Women through Feminine Hygiene Products  Erika M. Thomas  9. "Does This Mean I’m Dirty?" The Complexities of Choice in Women’s Conversations about HPV Vaccinations  Jennifer Malkowski  10. Sexual and Relational Health Messages for Women Who Have Sex with Women  Sandra L. Faulkner, Pamela J. Lannutti, Andrea M. Davis, and Manda V. Hicks  Conclusion  Annette Madlock Gatison

Editor(s) Bio

Annette Madlock Gatison, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Southern Connecticut State University, USA. Her forthcoming work for 2015 includes: Embracing the Pink Identity: Breast Cancer Culture, Faith Talk and the Myth of the Strong Black Women, Lexington Books; The Pink and The Black Experience: Lies that Make Us Suffer in Silence and Cost Us Our Lives, an article for Women’s Studies in Communication; and Body Politics Strategies for Inclusiveness: A Case Study of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, chapter in Contexts for the Dark Side of Communication.