Author: Anastasia Spiridonova

Definition of “normal” depends on a society you live in. The society is shaped by cultural norms. But who establishes cultural norms? The obvious and incorrect (I believe so) answer is majority of people. However, my answer on who defines cultural norms is norms are defined by a group of people who manipulates society in order to increase their power and money and a small group of radical people.

So who benefits from establishing what is “normal” sex life? On top of my list are pharmaceutical companies that by medicalizing sexuality they can make medications for imaginary disease and make billions of money curing women who do not need cure. Next are doctors. As much as I respect doctors and eager to embrace modern medicine as anyone who needs help, as I grow older I become more and more skeptical of doctors work. However, neither doctors nor big companies can make money or doctors establish norms in medicine without some support from the population. Unfortunately, in the United States usually some very conservative, religious and loud minority dictates what is normal. It is admirable that voice of minority is heard. However, in case of American society minority makes life of majority hellish.

There are several problems I can identify with doctors. In the United States doctors, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies live in symbiosis and cannot survive without each other. Often doctors are doctors and businesspeople at the same time. So understanding doctors’ intentions is really hard. Another problem is harm doctors cause to the society when they in a rush of solving everything with medicine. For example, Carolyn Lewis gives an example how general physicians saw themselves as figures fit to solve problems of sexual lives of Americans by performing premarital pelvic exam to show women what to expect on wedding night. What interesting is that doctors argued that young women were confused, anxious, and ill prepared for wedding night (doctors also assumed women would be virgins). At that time doctors, using similar language, argued that women could not understand side effects of DES. Therefore in mid-twentieth century cultural norm was to see a woman as passive vagina, a mother, a hysteric, and a property that belonged to men. Women in menopause and young girl were urged to take DES to get personality or physical appearance appealing to men, and young women needed to get fiancé permission to get premarital cervical exam. So along these lines we can expect our doctors to make us to comply with modern stereotypes. But since we live in this time period, it is hard for us to identify these cultural norms.

Today over sexualized media and culture tell women how they have to look and what sexual life they have to have. With the help of plastic surgeons and medications desired look and sex life can be achieved. According to “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” in last decades labiaplasty became very popular. Unfortunately, young girls and women learn how their vulva supposed to look like from porn. According to documentary “Sexy Baby” (I saw it a year ago), one of the women in the documentary went under knife because she could not enjoy sex because she did not like how her vulva looked like and her doctor reinforced her insecurity. Therefore, because of luck of experience (arguably intense) Elizabeth Reis describes in her article “What is in your vulva?”, women grow up judging themselves based on porn that everyone with access to internet can see. Absence of visual proof of different vulvas, absence of open talk about what to expect from sex, how to enjoy, or what is a norm for individual woman separates and imprisons women in their luck of knowledge. This ignorance allows loud minorities to create dissonance that later doctors, big corporations, people with power, porno industry, and pharmaceutical companies use to make money on women and harm them. DES proved to be lethal in the long run. So Viagra for women can also turned out to be lethal.

By the way I just finished watching documentary “Let’s talk about sex” to my surprise and my delight I saw you professor in it.

Cultural beliefs about gender such as women are responsible for delivering healthy babies and women serve men’s needs played a major role in approval and use of DES. Pharmaceutical companies exploited cultural beliefs about women to transform perception of a female body. Companies targeted women from childbearing age to post menopause age that created huge market for a newly developed drug. As twentieth century progressed government and companies could not say that women’s only job was to please men out loud because women became more self-conscience. Therefore, instead companies used tactics of transforming women’s understanding of their bodies and their duties to their families.

So let us consider pregnancy and giving birth. Pregnancy and giving birth can result in miscarriages and stillbirths. However, using wartime insensitive that was a need for healthy nation and idea that science can fix everything pharmaceutical companies told women that it was their duty as women to create a healthy nation. Such situation can be paralleled with our current society where women are expected to and pressured to do everything to deliver healthy babies. In other worlds, responsibility for a healthy nation is put on women instead of emphasizing importance and a role of the government and big corporations that exploit and poison people and environment. So women were pressured to accept usage of DES to deliver healthy babies while refusal to comply with DES meant refusal to be a good mother and not to be a woman who did not want to put chemicals in her body. Therefore, the women’s primary role was and still is portrayed as being mother.

Being mother leads to the second cultural stereotype that was doing everything for family’s happiness and that stereotype targeted women before, during and after menopause. Natural process of menopause was seen as a threat to family’s happiness and especially to men’s comfort. In other words, a good mother would not cause distress to her children by complaining and making their life hard or by divorce. So children’s happiness was abused to serve men’s needs where women were pressured to use medications to prove that they were good mothers and, therefore, hiding their self for the needs of their children.

However, the most horrific cultural belief that allowed for DES approval and use was that women were not capable of understanding importance or danger of side effects of DES. More specifically, women were expected to get hysterical and irrational about usage of DES. However, companies used cultural beliefs to manipulate American society to get DES approval and make huge amounts of money on a drug they knew was dangerous. Unfortunately, DES is not the only example. Cultural beliefs are used today in the same way. Women are responsible for delivering healthy babies while corporations can be unregulated and make money on products that make impossible to deliver healthy babies, that cause cancer and infertility in both men and women, that destroy environment and threaten existence of life on Earth. Cultural beliefs about women are used to justify violence against women, pornography, restricting abortion and many other things. To summarize, people with money and power shape cultural beliefs about genders to acquire more money and more power.

By the ways menstruation, HPV, and menopause are presented female sexuality does not exist. Sexuality, according to various dictionaries, means possession of the structural and functional traits of sex, recognition of or emphasis upon sexual matters, involvement in sexual activity, an organism’s preparedness for engaging in sexual activity. However, the ways menstruation, HPV, and menopause are represented allows to exploit women to increase profit from selling relating goods, deny women their sexuality and biology, exclude both transgendered men and women, and allow to avoid talking about sex.

Women are consumers. However, HPV, menstruation, and menopause create additional market for big corporation. Tampons, pads, cup and other ways to deal with blood flow and painkillers help a lot to get through bleeding, pain and discomfort during menstruation. However, commercials that sell those products do not accurately show or inform women about what menstruations are, how they work, how to deal with them, or what is normal and what is not. So female relatives and friends has to teach young girls about menstruation. However, such handling of situation leaves a lot of necessary information out. Also commercials are all about smiley young women who can live their lives without discomfort during their menstruation. However, as video “The Camp Gyno” satirizes modern commercials leave out that women actually bleed or how much they bleed during menstruation, the society learns that women cannot show or feel bad during menstruations and have to be always on top of their games, women depend on companies that produce pads and tampons, companies make menstruation kits to make extra money on women and hide the fact that women have menstruations. Moreover, pharmaceutical corporations use HPV as a way to sell vaccination that is not reliable safe or effective. In similar ways, “Toxic Bodies” talks about how DES was used to make money of women’s menopause. Therefore, women’s biology is used to make money.

Not only corporations make money on women’s biology they also use to manipulate women, deny them their sexuality and avoid taking about sex. When we talked about obesity, women were responsible for healthy nation. Now using HPV vaccination pharmaceutical companies, doctors and government puts pressure on women to have HPV free nation. They disguise vaccine as a way to help women to avoid cervical cancer. However, as Susan Haack noted, no one expects boys to be vaccinated with painful vaccine that may be ineffective and no one cares that vaccine may cause more harm than good to vaccinated girls. Moreover, according to “Producing and Protecting Risky Girlhood,” vaccine producers made cervical cancer that is not as wildly spread as breast cancer into number one cancer and overlook that safety can be achieved with safe sex. Therefore, HPV is used to make money and to avoid taking or requiring proper sex education. Girls learn to see themselves at risk of HPV on a regular bases not as a result of sex. And according to video “The curse” girls and young women were taught menstruation was a process leading to motherhood. While women were taught about menopause, according to “Casting an Evil Spell over Her Once Happy Family” as a disease that needs to be medicated and need to be objects that serve men’s needs.

