Women's Health Advocacy

Women's Health Advocacy brings together academic studies and personal narratives to demonstrate how women use a variety of arguments, forms of writing, and communication strategies to effect change in a health system that is not only often difficult to participate in, but which can be actively harmful. It explicates the concept of rhetorical ingenuity-the creation of rhetorical means for specific and technical, yet extremely personal, situations. At a time when women's health concerns are at the center of national debate, this rhetorical ingenuity provides means for women to uncover latent sources of oppression in women's health and medicine and to influence matters of research, funding, policy, and everyday access to healthcare in the face of exclusion and disenfranchisement. This accessible collection will be inspiring reading for academics and students in health communication, medical humanities, and women's studies, as well as for activists, patients, and professionals.

Jamie White-Farnham is Associate Professor and Writing Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Bryna Siegel Finer is Associate Professor and the Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Cathryn Molloy is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in James Madison University's School of Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication.

Introduction Jamie White-Farnham and Cathryn Molloy Section 1: Rhetorics of Self Advocate Donna Laux 1. Writing My Body, Writing My Health: A Rhetorical Autoethnography Kim Hensley Owens 2. Temporal Disruptions: Illness Narratives Before and After Web 2.0 Ann Wallace 3.Analyzing PCOS Discourses: Strategies for Unpacking Chronic Illness and Taking Action Marissa McKinley 4.Rhetorics of Empowerment for Managing Lupus Pain: Patient-to-Patient Knowledge Sharing in Online Health Forums Cynthia Pengilly 5. Rhetorics of Self-Disclosure: A Feminist Framework for Infertility Activism Maria Novotny and Lori Beth De Hertogh Section 2: Rhetorics of/and the Patient Bridging the Gap in Care for Women Janeen Qadri 6. Making Bodies Matter: Norms and Excesses in the Well-Woman Visit Kelly Whitney 7. Doula Advocacy: Strategies for Consent in Labor and Delivery Sheri Rysdam 8. Gendered Responsibility: A Critique of HPV Vaccine Advertisements, 2006-2016 Erin Fitzgerald 9. "Pregnant? You Need a Flu Shot!": Safety and Danger in Medical Discourses of Maternal Immunization Lisa M. DeTora and Jennifer A. Malkowski 10. "Most Doctors Will Just Say 'Stop running'": Women Runners' Narratives, Agency, and Identity Billie R. Tadros Section 3: Rhetorics of Advocacy Fighting Cancer from Every Angle April Cabral 11.Reframing Efficiency Through Usability: The Code and Baby-Friendly USA Oriana Gilson 12. "You Have to Be Your Own Advocate": Patient Self-Advocacy as a Coping Mechanism for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk Marleah Dean 13. Activism by Accuracy: Women's Health and Hormonal Birth Control Kristin Marie Bivens, Kirsti Cole, and Amy Koerber 14. Altering Imaginaries and Demanding Treatment: Women's AIDS Activism in Toronto, 1980s-1990s Janna Klostermann 15. Costly Expedience: Reproductive Rights and Responses to Slut Shaming Laurie McMillan Afterword - "The Rhetorician [of Health and Medicine] as Agent of Social Change": Activism for the Whole Woman's Body Bryna Siegel Finer