Self-managing HIV/AIDS presents challenges for anyone infected. These challenges may be further complicated for older HIV-infected African American women who acquired the disease at younger ages and now have comorbidities. Little is known regarding how women's age identity, social responsibilities, co-morbidities, and romantic relationship status influence their HIV self-management. Five focus groups were conducted in Washington DC, with HIV-positive African American women aged 52-65. Topics included HIV and co-morbidity self-management, social support needs, medication adherence, and future plans for old age. A constant comparison approach was applied during data analysis. Co-morbidities, including diabetes and hypertension, were perceived to be more difficult to self-manage than HIV. This difficulty was not attributed to aging but to daily struggles such as lack of income and/or health insurance, an inflexible work schedule, and loneliness. Social responsibilities, including caring for family, positively impacted participants' ability to self-manage HIV by serving as motivation to stay healthy in order to continue to help family members. In contrast, inflexible work schedules negatively impacted women's ability to sustain medication adherence. Overall, this study demonstrates that HIV and co-morbidity self-management are inextricably linked. We can no longer afford to view engagement in HIV care as a single-disease issue and hope to attain optimal health and well-being in our HIVaffected populations. Optimal HIV self-management must be framed within a larger context that simultaneously addresses HIV and co-morbidities, while considering how social and cultural factors uniquely intersect to influence older African American women's self-management strategies.
Although much of the early sociological and feminist analysis of medicalization focused on reproductive issues and childbirth, attention has moved away from this topic over time as new conditions have become subject to the medicalization process. At the same time, one of the major concepts within this analytical framework, the dichotomy of ‘natural’ versus ‘medical’, has not been sufficiently problematized. In this article, we call for a renewed examination of the medicalization of childbirth from a critical perspective that neither takes for granted the meaning of this dichotomy, nor presupposes feminist perspectives or those of privileged groups of women. We revisit sociological frameworks and feminist critiques of medicalization, specifically around childbirth, and review scholarship that addresses their limitations. We propose a research agenda that goes beyond the traditional assumptions about ‘natural’ and ‘medical’ childbirth and examines more closely how medicalization processes both shape and conflict with women's subjective experiences of childbirth.
Many scholars now critique successful aging terminology. Nonetheless, there is incomplete analysis of the political motivations behind the development of and/or effects of widespread use of these terms. This article suggests that analysis of the people who developed the terms and the settings within which they work parallels an analysis of the terms themselves and illustrates the continuing negative perception of aging. This study fleshes out a more thorough critique of the sociopolitical contexts surrounding the successful aging paradigm so that it can help renew and expand existing critiques. The authors conclude that researchers need to be wary of adopting successful aging terminology without considering and expanding their understanding of the political motivations and results that accompanies it. New, expanded conceptualizations of successful aging are needed so that socially minded researchers and practitioners of gerontology do not contribute to ageism and discrimination against older adults.
Biomedical literature suggests that menopause primarily represents negative change in women's lives. Feminist literature on menopause proposes that it can represent positive change or is a neutral experience for individual women. Conflicting characterizations result from different empirical emphases; biomedical research has focused on bodily change, and feminist research has highlighted social contexts for menopause. Results from interviews with a snowball sample of 61 women in 2001 illustrate how a change discourse on menopause and gendered beauty ideals combine to create a context within which some women believe that changes in their physical appearances can be attributed to menopause and that bodily change is problematic. In addition, during focus groups and in-depth interviews, women suggested that, in the face of these discourses or ideologies and changing external bodies, they face a "category crisis." Interviewees also discussed how they attempt to prevent/mask bodily change in order to remain attractive, visibly feminine, and desirable in the eyes of men. Findings from this qualitative study illustrate that we must continue to explore women's perceptions and experiences of bodily change during menopause, as we lack a full understanding of this developmental transition and its biosocial contexts.
Sexuality and intimacy are important components of health and well-being. Issues surrounding sexuality and intimacy are equally important for men and women living with physical disabilities, including spinal cord injury (SCI). Yet, women's sexuality after SCI remains largely unexamined. This article presents the findings from an in-depth qualitative investigation of the sexual and reproductive health experiences of 20 women with SCI in or around Detroit, MI. Findings echo existing literature documenting the sexual consequences of life after SCI and suggest new areas of inquiry important for better addressing sexual concerns across the lifespan. Specifically, findings suggest a need to consider the variable effects of SCI on sexual intimacy in relation to a person's developmental trajectory, the appropriate timing of sexual education, the need to expand conceptualizations of sexual intimacy, and the ways SCI may affect sexuality in later life.
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