So we end up with the situation where women’s sexuality does not exist. Instead we have menstruation, HPV and menopause that are biology that must be medically fixed (read used to make money and control) and are coined as women’s problems. In addition, in modern world where transgendered men and women do not need to hide, according to article “Why we must stop calling menstruation a women’s issue representation, menstruation (HPV and menopause as well) separate trans men from men because they still have menopause and menstruation and trans women because they do not fit the profile of women who have menstruation and menopause and can have HPV. So I think we need to talk and educate both men and women, boys and girls about menopause, menstruation and HPV (and male related disease or problems or whatever they have) so nether gender can be an easy pray used to make money and that will promote equality between men and women by teaching needs and biology of opposite gender.

Fortunately or unfortunately women create life and push it out of their bodies. So some people may say that birth is women’s problem and overlook men’s part in conception of a fetus. However, even if birth is a women’s problem, women constitute half of the world’s population. Therefore, overlooking half of the world’s population is unfair. Moreover, since we all come into this world through birth, may suffer from complications during our birth, or decide to have children, problems, questions, and care associated with birth cannot be overlook by neither gender. Women have to be concerned about birth because there is always a chance she will need to go through it. Men have to be concerned because they are usually constituting majority in government and make laws that concern birth, maternal and infant care, because they participate in conception.

Usually when you read history book, you read about midwives helping women to give birth. However, during last couple of centuries doctors took control over women’s reproduction. And since men were and still are majority in the government and medicine, they are the one who establish norms of birth, maternal and infant care. Nurse-midwives are rare in the American society, and doctors deliver almost all babies. Such situation looks barbaric to me since I grew up in a different culture. I was born and raised in Russia (I do not argue that Russia is better I just making a point that I had a different experience). So my grandparents, parents, my brother, me, and literally all my relatives were delivered in hospitals by nurse midwives with doctors standing by in case of emergency. However, in the United States, according to Wendy Kline practice of midwives got back starting only in seventies as a counter push to prevailing delivery of babies by C-section. It seems also crazy to me that women are sent home the next day she delivers a baby. Like wow. What does a woman suppose to do with a baby that just fell out of her? In Russia a woman and a baby spends a week in a hospital after a birth so doctors can do follow up checks on both of them. So you give birth and stay in hospital for free. Therefore, the fact that in the United States some women choose to give birth at home with non professionally trained midwives rather than go to hospital and go through C-section looks insane to me. I see the argument about not wanting to go through C-section, but at the same time not to have comfort of having a doctor in case of emergency looks scary. I really do not want to die during childbirth. However, in the United States even with prevailing C-section, according to article by Sarah Frostenson “More and more women are dying in childbirth, but only in America” in the last thirty years mortality has increased in the United States because of worsening health of American women.

I think the world and not only the United States is messed up. Like pay taxes but we will not guarantee you health insurance, maternal or infancy care, or maternity leave, but we will regulate your reproductive rights, let big corporations use you as lab rats and make money on you. Or that getting pregnant and giving birth is a natural process, but laws make it a privilege to have means to raise a child. Women can give birth naturally but lets make money of women and give everyone a C-section. Men cannot give birth but let them make all laws concerning women. However, if you try to raise such questions you perceived as alarmist that sees problems where they do not exist.

Since I never was pregnant, I do not have full expertise to judge how women feel about their fetuses. However, since I was a child, I detested an idea to have my own children. For me pregnancy and giving birth represents the end of my life where I can live for myself and fulfill my ambitions. Such a view may be wrong. However, since I do not want to ever get married and I do not have wealthy parents and I know about complications of having a child at the age of thirty-five or forty years and many other reasons (plus I cannot stand pain and I have lupus), I cannot see myself having children ever. In my view, a fetus is an alien parasite that grows in your body, sucks life out of your body, hurts your body while it gets out, destroys your body, possibly kills you and that are only physical stresses you need to get through. What about social stress? Who is going to pay for health insurance, rent, food, bills and other supplies? Where are you going to work? What work schedule you can work? When you will be able to work? Who is going to sit with your child? However, in light of reading for this week I learnt that different aspects I did not know before makes having a child scary.

