Censorship

Women have faced many challenges concerning their health throughout history. Currently AIDS and breast cancer have been two major health challenges in our society today. Women are degraded and humiliated by the medical industry. Medicalization is a term that is defined as a process where normal body functions begin to be viewed as indicative of disease. This affects women because women have more periodic changes in their bodies and because medicalization supports business and medical technologies instead of preventive medicines it promotes sophisticated medicine technologies.

Reproductive rights and women's health are important facets of the women's movement because a woman's reproductive rights are directly related to her health. For example, if a woman is bearing a child but finds out that carrying the baby full term will be detrimental to her health in the future or that she is risking her own life then she has two choices. Her choices are to take the risk of carrying the baby full term or to abort the baby. Many women would choose to abort the baby. The Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade in January 1973 granted women the right to abortion. Feminists fought for years so that women could make their own reproductive choices as well as try to get the healthcare system to treat women equally.

In the healthcare system women are treated differently because men's bodies are seen as the norm and a lot of medical research focuses on men. More money is spent on researching diseases that are more likely to afflict men. According to Reading 43, "Man-Made Threats to Women's Health," by Adrienne Germaine she contends that men's political and social domination over women constitutes a health threat for women all over the world. Male doctors tend to misdiagnosis women's complaints regarding their health. Often times they blame a women's emotions and call her hyper sensitive. Due to differential