Here are some of my papers on important women’s health issues that I explored in three Penn courses.
Adolescent Women’s Contraceptive Non-Use in Developing Countries
In Fall 2018’s HSOC 348 course, Issues in Global Health, I wrote on the access and use of contraception by adolescents in developing regions of the world. I focused my case study on Bangladesh and emphasized the powerful cultural and social decision factors contributing to the less than ideal access and use of contraception. Although there have been notable efforts in increasing modern contraception adoption for adolescent girls, they are yet to have full control of their reproductive health outcomes.
“Empowerment” for Incarcerated Women in the U.S.
In Fall 2019, for NURS/GSWS 555, Women and Incarceration, our class visited Riverside Correctional Facility (RCF) weekly to facilitate health education workshops. After getting to know the women at RCF over the course of ten weeks, I chose to write my paper on the empowerment, and by association, the self-efficacy and agency, of formerly and currently incarcerated women. It is essential that programs created to support these women apply the empowerment model in an empathetic, focused, and intentional way.
Pathologizing Menstruation in the Western World (1768 to 1810)
In Spring 2020, for HSOC 216, Gender & Health, I explored the topic of menstruation for our “domestic health advice” project, in which we delved into Penn’s Rare Books library. The contents of domestic health guides revealed how doctors viewed and addressed menstruation during that time. Though both the 1768 and 1810 manuals communicated similar, long-held beliefs on health and on women, the shift towards medicalizing menstruation was a notable difference between the two manuals. Today, the problems around menstruation are still perplexing and being pathologized.