Fetus rights frighten me. So should be any woman. In some state for women getting pregnant means loosing their rights to fetus. For example, according to an article “Not All Objefication Is Sexual: The Return of The Fetal Container” by Alison Reiheld, four states: Minnesota, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, authorities can confine women for substance abuse because women are considered as a danger to their fetuses. Indeed, medical community agrees that drugs, cigarettes, many medications, and alcohol pose danger to fetus. However, taking into consideration that substance abuse and alcoholism often go hand in hand with poverty, we need to rethink how to help women with such problems instead of taking away their freedom by confining them and by alienating them from seeking medical help. Also, as usual women who had such addictions but quit will be first to be hurt by such laws. Prioritizing fetus rights that is only a bunch of sells over rights of a woman who is already living does not makes any sense because fetus is part of a woman and not a separate being. Moreover, allowing state government to prioritize fetus right over woman’s rights gives precedent of questioning abortion.

If we give rights to fetus, we very possible will take away women’s right for abortion. Proponents of fetus rights can argue that abortion is a form of abuse like alcohol or substance abuse that harms fetus. At the same time, contraception that works for one hundred percent does not exists. So we get to a point where if a woman has sex she has to be ready to serve as an incubator for nine months with other responsibilities for many years. However, Adrianne Asch said in “Will we need to have abortion in utopia?” “the society that validates many different kinds of lives cannot insist that all women and men should find parenting rewarding.” So for American society that is obsessed on capitalism and democracy valuing any life cannot take rights from women when they reach their puberty and making them incubators.

As long as fetus stays inside a woman’s body, it has to be treated as any other woman’s organ. When a baby is born, he or she gets his or her own rights.

Free cheese can be found only in a mousetrap. And an advertisement from the University of Oregon student newspaper with a cheerful slogan “What’s a few eggs between friends?” offers cheese, $4000, for something almost any woman has in abundance, eggs. However, the advertisement does not say anything about hormone shots, blood work, doctors’ appointments and other many procedures or consequences of those procedures. Instead the advertisement says that the procedure would take place in “the pleasant Eugene clinic over a period of just six weeks.” However, positive rhetoric of the advertisement covers up an egg donation industry that sells a dream to infertile parents by taking advantage of young women and possibly damaging their health.

Egg donation industry buys, sells and makes money on making children. How is so? Simple, egg donation industry sells the dream to infertile parents by taking advantage of young women with financial trouble. Even though, programs that look for donors sell egg donation as an act of good will of helping infertile parents and, as Katie O’Reilly says in her article “Superdonor” and Rene Almeling says in her paper “Gender and the Value of Bodily Goods,” want candidates that want to donate eggs for some high moral reasons and not just for money. However, describing her experience, O’Reilly says that she donated eggs because she needed money. And, if you think about donation process where a woman needs to take hormone shots every day to stimulate egg production and other medications that can be potentially harmful or that retrieval of eggs is invasive process, most women without financial problem would not go through the process. I do not take into account special cases like donating an egg to an actual friend. We are discussing the process of taking possibly dangerous medications that can cause a woman infertility for the sake of some strangers who pays her for doing that. So, the whole process is not about doing something magical like helping infertile parents. Donation of eggs is about wealthy people buying young women eggs with risks of health problems for those women.

As a result, egg donation under a slogan of helping poor souls, infertile parents, to get their dreams, to get a child, abuse college student women who try to earn a degree for financially secure future. And to be more specific, the target is college student women whose parents cannot fully cover their needs. Also graduate female students are target since, for example, a salary of physics graduate student is between 20,000 and 30,000 dollars per year and an additional 4,000 or 5,000 dollars in six weeks sounds like a very good deal. Moreover, development of egg donation and egg freezing allows big companies to delay or control female reproductive age. According to the article “Why corporate promotion of egg freezing isn’t a “benefit” to all women” by Rachel Walden, companies like Apple and Facebook pay $20,000 to their female employees for freezing their eggs and postponing bearing a child. Therefore, as Walden points out Apple and Facebook and similar big companies use egg freezing technologies to avoid making accommodations for women who decide to have children and, therefore, oppress women. So egg donation development sells children, takes advantage of women who have difficulties with money (especially targeting college students), and gives a way to oppress women in male dominated professions by making women to choose between having a family or a career.

