Gender, Sexuality, and Health (332-0-20)

Topic

(Gender, Sexuality and) Health Activism

Instructors

Amy Partridge
847.491.5872

Meeting Info

University Hall 112: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

How do conceptions of "health" relate to ideological assumptions about gender, race, class, and sexuality? In this course, we will explore this question through a close examination of a range of activist movements that have attempted to challenge contemporaneous conceptions of health and models of disease. Case studies will focus on the U.S. and will include: 1) Groups/movements organized around a common (but often unstable or otherwise vexed) identity (e.g. we consider the changing assumptions, demands, and goals of movements committed to "women's health" from the19th century "birth control movement" and the 1970s-1990s-era reproductive rights, mental health, and environmental rights activism that made up the "women's heath movement" through the current "reproductive justice movement" and its opponents); 2) Groups/movements that use (non-violent) direct action to respond to a ‘health crisis' (e.g. ACT UP and AIDS activism; WHAM! and more recent activism around abortion access/care; Breast Cancer Action and ongoing breast cancer/environmental activism); 3) Groups/movements that challenge mainstream "biomedical" models of health and disease and (the often) tacit assumptions that inform them (e.g. the Black Panther Party "survival (pending revolution) programs"; the "healing justice" framework used by groups as diverse as the Icarus Project/Fireweed Collective and BYP100; Local Covid-era "mutual aid" projects, many of which are ongoing). In each case, we will consider how activists frame the problem, the tactics they use to mobilize a diverse group of social actors around the problem, and their success in creating a social movement that challenges contemporary medical models and the ideological assumptions that inform them. The course also introduces students to recent interdisciplinary scholarship on social movements.

Learning Objectives

•Recognize and articulate reciprocal relationships between dominant scientific and medical models of health and disease, contemporaneous social movement activism in response to a health crisis or on behalf of a particular community suffering from X, and the transformation of activist participants' own experience of health/disease and, in turn, their sense of self/subjectivity.
•Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of interdisciplinary scholarship on social movements, which seek to examine and assess the influence of culture and power on movement participants and on shaping movement culture/group dynamics.
•Develop the ability to identify, distinguish and assess multiple interpretations of instances of health activism through careful evaluation of the major assertions, assumptions, evidential basis, and explanatory utility of both activist and scholarly interpretations.
•Reflect upon the way in which sociological research helps to elucidate how processes of "medicalization" and "biomedicalization" impact both the governance and the experience of health/disease, including the emergence of new forms of disease-based collective identities and new forms of health activism.

Teaching Method

lecture/discussion, case studies, guest speakers, in-class workshops/presentations

Evaluation Method

- Attendance
- Class participation
- 2-3 short papers
- Final group project &/or final research project

Class Materials (Required)

Provided in Canvas

Class Attributes

Social and Behavioral Science Foundational Discipl
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area