Women, health and the sexual division of labour : a case study of the women's health movement in Britain

Abstract

The women's health movement in Britain can be divided into three main stages. During the first period, most activities took place outside the National Health Service with the emphasis on women as consumers of medical care. Feminists exposed the sexism inherent in most medical practice and stressed the need for women to gain control of reproductive technology. During the second phase, these priorities began to change towards a greater concern with the NHS and the need to defend it against reductions in resources, and increasing privatisation. These campaigns involved women not just as users of medical services, but also as health workers, bringing the women's health movement into the wider political arena. Socialist feminists argued that feminist participation in health struggles was essential if the NHS was to be not merely defended but qualitatively changed to meet the real needs of users and workers. During the third (and current) stage of the women's health movement, feminists have moved beyond a concern with medical care alone towards the development of a socialist feminist epidemiology - towards the identification and eventual elimination of those aspects of contemporary society that make women sick.