ABSTRACT
Women are recipients of health care, and they have been critical of the form and content of this care. Particularly in those areas of medical care that most directly impinge on women’s lives as women—gynecologic examinations, birth control and abortions, sexuality, childbirth, and psychotherapy—feminists have been articulate critics of the nature and quality of medical treatment. Liberal feminists see the social subordination of women reflected in the sexual structure of the organization of medicine, that is, in a field where women are the majority of health workers, the upper reaches of the medical hierarchy constitute a virtual male monopoly. As the feminists confronted the intransigence of the health care system, they turned increasingly from consumer resistance to the construction of alternate modes of health care—the women’s health centers. In line with the ideal of sharing rather than restricting medical knowledge and skills, there is a summer session to train women to staff other women’s health facilities.