As one of a few physics students among majority of engineer students at Macaulay Honors College at the City College, sometimes my fellow Macaulay students perceive me as a detached from the mundane world person because they think physics is useless in everyday life. And I am not the only science student that faces such prejudice. The society evolved to see scientists and doctors as inhabitants of a different world where they work for a greater good of the humankind and study unimaginable things. Such cultural view has evolved from absence of communication between scientists and the rest of the society, abuse of people by scientists and detachment of scientific world from mundane world. The case of Hanrietta Lacks illustrates why such prejudice against scientists exists.

For biologist the year of birth of HeLa cells, 1951, marked the beginning of a new era where testing on human cells became possible. For Lacks family 1973 marked the beginning of a new era of horror where Henrietta’s cells were alive and used in scientific experiments. Without ability to get answers from John Hopkins hospital, Lacks were left in the darkness for another twenty-seven years. Finally Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, and son, Zakariyya, first saw their mothers cell in the laboratory of Lengauer. However, before Henrietta’s children saw her cells in 2000, Dr. McKusick postdoctoral fellow Susan Hsu contacted Henrietta’s family in 1973. Dr. McKusick needed the blood of Henrietta’s children and husband for genetic experiments that would establish genetic markers of HeLa cells. In other words, Dr. McKusick send his postdoctoral fellow Susan Hsu with heavy English accent to contact Lacks and draw their blood.

The drawing of blood from Lacks started their abuse by the scientists. Lacks understood that their blood would be used to check if they had cancer and did not know that their blood would be used for research. Furthermore, when Deborah came to John Hopkins to give more blood, she met Dr. McKusick who started explaining where Henrietta’s cells were used without giving proper scientific background and gave her signed by him textbook on genetics and a phone number for future blood draw appointments. Such treatment clearly indicates Dr. McKusick ignorance, discourtesy and negligence of people outside of his field of study and people with lack of scientific education. He treated Deborah as a test subject while not giving her and her family courtesy for helping to solve multimillion problem with HeLa contamination. In addition, years later, when Susan Hsu learned about injustice toward Lacks family and her failure to properly explain to Lacks the need for their blood, even though Hsu was sorry for injustice, she was more concerned if she could do more research on Lacks. Therefore, the belief into scientists’ cold-heartedness and detachment from human feeling has a good soil to grow from.

And yet, not all scientists have detached from human feelings. Cancer researcher at John Hopkins Christopher Lengauer invited Henrietta’s children to his laboratory to show HeLa cells. Two of Henrietta’s children, Deborah and Zakariyya, took the offer and, twenty-seven years later since they learned that their mother’s cells were alive saw HeLa cells. Moreover, Lengauer showed where cells were kept, explained what they were used for, biology of a cell, and other necessary information Deborah and Zakariyya needed to understand what HeLa cells meant for scientific community and how they worked. In contrast to previous experience with John Hopkins’ scientists, Lengauer spent time with Deborah and Zakariyya, and, using apprehensible language, he explained science they needed to understand HeLa cells. After all most people outside biology field do not have necessary background in biology to understand the textbook on genetics given to Deborah by Dr. McKusick. So scientists need to learn to communicate with general public. No excuse can justify scientists not trying to explain their work to people outside of their area of study because scientists become a general public the moment they try to understand something outside their area of study. As a conclusion, Lacks case can be used to show how should and should not scientists treat people outside of their research area.

Neither Dr. Wharton nor Dr. Gey did anything wrong by collecting cells from Hanrietta Lacks and growing them in the laboratory. The bigger picture, in 1950 scientists for decades had been trying to grow cell in laboratories without success and collecting samples without patients’ consent. Therefore, in environment where patients’ agreement for taking cell or tissue donor did not exist, Hanrietta Lacks’ case was not an exception from the universal procedure. Moreover, in case of Hanrietta removed samples of tissue did not cause any damage or influenced her disease or her treatment. If Hanrietta’s cell did not survive as millions of cells tested before her, the case of wrong doing by Dr. Wharton and Dr. Gey would not exists. Dr. Wharton and Dr. Gey followed the universal habit of the medical society of that time, taking samples and trying to grow cell, in order to find cells that could be grown to use for experiments and research. Since neither of doctors tried to gain profit from samples taken from anyone in their reach, their actions cannot be considered as a wrong doing because Dr. Gey and Dr. Wharton tried to advance science to help people like Hanrietta, and they collected samples without causing any damage to her health.

