April 3, 2003 Episode 39: "Honey, Just Buy 2 Aspirin and Call Me in 10 Years"
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women held its 47th Session early in March. The world was busy paying attention to the impending war and missed the irony that the commission was unable to draft agreed conclusions on violence against women before closing its session on March 14th, 2003. In 1993, Carl wrote a paper entitled In 1993, Carl wrote a paper called Third World Women and European/American Medicine: Historical Trends, Future Prospects, and Development Options for a class he took called "Politics of Developing Areas." As we contemplated the commission's failure to come to some sort of agreement on a statement opposing violence against women, we remembered Carl's paper and thought about how little has changed in the ten years since he wrote the paper.
This week Carl read some excerpts from his paper and we discuss how the oligopolistic tendencies of western medicine, especially American medicine and especially pharmaceutical companies, are incompatible with the desire to make women healthier and safer.
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women held its 47th Session early in March. The world was busy paying attention to the impending war and missed the irony that the commission was unable to draft agreed conclusions on violence against women before closing its session on March 14th, 2003. A week later, the war on Iraq began, putting women and children in further harm's way.
The commission was established in 1946 to prepare recommendations and reports to the Council on promoting women's rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. The Commission also makes recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring immediate action in the field of women's rights. Women's health, violence toward women, women's poverty and women's equality are all critical areas of concern.
The 47th session of the Commission on the Status of Women addressed elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls as defined in the Beijing Platform for Action.
The failure of the commission to find agreement on conclusions on violence against women points out the difficulties of bringing together a great many cultures to come to agreement on most issues. The tedious process is encumbered by the need to balance gender issues with cultural practices and economic realities.
In 1993, Carl wrote a paper called Third World Women and European/American Medicine: Historical Trends, Future Prospects, and Development Options for a class he took called Politics of Developing Areas. Development in impoverished parts of the world is highly dependent upon raising the status of women. Consideration of indigenous practices must be included in planning and implementation or impasses will become impossibilities.
We wondered if the status of women had changed much since 1993. Did the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action do anything to make the world better for women? The sad truth is that many of the same problems identified in Carl's paper in 1993 still exist and still remain on the international table. While some things have changed for the better, women's issues continue to be put on the back burner. We came to the conclusion that an oligopolistic view of health care was holding back progress in promoting the health of women in developing countries.
This week, Carl shares excerpts from his paper and we discuss the complexities of women's well-being in the developing world in an episode we call, "Honey, Just Buy Two Aspirin and Call Me in Ten Years."
copyright by Pattie Thomas and Carl Wilkerson 2003
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