health

The hunt for “pink Viagra”—a medical solution to women’s so-called sexual dysfunction, identified as an official disorder in 1999—has so far proven fruitless. Sociologists Cristalle Pronier and Elizabeth Monk-Turner suggest in the Journal of Gender Studies that we stop looking. Instead, we need to consider the relational aspects of sex that many women require for satisfaction.

After surveying more than 300 female students, staff, and faculty in university community, Pronier and Monk-Turner found that social factors such as feeling intimacy, sexual agency, emotional closeness, and low levels of stress were key to women’s self-reported sexual satisfaction. Contrary to the pharmaceutical mantra “a pill for every ill,” these researchers believe female friskiness (or at least arousal) has fairly little to do with rerouting blood flow.

Color-coded awareness ribbons abound these days. Even NFL football players wear pink gear during October to support breast cancer awareness. But, as Rachel Kahn Best reveals in the American Sociological Review (October 2012), this awareness has accomplished far more than selling ribbons and staging fundraising walks—it’s transformed how government funding for disease research is distributed in the United States.

Using data on federal medical research funding for 53 diseases between 1989 and 2007, Best shows that advocates for single diseases not only secured increased funding for their causes, but also changed how decisions are made to fund medical research. Because these efforts redefined the beneficiaries of medical research funding as patients rather than researchers, policymakers needed new metrics to make funding decisions.  A focus on “dollars per death” and “big killers” emerged, making mortality a primary measure for distributing research funding among diseases. This has provided a seemingly rational, fair, statistically-based—and appealing—way to make funding choices.

But the shift toward thinking of patients as the beneficiaries of medical research funding has also brought stigma and the relative “deservingness” of patients front and center. Some diseases, like muscular dystrophy, appear to have “innocent” victims, ill through no fault of their own. But because those with lung or liver cancer may suffer after making arguably poor choices, such as smoking or drinking, they (and their diseases) are seen as less deserving of research funds. Best’s analyses demonstrate that, indeed, such stigmatized diseases have generally received less research money in recent years.

Many contemporary reality shows focus on bodies that are “extreme” in one way or another. In a recent article, Laura Backstrom (Sociological Forum, September 2012) takes a closer look at a pair of these shows, finding that the presentations vary greatly based on conceptions of disability, responsibility, and identity.

Backstrom compares “Little People, Big World,” a reality show that follows a family in which the parents and one son are dwarfs, to “Ruby,” an eponymous show that chronicles the life of one obese woman. Both shows focus on the challenges posed by living with an abnormal body size, but in vastly different ways. In “Little People, Big World,” dealing with dwarfism is constructed as an identity project—encouraging bodily acceptance and a positive social identity. Additionally, the show attempts to de-stigmatize dwarfism and bring attention to the various ways that the world is “not built for little people.” Ruby’s challenges, on the other hand, are constructed as a body project—focusing on weight loss as the primary path to happiness. In contrast to the notion that the world should adapt to little people’s needs, there is no mention the world needing to be modified to fit Ruby’s body. Instead, the focus is on how Ruby’s body prevents her from participating fully in social life.

Backstrom finds that “Little People” follows the principles of the disability rights movement: little people are shown being encouraged to accept themselves as they are, exhibit a positive identity, and participate fully in the social world. Ruby’s obesity, however, is not a condition that fits into the disability rights model. Her  size is portrayed as a roadblock to a positive identity (and as an obstacle she can remove rather than accept). The solution to obesity in shows like these, Backstrom concludes, is always body modification, never de-stigmatization or acceptance of the obese body.

With all the benefits drinking water is said to provide—healthy skin, better digestion, more energy, weight loss, and more—it isn’t surprising that there are few places where people are not constantly sipping water. In the most recent issue of Body & Society, Kane Race provides some much needed context by asking how we got so obsessed with hydration.

Through detailed analysis of the global marketing of bottled water, Race shows companies have shifted our understanding of water as a basic resource to a personal health responsibility. Race finds companies have drawn on exercise science (not the medical or nutrition fields) and applied the conclusions of research on high performance athletes to the general population. Because, hey, even if we can’t perform like high-level athletes, we should drink like them!

The language of fluid replacement was soon mixed with disparate types of expertise to create an authoritative—and highly technical—explanation of the need to be hyper-hydrated. Perhaps most impressive, water companies, operating as medical experts, have established the counter-intuitive claim that thirst itself is not a reliable measure of when the body needs water.

Thanks to Race’s work, it is possible to see how successful advertising campaigns from companies such as Evian and Perrier and groups like the International Bottled Water Association have shaped our very experience of something as basic as drinking water. And he helps us understand how we reached such a precarious position: according to websites like Danone Waters’ Hydration4Health (for “health professionals” and the “general public“), we’re all just a few sips from dehydrated ruin.

Privileged moms like Victoria Beckham and Tori Spelling, with four cesareans each, have given rise to the idea that some women are “too posh to push,” scheduling their births instead.

Not so, say Louise Marie Roth and Megan Henley (Social Problems, May 2012), who examined data from 3.7 million U.S. births in 2006.  At first pass, higher levels of education appeared to be associated with greater odds of cesarean birth. But once race, age, pregnancy characteristics (pre-term birth, multiples, low birth weight, etc.), and complications of labor and delivery were taken into account, white women with greater privilege were shown to be the least likely to have surgical births. Other studies have shown that highly educated white women also choose home birth more than any other group.

Roth and Henley suggest class and race play a big role in the quality of medical care women receive. C-sections, which now make up one-third of all U.S. births, are associated with increased maternal deaths and other post-surgical complications. Minority women of lower socioeconomic status are more likely to have cesareans for less urgent reasons, suggesting that what looks like “posh” medical treatment on the surface might actually be a sign of low quality maternity care. Apparently, with privilege comes the ability to exercise more control in the delivery room and avoid, rather than choose, surgical delivery.

As we all await the Supreme Court ruling on the Constitutionality of federal health care reform (the 2010 Affordable Care Act), this summation of the polling data about what and how Americans actually think of the legislation and its various provisions, especially when asked about specific portions of the legislation, is very revealing.

It’s also worth clicking over to Contexts.org to read Skocpol’s short essay “People Like Health Reform When They Know What It Does” (full text online for free).

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation recently withdrew its grant funding for a Planned Parenthood program that provided over 170,000 clinical breast exams annually—and the move spiked a severe backlash, including threats of resignation from a number of Komen’s own board members. But it’s not the first time the politics of pink have come into question (nor will it be the last). Today’s reading list item will help provide nuance and context as you watch the Komen kerfuffle unfold in the coming days.