A WOMAN AND HER DOCTOR, THE NEW PARTNERSHIP
Women can be their own health protectors without suffering through life-threatening scares like the one Karen survived, but with knowledge. It's time to remove the blinders from both sides of this partnership. Women are no longer Victorian maidens and doctors don't have to examine them under covers anymore. It isn't necessary for gynecologists to be as remote as historian Carl N. Degler, author of Af Odds, tells us they were in the 1800s: "Most physicians, throughout the nineteenth century, in order to avoid any charges of impropriety, bent over backwards not to appear too familiar. As a result, lights were dim during the examination, and the examination and delivery were by touch only; if instruments were used they had to be manipulated under covers! One male writer even pointed out proudly, in justification of modesty, that one of the greatest male obstetricians had been blind!" Dr. Fielding, with his impaired mental vision, acted like a man of the last century.
You probably won't find any blind obstetricians in delivery rooms today, but you may run into a lack of communication between a woman and her doctor, and that in itself is a kind of blindness that leading physicians are trying to cure. The best doctors are now realizing that they can only give women the most complete medical care if women are well-informed. A smart doctor won't automatically fit a woman with an IUD if she wants birth control; instead he'll explain all the different forms of contraception and together, they'll decide what suits her needs. An informed woman will want to feel in control of her body, will take time to listen to the latest findings, and will become one half of a better health collaboration.
Of course, the idea of a woman's having a command of herself is relatively new in America. When a woman talked about taking "control of her body" in the nineteenth century, she meant that she said "no" to her husband once in a while when he wanted sexual intimacy and she didn't. In older, European societies, women were bolder sooner. They were more conscious of their sexual options, the intricacies of their bodies, and their health. Openness between a woman and her doctor happened many years ago. In fact, not just women, but men and women were encouraged to learn more about medicine from their European doctors.
During the first half of this century, birth-control-champion Margaret Sanger let people know that sexual pleasure and procreation could be separated, and American men and women began to grasp their physical choices. The women's movement, which began in the late sixties, spawned important books like Our Bodies, Ourselves in the early seventies, and women began to understand their right to be outspoken. They also enjoyed a deeper comprehension of their bodies and their power. But equality in the doctor's office still hadn't happened.
*2\333\2*
Women's Health