Okazawa Rey Chapter 5 Summary

In Chapter 5 of Women’s Lives Multicultural Perspectives by Gwyn Kirk and Okazawa-Rey, many key concepts arise. The chapter discusses women’s health and the social controversies that contribute. There were many interesting points that were brought up in this chapter. The first one I found interesting was the discussion of childbirth and the new reproductive technologies that are developing. With new technological advances being made every day, it has become easier and easier to have children if you are someone that could usually not. These technological advances “hold out the hope that infertile couples or postmenopausal women will be able to have children.” (218, Okazawa-Rey) With the existence of surrogate mothers and fertility clinics
people are able to pick out specific attributes of their desired surrogate mother. These advances lead to huge moral controversies. Another part of the chapter involved the direct relationship between poverty and illness included were statistics like “In 2010, worldwide, 7.6 million children died before their fifth birthday, mainly from malnutrition, malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, and HIV/AIDS” (219, Okazawa-Rey) This is a shocking, tragic and very real problem.
There is also a direct correlation between race, class and gender and illness. Again, the chapter introduces some facts that are hard to accept for example, middle class women are more likely to know about mammograms and screenings that detect cancer although breast cancer effects one in nine women. (220, Okazawa-Rey) As well as cancer, there are other diseases that women do not have access to early detection whether that is because symptoms usually are not as apparent in women as in men. There are many ways that women can improve their health but it seemed a bit unfair reading about the inequalities between women of different races and different economical standpoints. “This disparity is attributed to a mix of overlapping factors including income level, educational attainment, occupation, access to health services, neighborhood and work conditions, and so forth — factors linked to both race and class.” (220,
Okazawa-Rey) One thing in the reading I found particularly interesting and shocking was that a main reason women give birth on their backs is for the convenience of the doctor although this position is the hardest to give birth in. It also gave rise to a very politically relevant conversation about the moral question about reproductive technologies. Are these new technologies good because they give the opportunity of parenthood to people that would not otherwise have it? Or is it bad because it becomes some would say unnatural when you're able to pick qualities you want your baby to have through the surrogate mother. Another technology that is becoming popular is that women are able to push back going through menopause but they have found out that in doing so you are increasing the risk of cancer. Something that surprised me was that some feminists like Shulamith Firestone and others think that it is the ability that women have to give birth that contributes to the oppression and subordinate position that women face daily. Up until reading this chapter, I thought that it was a universal feminist ideal that the fact that women can have babies is a reason to be proud as a woman. This is something that only women can do and therefore should be something that we embrace. Although there are some that feel that way there are some that feel the opposite. Firestone believes that the only way women will finally be free from the oppression is if we are not tied to our ability to reproduce. (218, Okazawa-Rey)