ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains about the available discourses of illness before the internet age. It explains how women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Lupus seek and share information on online patient forums when medical authorities can’t provide them with relief. These women work, sometimes in quite modest and unnoticeable ways, to expose inequities with an eye toward eliminating barriers and rectifying disenfranchising practices. The book offers an analysis of the well-woman exam, arguing that it is rooted in a traditional conception of normative bodies—mainly white women’s bodies—that exclude “non-normal” bodies and echo past medical injustices and violence toward women of color. It examines human papillomavirus advertisements as examples of the gendered nature of discourses of responsibility in health and medical decision-making.