Moreover, growing Hanrietta’s cell in the laboratory by Dr. Gey did not cause any physical or emotional damage to Henrietta nor conducted unusual procedure of that time. I cannot deny or overlook emotional tragedy of Hanrietta’s family. However, the tragedy was caused by decades of segregation of American society, people seeking profit and capitalist society. From his side, Dr. Gey made attempts to protect Lacks’ family privacy like by non disclosing Hanrietta’ real name for some decades. For Dr. Gey Hanrietta was nameless donor of cells that he could use for greater good of humankind.

The conflict between science advancement and donor’s permission can be compared to conflict between religion and science advancement in German movie “The Physician.” The movie is about poor Englishman who disguised as a Jew traveled from England to Persia to study medicine from the famous healer. The conflict raised in the movie is between religion and science. More precisely, Islam prohibited opening sacred human bodies and learning God’s secret of man making, while medicine needed to open up bodies to know how to heal people. So religion did not allow opening human bodies and doctors needed to go around to advance science. The same situation is happing in our discussion where taking tissue samples without consent is justified by benefits to humankind. Doctors and scientists are justified to take and research samples without consent because they work for benefits of the humankind without physically hurting those from whom samples are taken. Moreover, asking for consent may trick people to give up their profit share if their donated tissue may be commercialized and may prevent scientists to get samples, for example, from people whose religious believes prohibit donating tissue or cells that would create a void in knowledge of certain groups of people. If humankind wants science to heal them, they have to let scientists to test their tissue and cells without restrictions.

The possible opposition is that people own their cells. Indeed, people have the right of ownership of their cells like musicians own their songs. In other words, if someone’s cells get into commerce or benefit humankind, the person has to get recognition and financial compensation as an owner of cells.

Throughout the history women were perceived as week, hysterical, small-mined creatures. Even today, in order for women to succeed in male dominated businesses, they need to acquire characteristics ascribed to men such as masculine, rational, less emotional, and strong. As a result, women try to hide their feelings, their emotional states, and fears because they are afraid to be considered weak and feeble.

The stigma put on women as being weak creatures makes women to hide their weaknesses that can be either normal behavior for women or signs of a mental illness. For example, Mary Wood describes in “Life Writing and Schizophrenia” how while her mother was getting sick, her fears based on prejudice against women and Jews turned into her reality. However, instead of asking for help, Wood’s mother was afraid that her children would be taken away from her because of her sickness. In addition, Julia Holland, psychiatrist, in her “Medicating Women’s Feelings” says that women get medications to suppress their natural behavior in favor of men like behavior in order to succeed in the modern society. Based on Wood’s mother experience of being mentally sick and Holland’s account how healthy women are put on medications to suppress their personality, the society makes women to sacrifice their personalities for stereotypes imposed on them.
After being put on medications for schizophrenia, Wood’s mother lived in constant fear of loosing access to medications, becoming homeless, suffering from medications side effects, and loosing herself in probable spike of schizophrenia. A good example of how Mary Wood’s mother lost her personality is the story Wood tells about how she told her mother about amazing authors she discovered and her mother told that she read all those authors. Because of schizophrenia, side effects of medications, inattention of doctors who do not try to understand their patient, health system that does not guarantee people with mental illnesses lifelong medications they need, constant income, people with mental illnesses as Wood’s mother lose their personality to their illnesses.

However, in the American society with large income gaps between people, many people with mental illnesses do not have access to medical care and medications they need. According to Siobhan Brook account, her mother never had access to medications she needed. Moreover, in “Black Feminism in Everyday Life” Brook does not mention or may not ever know about her mother’s personality before she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. For Brook schizophrenia is not central piece of her mother’s personality. Instead Brook concentrates on how being raised by black, poor mother makes her life experience different from experience of white women.

