This image really made me think about what a difficult, and extremely privileged, moment in time American women exist. As women, we have many options for health care, in most places. All the while, the rates of research being done on many health issues pertaining to women is astonishingly low. What would the world be like if we put half the effort into creating erectile dysfunction medication into women's health? It's difficult to say for sure, but there might be less support groups and more research groups for women's health issues.
I mentioned in class my experience with my case of Endometriosis (Endo for short). This disease is one of the most common gynecological diseases in the world, and it effects over 5 million women in the US alone. Something this common shouldn't be something that very few people know about. Endo is a chronic pain disease with no cure. The treatments for Endo are limited, archaic for our time and frequently only mask some of the symptoms while creating others.
Of course, being diagnosed with this disease has made me personally aware of the expansive gender gap that lies in the research being conducted in medical facilities all over our country. Not only do we need to increase the research being done in women's health, we need to change our societal attitude towards women's health. The shame factor needs to be taken out of going to the doctor with problems with our "private parts". Men and women should feel comfortable enough to go to a medical professional and ask for help. I think that this is something that our society is working towards, but I'm worried that politics might make us take a giant step backwards if we don't do something about this ourselves. We need to educate; ourselves, our children and others. Women and men should know more about their bodies and not feel ashamed by them. Education, awareness and research are the only ways that generations down the line a woman will be able to go to her doctor and say, "I've noticed lately that my cervix has been sensitive. Do you think that my endometrial lining might have gotten lost in my fallopian tubes at some point, causing this sensitivity in my cervix and pain around my ovaries?" And the doctor would take her concerns into consideration, instead of speculation.
Here's to the future.
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A side note: I found it interesting that while writing this, the words endometriosis and endometrial are unknown to the UAF computers. Maybe in 10 years or so, spell check will include these words.
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