This paper focuses on readings selected from a feminist history textbook. The readings cover health, reproductive rights, and family. The questions focus on the issues that arise in these three areas, meaningful quotes from the readings, critical response to the readings, and questions that the student would ask in a classroom discussion. There were resources used in the paper. They include: In Shaw, S. & Lee, J. (Eds.) Women's voices, feminist visions: Classic and contemporary readings (4th ed.). pp. 336-349, New York: McGraw-Hill.
¶ … health and reproductive rights, the issues at stake are women's physical health and their physical autonomy. One of the main arguments that the authors make is that women's health has been compromised because of their inability to exercise autonomy. For example, the debate over reproductive rights, whether access to safe and legal abortion or access to birth control, has endangered women's physical safety. However, the ability to exercise autonomy in health control decisions is not limited to reproductive decisions; approximately one in five women between the ages of 18 and 64 lack health insurance, which strips them of the financial ability to make important health decisions (Shaw & Lee, 2009). This leads to discussions of social factors surrounding health.
In chapter seven, which focuses on family systems and family lives, the issues at stake are how family is defined by society. There has been a significant change in society from the nuclear family and from marriage being the defining point of family creation in society. Around the globe, women are marrying later, but a high number of women are married at very young ages (Shaw & Lee, 2009). In developed areas, informal units are becoming more accepted. The number of births to unmarried mothers has increased in developed areas and is increasing. Moreover, increasing numbers of women are living alone (Shaw & Lee, 2009). The chapter also focuses on alternative family relationships, such as those focused on gay and lesbian relationships and how those relationships impact the rest of the family unit.
One of the most important quotes in the lesson was written by Emma Goldman in 1910. Goldman states, "The popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs" (Goldman, 1910). The lesson illustrates the fallacy behind those thoughts; in many societies, love and marriage are distinct concepts, with marriages based on family arrangements rather than romantic relationships. Moreover, informal arrangements can support love relationships, but fail to provide the thousands of legal benefits that generally accrue with marriage. While the question of marriage is a central one in the lives of many women, it has become a critical issue in the fight for civil rights for the LGBT community. One of the arguments against gay people adopting children has been that homosexuality poses a danger to children. Audre Lorde addresses this concern by reminding people that the standard for custody has long been to examine the best interests of the child: "Conception, adoption, and custody likewise shouldn't be compromised by unfounded concern that exposure to homosexuality poses a danger to children. Rather, they should be based on the long-standing principle of the best interests of the child and a presumption in favor of the parents who choose to conceive, adopt, or otherwise raise the child" (Lord, 2009). Perhaps the most emotional quote of the reading was in Eleanor Cooney's article describing her own abortion when abortion access was not legal. Rather than preventing her from having an abortion, the criminalization merely created a number of burdens for her accessing a safe abortion. What is telling is that Cooney reveals, "I did it anyway. What does this say about how it was for other young girls and women who didn't have my incredible luck? I was luckier than most in another department, too- being raped by the abortionist was a major hazard of the era. I merely got diddled by a couple of disgusting old men. It was nasty and squallid, but it certainly didn't kill me. As I said, I got off easy," (Cooney, 2009).
I think that the main strength of this lesson was that it incorporated essays describing women's personal experiences and challenges in dealing with the personal issues of health, reproduction, and family. I found all of them to be interesting, but I was blown away by Cooney's discussion about accessing an abortion prior to legalization. While I had been aware of the barriers that women faced when trying to access abortions, the attendant problems, such as the risk of being raped by the abortionist, had simply never occurred to me. As a result, I found the personal story to be very compelling. The main weakness in this lesson, to me, was a lack of exploration of the concept of divorce in America. The authors did mention that the U.S. had the highest divorce rate in the world and that people who divorce frequently remarry (Shaw & Lee, 2009). However, there was little discussion of the reasons for high divorce rates. I would have been interested in a discussion tying together health concerns, for example the health impact of domestic violence, with divorce rates.
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