Wood and Forney raise the problem of the price on medications for metal illnesses. High prices on medications for mental illnesses mean that many people cannot afford medications they need or to go to a doctor. Forney says that she pays two hundred dollar for a visit to her psychiatrist. So people like Brook’s mother cannot afford to go to a doctor. As a result, they lose their personalities and lives to mental illnesses. But even with access to medications and doctors, women lose parts of their self to medications since doctors do not care about personalities because they are concerned only about suppressing abnormal chemistry in patients’ brains. Forney, for example, manages her live with bipolar II disorder and continue to be an artist. Linda Logan also with bipolar II disorder with the support of her family managed to live relatively normal live while never being able to return to her passion, teaching. Wood’s mother with schizophrenia with the help of medications was prevented from slipping into her own reality. However, she could not function normally, could not read, could not work, and could not be a woman she used to be. Mental illnesses take away some parts or the whole of women’s self. And not only an illness takes away something, medications and absence of knowledge of how to help women with mental illnesses sometimes takes as much of self as illness.

Anyone with abnormal pain has to face problems such as to make doctors and other people to believe you, to get diagnosis, learning how to cope and live with the pain.

Last summer my friend who is also physics major got sick. Her doctor messed up dosages of her anti-anxiety medications and fried her brain. Then in October under pressure of physics classes, she broke and dropped all classes. I never had doubt that she was in pain, but I never knew the extent of her pain. However, when I got very sick last December and later in March was diagnosed with lupus, I have learned how my friend must have felt. Extent of pain was beyond of anything that any healthy person can imagine.

To make others to believe you and to get right diagnosis is really hard. Like Lena Dunham, like Meghan O’Rourke I had a problem convincing my doctors that I did not imagine my symptoms while they insisted on that my analysis and therefore I was fine. However, thankfully to my mom who believed me, in the end I got my diagnosis. And finally pain became the certainty. However, having diagnosis does not make pain to go away. A diagnosis is a word you use to make people to believe you. But a diagnosis does not make people to understand you.

Convincing or even telling others that you are in pain is a challenge. The spoon theory by Christine Miserandino that describes how people with limited amount of energy and chronic pain have to plan their days is the beautiful way to explain the situation. However, the explanation is not enough since many people still will not believe you because they never felt pain anywhere close to the pain people with chronic pain feel every day. Usually, if you do not look sick, people do not believe you since they may think you are just making up the story to get some attention or not to do some work. In our society a wheel chair, or blindness, or other signs of being crippled are needed to prove that you may not feel well. But signs of being not normal do not give you anything since healthy people realize that their bodies may become crippled too and they diverge their eyes and minds, to hide from a possibility of not being healthy all the time.

Audre Lourde was told to wear prostheses when she came to her doctor’s office because prostheses was important to keep moral in the office full of women already with or with a possibility of having breast cancer. Prosthesis was the sign of being normal, whole, and healthy. So wearing prosthesis, distrusting people with pain, hiding people with disabilities from public life, people try to make society look eternally healthy because the possibility of facing their own mortality, the possibility of being chronically sick or in pain frightens people. So people use ignorance to hide from the truth and distrust anyone who would make them to face fragility of their bodies.

Lynne Greenberg in her “The Body Broken” illustratively shows how hard is to get or never to get right diagnosis, that doctors are not gods and some are quite ignorant, that pain destroys lives. However, in spite of trying to show what kind of hell people with chronic pain go through, Greenberger actually shows how much American society is divided based on wealth and how privileges give access to better health care. The book can be summarized by one quote: “We are polite, even generous overseers of the madness, but always above the fray… We sit midway up our stoop, just high enough to make it difficult to reach us. In control, we casually toss candy from above into the up-stretched candy bags”(“The Broken Body,” page 5). Lynne Greenberg is in control. She is a part of the privileged part of the American society. She can be pitted as someone who forced to live with intolerable chronic pain. However, in contrast to Greenberg millions of people do not have money, access and privileges to get medical attention as good as she does and do not have income to support their families. Apparently, in order acknowledge people with chronic pain, our society needs to listen to a wealthy woman with three non-functional bathrooms in her house on Garden Place, with angel looking children, and with her beautiful lingerie that turned gray in a laundry of the best pain management clinic in the United Stated.