Women’s Health

What are the policies, beliefs and cultural practices that harm or that enhance women’s health? This page includes research from three countries (the US, Israel and Okinawa, Japan).


2000 What Makes Women Sick?: Militarism, Maternity and Modesty in Israeli Society, University Press of New England. This book was selected as a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and for the Koret Foundation Book Award.

2017 The GOP’s Comprehensive Plan to Undermine Women’s Health CareHuffington Post.

2017 Repeal and Replace is a Women’s IssueOur Bodies Ourselves.

2016 Pennsatucky’s Teeth and the Persistence of Class. In Feminist Perspectives on Orange is the New Black: Thirteen Critical Essays. Pp. 128-139 in April Householder and Adrienne Trier-Bieniek (eds.). McFarland Press.

2016 The Social Implications of ZikaThe Hill.

2016 Jamie Shupe’s Victory Over Binaries Run Amok. Daily Kos.

2016 Like the “Girl Who Hides a Razor Blade in Her Mouth,” Coerced Addiction Treatment Has Many VictimsThe Influence.

2016 Maternal Health and Rights Deserve Their DayOur Bodies Ourselves.

2015 The Worst of Pinktober “Breast Cancer Awareness” ProductsBitchMedia.

2014 The Problems with PinktoberBitchMedia.

2014 In California, Yes Means YesBitchMedia.

2013 (with Maureen Norton-Hawk) “Criminalized Women and the Healthcare System: The Case for Continuity of Services,” Journal of Correctional Health Care 19(3): 164-177.

2011 (with Marilyn Delle Donne Proulx) “Lessons for Women’s Health from the Massachusetts Reform: Affordability, Transitions and Choice,” Women’s Health Issues 21(1): 1-5.

2009 “Ten Reasons Why Health Care Reform is a Massachusetts Women’s Issue.” Publication of Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, Suffolk University. (300 copies distributed by the Massachusetts Health Council, March 2009.)

2008 (with Maureen Norton-Hawk) “Why Health Care Services for Postincarceration Women are Ineffective,” Women, Girls and Criminal Justice 9/6.

2008 Women and Health Care Reform in Massachusetts: Policy Brief,” publication of Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, Suffolk University.

2008 (with Maureen Norton-Hawk) “Disrupted Lives, Fragmented Care: Illness Experiences of Criminalized Women,” Women and Health 48(1).

2007 Barriers to Health Care for Women who have been Incarcerated (with Maureen Norton-Hawk), publication of Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, Suffolk University.

1999 “‘You are a Number, Not a Human Being’: Israeli Breast Cancer Patients’ Experiences with the Medical Establishment,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 13(3): 223-252.

1998 (with Ephraim Tabory) “Accessibility of Information and Informed Consent: Experiences of Women Cancer Patients,” HaRefuah 134(2): 88-92 (in Hebrew)

1998 “Women’s Experiences with Breast Cancer: Focus upon Oncological Nursing” (with Ephraim Tabory) Oncological Nursing (in Hebrew).

1996 “Women and the Medical System: An Exploratory Study among Breast Cancer Patients,” in Amy Avgar, ed. Breast Cancer in Israel. Jerusalem: JDC-Brookdale Institute of Gerontology and Human Development (in Hebrew).

1994 “Women’s Experiences with the Health Care System: Descriptive Research among Women with Breast Cancer,” Oncological Nursing 3(4): 4-7 (in Hebrew).