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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.

I would not particularly say that birth is a women’s “issue”, as birth, to me, is a natural process. There are, however, many issues surrounding the way that society views: the process of giving birth, how and where women should do it, and the cost of giving birth (just to name a few). Reproduction and birth, which has obviously been occurring since the beginning of human existence, has somehow turned into a sort of medical phenomenon, a business, and a human act that needs to be regulated by the law. For example, Senator Mark Obenshain tried to propose a bill to make all Virginia women “be required to report all incidences of fetal demise occurring outside a physician’s supervision to the police”. This proposal shows the immense lack of knowledge of the process of reproduction in general. Not only are miscarriages common, but this desire to tie women’s reproduction to the law connects back to the idea that a women’s body is merely a vessel for a fetus.

According to one article, “Only two percent of women experienced a set of five supportive care practices that research shows benefit mothers and babies.  These practices are: labor begins on its own; the woman has the freedom to move and change positions; the woman has continuous labor support from a partner, family member, or doula; the woman does not give birth on her back; and the mother and baby are not separated after birth”. I don’t see why any of those practices are not common, as these sound like completely natural things. Why do medical professionals and researchers have to contemplate whether such simple things such as comfort, the presence of the father/spouse, and no separation after birth are beneficial to both the child and mother? To incorporate business into this, I recently saw an article online about a couple that was charged on their medical bill by the hospital for the mother holding the baby after giving birth. I cannot think of anything more ridiculous that having to pay to hold your own baby after hours of pain and labor. Perhaps, like politicians, physicians still fail to realize that birth involves two patients, but it is a natural, emotional, intense experience for both mother and child.

It appears to me that the need to control a woman’s body extends beyond abortion, but also what a woman does if she decides to keep a baby. Again, it is a natural process that is being painted as a medical situation instead of a precious experience, and it all stems from ignorance on all parts. C-sections are so commonly used that women think about it as if there’s automatically a 50-50 chance that she will give birth naturally or through c-section. I recall my sister telling me about her experience watching a c-section while she was in nursing school, and she told me that it was a surgical procedure that was more intense and invasive than she had pictured. Yet this unnatural way of giving birth has become common practice and used in unnecessary circumstances. Instead of informing women on how to take care of their bodies to avoid high-risk pregnancies, doctors medically intervene during delivery.

At the same, many women are unaware of this issue, just as many are unaware of what prenatal care is best. Why is is that women are kept in the dark about such a normal biological process? Why are women uninformed about how their chronic illnesses can affect their pregnancy and birth? Why, for the past century, have midwives been criticized for being incompetent to guide pregnancy and birth, while some doctors look(ed) at it from an objective and detached perspective, with complete disregard for the psychological and emotional implications of it? It should not be a women’s right’s “issue” because it should have never been an issue in the first place. The only concern that medical professionals and politicians should have in regards to birth is that that the child’s care is kept in mind, and that women are receiving proper prenatal care, can afford prenatal care, are informed about labor and delivery, are not taken advantage of, and that each woman’s comfort and experience of bringing forth life is as pleasant as possible.

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.

According to a MarketWatch article posted in January, the total outstanding student loan in the US is $1.2 trillion. About 40 million Americans hold student loans and about 70% of bachelor’s degree recipients graduate with debt. It’s tempting to come across this egg donation ad as a young female college student. It sounds like a quick, easy way to make $4,000 while contributing to a good cause. The ad not only sounds alluring, but safe. After all, ‘what’s a few eggs between friends?’ But despite the noble rhetoric used by the egg donation industry, it is fundamentally a business. As said by Debora Spar in Rene Almeling’s article: [Eggs are “donated,” and surrogate mothers offer their services to help the infertile.” Certainly the rhetoric that surrounds these transactions has nothing to do with markets or prices or profits. Quite possibly, the people who can undertake them only want to help. But neither the rhetoric nor the motive can change the underlying activity.] Within egg donation production, there are various social implications regarding gender, race, and wealth. Only the wealthy can afford to participate, and when they do, they have set expectations and requirements for donors. Infertility is of course, a devastating thing where the infertile feel like they have no control. There is a considerable amount of control when a recipient gets to decide on a donor based on her sex, gender, fertility, salary, and even “demonstration of altruism.” But in this niche, selective market, it is not just reproductive material, but visions of middle-class American femininity and masculinity, and more to the point, of motherhood and fatherhood, that are marketed and purchased. When comparing basic requirements for sperm donors and egg donors, the difference is sure to raise eyebrows. Spermbank’s list is short compared to ConceiveAbilities’:

Basic Requirements for CCB Sperm Donors- At least 5’9” tall, between 19 and 38 years old, sexual partners are exclusively female, legally allowed to work in the US, are in good health, currently attending a four-year university, or already hold a bachelors or advanced degree

Basic Requirements for Potential Egg Donations- Between 21-29 years of age, have regular monthly periods, no reproductive disorders or abnormalities, physically and emotionally healthy, BMI under 29, non-nicotine/smoker/drug user, not currently on Depo-Provera, willing to undergo medical and psychological evaluation, willing to take injectable medication, willing to commit to the process for a minimum of 6 months, willing and able to respond to communication within 24 hours from ConceiveAbilities and clinic staff, excited about the process of helping to build a family.

Unlike the process men undergo to donate sperm, the preparation and procedure involved in egg donation require a longer-term commitment- a woman’s body is hormonally altered through the process, and she undergoes surgery. This ad, as well as many other egg donation ads, are void of known risks.The ads don’t mention ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), a condition that causes the ovaries to swell and become painful in about one-fourth of women who use injectable fertility drugs. (OHSS generally goes away after a week or so, but in severe cases it can cause rapid weight gain, abdominal pain, vomiting and shortness of breath.)

Nor do they mention that the surgery to remove the eggs can sometimes lead to complications, including cramping, bleeding and infection. I was reading an article about EggBanxx, which hosts “Let’s Chill” egg freezing cocktail parties sponsored by companies such as EMD Serono and Freedom Fertility Pharmacy. The September 2014 event was held at a luxurious Manhattan hotel with the slogan “Three F’s: Fun, Fertility and Freeze.” The presenters did not discuss high failure rates or alarming gaps in safety studies, but they did pitch financing options and offered $500 and $1000 discounts through follow up emails several days later. Both donor and recipient alike are faced by perpetual media and marketing blitzes which urge women to “take control of the calendar” or to “spare an egg or two.” Risks aside, regulations and debates need to look closely at markets that produce bodily goods and the rhetoric concerning them. Questions that look at the difference in treatment of female and male donors and investigate the risks people face when distributing parts of their bodies (ex. sperm, tissues, blood, fluids, eggs) have been and must continue to be posed.

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.