Between the State and Medicine: Women’s Experiences of Gynecological Violence in a Pro-Natalist Authoritarian Context

• In Event: 30858 - States, Laws, and Clinicians: Toward Reproductive Justice

Abstract

This project draws on the conceptual frameworks of obstetric violence and reproductive justice and examines women’s experiences of gynecological care in contemporary urban China. I ask: How do contemporary urban Chinese women make claims and negotiate their access—or the lack thereof—to dignified gynecological care? How do different experiences of gynecological care, in turn, shape women’s reproductive health decision-making? Using 379 accounts collected from an anonymous and public online support group, I find that women frequently narrate feeling judged or shamed by health care providers during gynecological exams for sexual behavior that has occurred outside of the bounds of heterosexual marriages. In these instances, excessive pain during exams is frequently described as being deployed as a form of punishment. Such experiences of gynecological violence increase these women’s hesitancy in seeking subsequent care. Women, especially those with marginalized sexual identities, further encounter limited claims-making recourse after experiencing gynecological violence.

Author

• Yun Zhou, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor