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The Vulnerable Empowered Woman: Feminism, Postfeminism, and Women's Health
Winner of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender 2013 Outstanding Book Award
Winner of the 2013 Bonnie Ritter Book Award from the Feminist and Women's Division of the National Communication Association
The feminist women’s health movement of the 1960s and 1970s is credited with creating significant changes in the healthcare industry and bringing women’s health issues to public attention. Decades later, women’s health issues are more visible than ever before, but that visibility is made possible by a process of depoliticization The Vulnerable Empowered Woman assesses the state of women’s healthcare today by analyzing popular media representations—television, print newspapers, websites, advertisements, blogs, and memoirs—in order to understand the ways in which breast cancer, postpartum depression, and cervical cancer are discussed in American public life. From narratives about prophylactic mastectomies to young girls receiving a vaccine for sexually transmitted disease, the representations of women’s health today form a single restrictive the vulnerable empowered woman. This identity defuses feminist notions of collective empowerment and social change by drawing from both postfeminist and neoliberal ideologies. The woman is vulnerable because of her very femininity and is empowered not to change the world, but to choose from among a limited set of medical treatments.
The media’s depiction of the vulnerable empowered woman’s relationship with biomedicine promotes traditional gender roles and affirms women’s unquestioning reliance on medical science for empowerment. The book concludes with a call to repoliticize women’s health through narratives that can help us imagine women—and their relationship to medicine—differently.
Winner of the 2013 Bonnie Ritter Book Award from the Feminist and Women's Division of the National Communication Association
The feminist women’s health movement of the 1960s and 1970s is credited with creating significant changes in the healthcare industry and bringing women’s health issues to public attention. Decades later, women’s health issues are more visible than ever before, but that visibility is made possible by a process of depoliticization The Vulnerable Empowered Woman assesses the state of women’s healthcare today by analyzing popular media representations—television, print newspapers, websites, advertisements, blogs, and memoirs—in order to understand the ways in which breast cancer, postpartum depression, and cervical cancer are discussed in American public life. From narratives about prophylactic mastectomies to young girls receiving a vaccine for sexually transmitted disease, the representations of women’s health today form a single restrictive the vulnerable empowered woman. This identity defuses feminist notions of collective empowerment and social change by drawing from both postfeminist and neoliberal ideologies. The woman is vulnerable because of her very femininity and is empowered not to change the world, but to choose from among a limited set of medical treatments.
The media’s depiction of the vulnerable empowered woman’s relationship with biomedicine promotes traditional gender roles and affirms women’s unquestioning reliance on medical science for empowerment. The book concludes with a call to repoliticize women’s health through narratives that can help us imagine women—and their relationship to medicine—differently.
- GenresFeminismWomens Studies
248 pages, Hardcover
First published November 14, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 2, 2020
Can you tell this was an old course book? Dubriwny’s postfeminist health critique has been collecting dust on my bookshelf since 2013. It was assigned as part of a class on the women’s health movement, but I read basically none of it. I can see why. It’s quite dry and not meant to be accessible. It’s pretty clearly the requisite publication for a tenure-track professor (Dubriwny was an Assistant Prof when the book was released; now, right on schedule, she’s an Associate). It’s exactly the kind of stuffy, little-read thing that a university press publishes “for the sake of producing knowledge.” So how about that knowledge, eh?
I had to underline passages in this book in order to maintain my focus. As I said, it’s very dry. The first chapter is a theoretical grounding, which is about as exciting as it sounds. The next three chapters are case studies of breast cancer, postpartum depression, and the HPV vaccine. Those were much easier to get through as they used real-world examples. The fifth and final chapter is about “moving forward” in the feminist health movement. So, pretty typical structure.
Dubriwny’s thesis is basically that in the modern United States, women are positioned as both inherently vulnerable but also empowered when it comes to medical decision-making. By vulnerable she means that women are subject to certain health threats because of their underlying biology, whether that be a BRCA gene mutation that predisposes women to breast cancer, the postpartum hormonal changes that put women at risk of depression, or the horrible thought of teenage girls being sexually active, contracting HPV, and developing cervical cancer. Luckily, there is a biomedical solution to all three of these risks. Women are empowered because all they have to do is seize upon the biomedical offerings and make a choice to protect their health. Women with the BRCA mutation can have their breasts and ovaries removed. Women with postpartum depression can take medication. And teenage girls can get the HPV vaccine. No problem at all here, right?
