Seminar Series Looks At Women's Health In The 21st Century

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 01 Jun 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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A series of free seminars, one in Belfast, has been organised to raise awareness of women's health and rights in a 21st century where new biomedical techniques allow surrogate motherhood, test-tube babies, organ transplants and other medical developments.

The series of four events begins on 27 May with a day-long workshop at the University of Warwick which looks at governance - the ways that health treatments and procedures have regulated women's lives and how women have responded. The seminar will examine the benefits and harm of such treatments.

The feminist movement in the 20th century looked at medical treatments in terms of women having legal and personal rights over their own bodies. The Warwick seminar on governance looks more at how the latest biomedical developments affect their sense of self.

The speakers are Professor Mary Rawlinson of Stony Brook University, US, Professor Emily Jackson, of the London School of Economics, and Professor Sally Sheldon, of the University of Kent.

Other events in the series include a seminar on 9 -11 September at Queen's University Belfast, looking at the significance for women of the latest medical procedures concerned with disabilities and ageing. Two other events are planned for 2010, to be held at the universities of Lancaster and Liverpool in January and September.

The event series, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and is entitled 'Retheorising Women's Health: Shifting Paradigms and the Biomedical Body', is not only for academics but also for nurses and doctors and others interested in the issues. All the events are free, and some places still remain. Contact Professor Deborah Lynn Steinberg at D.L.Steinberg@warwick.ac.uk regarding the Warwick event and Dr Azrini Wahidin regarding the Belfast event, at a.wahidin@qub.ac.uk

The Belfast event also includes a one-day conference on the rights of people with disabilities, organised in honour of the late Professor Eithne McLaughlin, who worked at Queen's in this field.

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British Sociological Association