Representing Women’s Health
Exploring arts, literature, and film to reduce stigma and increase awareness of women’s pain.
Overview
Women’s gynaecological health can cause significant physical pain and psychological suffering. Yet this is far too often a stigmatised subject. From menstruation to contraceptive use to pregnancy to childbirth to postpartum recovery to menopause, women are often expected to bear pain in silence and accept it as a fact of life. The isolation of women’s pain is reflected in how seldom works of art and culture describe these experiences accurately.
This website is a resource for women, healthcare professionals, and the general public. It features a searchable compendium with links, summaries, and brief analyses of works of literature, film, television, art, and pop culture. These artworks all explore women’s experiences of pain and sickness. The materials on this site can act as experience-affirming resources for women suffering gynaecological or pelvic pain. The goal is to increase empathy and diminish isolation.
Lead researcher
Keru Cai
Funding
HAL Seed Grant; UNSW Career Advancement Fund
Research area
Literature, film, media, health humanities
Challenges
- Affirm women’s experiences of pain and build solidarity
- Use artworks to build empathy in healthcare settings and the general public
- Improve health outcomes by helping women advocate for themselves
Impact
Using humanistic study of literature, film, and other arts, the field of health humanities deepens clinical and social understanding of illness and suffering. This research project aims to make conversations about women’s gynaecological and reproductive health more informed, accessible, and prevalent in academic, healthcare, and broader public settings. In this way, art has a role to play in lessening the shame and stigma surrounding these experiences. Moreover, arts from different cultures can build cross-cultural understanding of how different races and ethnicities experience these stigmatised issues.