Well, not quite. In the most compelling of the case studies, Dubriwny lodges a critique of the BRCA mutation fixation that equates having the mutation with having cancer itself. Women are distilled into individuals facing a stark choice: have your breasts and ovaries removed, or face the probability that more likely than not, you will develop cancer. She implies but does not directly state that going against this paradigm - that is, choosing to live with the BRCA mutation instead of taking radical preventive action - can be construed as irresponsible. With the fixation on BRCA and the genetic predispositions that individuals have to breast cancer, opportunities for investigating why breast cancer rates have risen steadily in society over time are all but extinguished. In other words, opportunities for social and political (feminist) action are lost, while biomedical and individuals action are prioritized.
I was much less convinced by Dubriwny’s second case study on postpartum depression. She writes that postpartum depression has been normalized - probably a good thing considering it affects something like 10-20% of all mothers. Normalization, to Dubriwny, means medicalization. She decries the simple solution of antidepressant medication as a remedy for the illness. I understand her wish to focus on structural issues that may be contributing to postpartum depression, such as the lack of paid maternity leave in the United States, but she fails to recognize the magnitude of choosing to start medication to address a mental health issue. Medication is a valid response to a social and biological issue and should not be discounted. More troubling was Dubriwny’s assertion that new mothers were being unnecessarily medicalized and subjected to surveillance by friends, family, health providers, and even themselves to be on the lookout for signs of postpartum depression. I fail to see what’s wrong with this. Postpartum depression is extremely common, and knowing the warning signs is a good and helpful thing. Astute and caring friends and family are not wrong to worry about the welfare of new mothers - isn’t that the very definition of social support? I don’t really see what Dubriwny is getting at here.
The third and final case study is on the HPV vaccine. Interestingly, although the vaccine can - and should! - be offered to both men and women, the original FDA approval authorized its use for women only. This despite the fact that HPV has been linked to anal and penile cancer in men. By approving the vaccine for women only, the FDA confirmed the old idea that women are fully responsible for their sexual habits. Comparatively, men should have nothing to worry about. Dubriwny discusses the backlash to the vaccine, which mainly consisted of conservative groups who thought that vaccinating teenage girls was basically encouraging them to have sex before marriage. She doesn’t really point out anything new here, just kind of highlights how that’s a ridiculous and anti-feminist stance to take. However, Dubriwny was thoroughly vexed by the Garrison vaccine commercials. They featured middle-class white and African-American adolescent and teenage girls and encouraged those girls to protect their future health by getting the HPV vaccine. Dubriwny notes that HPV disproportionately affects low-income women and women of color, which wasn’t addressed in the commercials at all. But I can see how it would be problematic to direct a campaign focused exclusively on one of those groups.
Dubriwny ends her tome by encouraging the women’s heath movement to promote more and different subjectivities or something like that. She mentions a few blogs and action groups that she likes and that’s pretty much it. Doesn’t end on the strongest note. In terms of knowledge gained, I’d say that I’ve read more concise critiques of the BRCA obsession and the Gardisil vaccine elsewhere, and I didn’t like the postpartum depression chapter foe the reasons stated above. Like I said, this is your pretty standard academic book that’s not really meant to be read by many people anyway. But hey, at least I don’t have to feel guilty for not reading it anymore!
I had to underline passages in this book in order to maintain my focus. As I said, it’s very dry. The first chapter is a theoretical grounding, which is about as exciting as it sounds. The next three chapters are case studies of breast cancer, postpartum depression, and the HPV vaccine. Those were much easier to get through as they used real-world examples. The fifth and final chapter is about “moving forward” in the feminist health movement. So, pretty typical structure.
Dubriwny’s thesis is basically that in the modern United States, women are positioned as both inherently vulnerable but also empowered when it comes to medical decision-making. By vulnerable she means that women are subject to certain health threats because of their underlying biology, whether that be a BRCA gene mutation that predisposes women to breast cancer, the postpartum hormonal changes that put women at risk of depression, or the horrible thought of teenage girls being sexually active, contracting HPV, and developing cervical cancer. Luckily, there is a biomedical solution to all three of these risks. Women are empowered because all they have to do is seize upon the biomedical offerings and make a choice to protect their health. Women with the BRCA mutation can have their breasts and ovaries removed. Women with postpartum depression can take medication. And teenage girls can get the HPV vaccine. No problem at all here, right?
Well, not quite. In the most compelling of the case studies, Dubriwny lodges a critique of the BRCA mutation fixation that equates having the mutation with having cancer itself. Women are distilled into individuals facing a stark choice: have your breasts and ovaries removed, or face the probability that more likely than not, you will develop cancer. She implies but does not directly state that going against this paradigm - that is, choosing to live with the BRCA mutation instead of taking radical preventive action - can be construed as irresponsible. With the fixation on BRCA and the genetic predispositions that individuals have to breast cancer, opportunities for investigating why breast cancer rates have risen steadily in society over time are all but extinguished. In other words, opportunities for social and political (feminist) action are lost, while biomedical and individuals action are prioritized.
I was much less convinced by Dubriwny’s second case study on postpartum depression. She writes that postpartum depression has been normalized - probably a good thing considering it affects something like 10-20% of all mothers. Normalization, to Dubriwny, means medicalization. She decries the simple solution of antidepressant medication as a remedy for the illness. I understand her wish to focus on structural issues that may be contributing to postpartum depression, such as the lack of paid maternity leave in the United States, but she fails to recognize the magnitude of choosing to start medication to address a mental health issue. Medication is a valid response to a social and biological issue and should not be discounted. More troubling was Dubriwny’s assertion that new mothers were being unnecessarily medicalized and subjected to surveillance by friends, family, health providers, and even themselves to be on the lookout for signs of postpartum depression. I fail to see what’s wrong with this. Postpartum depression is extremely common, and knowing the warning signs is a good and helpful thing. Astute and caring friends and family are not wrong to worry about the welfare of new mothers - isn’t that the very definition of social support? I don’t really see what Dubriwny is getting at here.
The third and final case study is on the HPV vaccine. Interestingly, although the vaccine can - and should! - be offered to both men and women, the original FDA approval authorized its use for women only. This despite the fact that HPV has been linked to anal and penile cancer in men. By approving the vaccine for women only, the FDA confirmed the old idea that women are fully responsible for their sexual habits. Comparatively, men should have nothing to worry about. Dubriwny discusses the backlash to the vaccine, which mainly consisted of conservative groups who thought that vaccinating teenage girls was basically encouraging them to have sex before marriage. She doesn’t really point out anything new here, just kind of highlights how that’s a ridiculous and anti-feminist stance to take. However, Dubriwny was thoroughly vexed by the Garrison vaccine commercials. They featured middle-class white and African-American adolescent and teenage girls and encouraged those girls to protect their future health by getting the HPV vaccine. Dubriwny notes that HPV disproportionately affects low-income women and women of color, which wasn’t addressed in the commercials at all. But I can see how it would be problematic to direct a campaign focused exclusively on one of those groups.
Dubriwny ends her tome by encouraging the women’s heath movement to promote more and different subjectivities or something like that. She mentions a few blogs and action groups that she likes and that’s pretty much it. Doesn’t end on the strongest note. In terms of knowledge gained, I’d say that I’ve read more concise critiques of the BRCA obsession and the Gardisil vaccine elsewhere, and I didn’t like the postpartum depression chapter foe the reasons stated above. Like I said, this is your pretty standard academic book that’s not really meant to be read by many people anyway. But hey, at least I don’t have to feel guilty for not reading it anymore!
January 18, 2014
Winner of both the National Communication Association Bonnie Ritter Award and also the Organization for the Study of Language, Communication, and Gender Outstanding Authored Book in 2013, this text is a must read for anyone interested in feminism, women's health or media. The arguments excellent and the writing is enthralling.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews