'There's Nothing Wrong With You; You Just Need to Lose Weight'-A Qualitative Exploration of Pelvic Floor Dysfunction Among Women With Multiple Sclerosis and Their Interaction in Seeking Pelvic Healthcare.

INTRODUCTION: Within 10 years of multiple sclerosis (MS) progression, nearly all women will have experienced symptoms associated with bladder, bowel and/or sexual health. Yet despite the impact these symptoms have on physical, psychological and social well-being, it remains an underserved area within the UK healthcare system. STUDY AIM: This research employs a participatory research approach framed within the principles of intersectional feminism to collaboratively investigate the lived experiences of pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) and healthcare interactions among UK-based women with MS. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Women residing in the United Kingdom with MS were invited to participate in online interviews facilitated by the primary author. ANALYSIS: A thematic framework analysis offering a structured yet adaptable approach to data collection and interpretation. RESULTS: One focus group involving four women with MS and seven individual, one-to-one interviews with women with MS provided insights into the challenges associated with navigating both MS and PFD. Four main themes included: Navigating MS and PFD; Cycles of Control; Mind, Mobility and Bladder Embodiment; Silenced Voices: The Impact of Taboos/Stigma/Dismissal on Preventing Access and Resistance through Collective Community. Six subthemes were also identified. Taken together, these themes cumulatively reflect PFD as an unmet healthcare need. CONCLUSION: Our findings underscore negative healthcare experiences, inadequate information provision and unmet needs related to PFD, emphasising the compounding effects of gender and disability biases. IMPACT: We hope that these insights can lay the groundwork for developing tailored therapeutic interventions and improved PFD healthcare for women with MS. Potential solutions include using existing MS support communities. PUBLIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Women with MS were actively involved in co-producing interview scripts for one-to-one interviews. The primary author shared study findings at an MS group event, engaging in discussions with over 30 individuals, including people with MS and their loved ones. MS advocates played a pivotal role in contextualising the study within the broader lived experience of MS.

Gender-inclusive language in midwifery and perinatal services: A guide and argument for justice.

Effective communication in relation to pregnancy and birth is crucial to quality care. A recent focus in reproductive healthcare on "sexed language" reflects an ideology of unchangeable sex binary and fear of erasure, from both cisgender women and the profession of midwifery. In this paper, we highlight how privileging sexed language causes harm to all who birth-including pregnant trans, gender diverse, and non-binary people-and is, therefore, unethical and incompatible with the principles of midwifery. We show how this argument, which conflates midwifery with essentialist thinking, is unstable, and perpetuates and misappropriates midwifery's marginalized status. We also explore how sex and gender essentialism can be understood as colonialist, heteropatriarchal, and universalist, and therefore, reinforcing of these harmful principles. Midwifery has both the opportunity and duty to uphold reproductive justice. Midwifery can be a leader in the decolonization of childbirth and in defending the rights of all childbearing people, the majority of whom are cisgender women. As the systemwide use of inclusive language is central to this commitment, we offer guidance in relation to how inclusive language in perinatal and midwifery services may be realized.

Adolescents and sexual assault: A critical integrative review.

Adolescents are sexually assaulted at remarkably high rates. Adolescents are also unique given the specific dynamics of adolescent sexual assault, their current stage in human development, their limited legal standing and rights, and their experiences navigating postassault services and resources. While literature exists within each of these domains, it is somewhat disconnected and overlooks how adolescents are often relegated to the margins in research and practice. The purpose of this integrative review is to (1) provide a more complete understanding of adolescent sexual assault and survivors' nuanced needs; (2) frame adolescent survivors as a too-often-overlooked oppressed group that researchers and responders must consider and center in their work, lest contribute to their further marginalization; and (3) inspire and orient social justice-minded scholar activists to various action steps to take to center and prioritize adolescents in research and practice. Through our intersectional feminist approach, we offer specific action steps for social justice-minded scholar activists to recenter adolescents in their research and practice.

Lições de Justiça Reprodutiva para catalisar estratégias de incidência durante a crise do Zika no Brasil / Reproductive Justice Lessons for Catalyzing Advocacy Strategies during Zika Crisis in Brazil

Resumo Revisitaremos uma constelação de respostas para garantir justiça reprodutiva para mulheres e meninas durante a crise do Zika no Brasil. As ações relatadas foram conduzidas pela Anis - Instituto de Bioética, uma ONG feminista. Argumentamos que, durante as emergências sanitárias, é necessário o uso de lentes feministas interseccionais para construir respostas efetivas e sensíveis às questões de gênero, em favor de mulheres e meninas. Apresentamos três táticas de incidência utilizadas na luta por justiça reprodutiva durante a crise do Zika: 1) construir narrativas baseadas em histórias de vida que retratem os efeitos desproporcionais da crise em mulheres e meninas; 2) produzir dados baseados em evidências para catalisar estratégias de incidência para revisão legal e de políticas públicas; 3) promover oportunidades para o fortalecimento de alianças e movimentos, bem como o compartilhamento de poder por meio de atividades de mobilização comunitária. Reconhecemos a importância de responder às necessidades das populações em tempo real, e para isso torna-se fundamental que as evidências sobre os impactos das emergências em saúde pública sejam produzidas e compartilhadas de maneira ágil. Os esforços em incidência não são estratégias fragmentadas, pois garantir a justiça reprodutiva exige uma estrutura abrangente e transformadora, incluindo soluções que envolvam o cotidiano das pessoas comuns e suas experiências de vida.

Abstract This article aims to revisit a constellation of responses to guarantee reproductive justice for women and girls during the Zika crisis in Brazil, that were conducted by Anis - Institute of Bioethics, a Brazilian feminist NGO. We argue that intersectional feminist lenses and gender-sensitive responses are necessary to build effective efforts for women and girls during a public health emergency. As such, we present three concomitant and intersectional learned tactics we used to fight for reproductive justice during the Zika crises, but also in its aftermath: 1. To build storytelling narratives that portray the disproportional effects of the crisis on women and girls; 2. To produce evidence-based data to catalyze advocacy strategies for legal and policy review; 3. To promote movement building opportunities and sharing power through community mobilization activities. We assume the importance of providing immediate evidence and gender sensitive framings to inform real-time public health responses. Advocacy efforts should not be seen as fragmented strategies, since ensuring reproductive justice demands a comprehensive and transformative framework that include solutions for multiple aspects of real-life experiences.

Understanding the Trajectories of Women who use Violence Through an Intersectional Feminist Analysis.

This article discusses the results of a collaborative research project aimed at understanding the life trajectories of women who have self-identified as having used violence in a context other than self-defense, which is an understudied topic. Based on semi-structured interviews and aided by an intersectional feminist framework applied to life course theory, we present a qualitative analysis of 26 women's experiences of violence, precarity, and services. The three groups of trajectories are distinguished by level of precarity as determined by the experience of violence in childhood, socioeconomic and family contexts, criminalization, intensity of violence, and whether the women received adequate support. This shows (1) the need for interventions to prevent the reproduction or aggravation of violence suffered and perpetrated; (2) the importance of considering the inter-related factors (gender, class race, etc.) that contribute to the women's precarity; and (3) that these factors must be considered to understand the contexts in which women have come to use violence, without trivializing or excusing it, but rather properly situating it with a view to better preventing and intervening in these situations. Our recommendations are aimed at ensuring that social work practices do not contribute to the enforcement of punitive measures, but support women in pursuing their path.

Morte e vida no debate sobre aborto: uma análise a partir da audiência pública sobre a ADPF 442 / Death and life in the abortion debate: an analysis based on the public hearing on ADPF 442

Resumo Partindo da premissa de que as pautas sobre direitos reprodutivos constituem uma gama de disputas políticas no campo da sexualidade e da reprodução, este artigo examina o debate travado na audiência pública sobre a Arguição de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental (ADPF) 442, ocorrida em agosto de 2018. A ação propõe a descriminalização do aborto induzido pela própria gestante ou com seu consentimento, até a 12ª. semana de gestação. Na audiência convocada pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal, 50 exposições de amici curiae foram realizadas, catalisando os atuais argumentos acionados no debate público sobre aborto no Brasil. O conteúdo da audiência pública (personagens, lugares, imagens, áudios, textos e vídeo) é tomado como material empírico desta pesquisa. Considerando a centralidade do argumento de defesa da vida/combate à morte, tanto nas exposições favoráveis quanto naquelas contrárias à ADPF, examinamos os distintos enquadramentos utilizados pelos atores políticos em cena, ao debater a problemática do aborto em termos de um embate entre morte e vida. Mais do que uma polissemia dos termos, trata-se de um embate que explicita hierarquias em relação à reprodução e à vida das mulheres.

Abstract Starting from the premise that the agenda on reproductive rights is home to political disputes in the field of sexuality and reproduction, this article reviews the debate held at the public hearing on the Argument of Noncompliance with a Fundamental Precept (Arguição de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental, ADPF) # 442 in August 2018. The lawsuit proposes the decriminalization of abortion induced by the pregnant woman herself or with her consent until the 12th week of gestation. At the hearing convened by the Supreme Court, 50 amicus curiae presentations were held, catalyzing the current arguments raised in the public debate on abortion in Brazil. The content of the public hearing (characters, places, images, audios, texts, and video) is taken as empirical material for this research. Considering the centrality of the defense of life/combating death argument, both in speeches for and against the ADPF, we examine the different frameworks used by political actors on the scene when debating the issue of abortion in terms of a clash between death and life. More than a polysemy, it is a clash that makes explicit hierarchies regarding reproduction and women's lives.

The Invisibility of Power: A Cultural Ecology of Development in the Contemporary United States.

This article highlights the invisible power those in racial and gendered privilege continue to hold in the contemporary United States and the harmful psychological effects of this power on both those it oppresses and, importantly, those who wield it. A lack of empathy and an inability for compassion arise in individuals holding sociopolitical and cultural power, and we highlight how this psychological condition is qualifiable as psychosis and question why it has not been discussed as such in the literature until now. We also, however, bring attention to the invisible psychological power that marginalized populations in the United States hold, invisible because it has been left largely unrecognized by mainstream cultural forces. By centering the ways American cultural minorities successfully navigate multiply oppressive structural systems, we conclude with a reflection on how intersectional feminism can offer a philosophical lens through which to mitigate the unhealthy developmental outcomes and effects of White heteronormative male power.

Gender equity in emergency medicine: Five years on, where are we headed?

The challenge of addressing gender inequality was highlighted in the 2016 Trainee Focus of Emergency Medicine Australasia. Despite increasing numbers of female medical graduates, including increasing female trainees in emergency medicine (EM), this has not yet translated to equal representation in formal leadership roles. Five years later, as the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) welcomes the second female college president, this article explores the gendered leadership gap in EM from an organisational and intersectional feminist perspective and recommends high-level strategies for change. Notably, ACEM has demonstrated committed engagement with gender equity, such as the establishment of the Advancing Women in Emergency Section. It has also achieved gender parity in provisional trainees and improved women's representation on the ACEM Board. However, broader organisational processes that ensure work-life integration, transparent leadership development pathways and equitable recruitment, promotion, retention and evaluation remain critical. Creating a local evidence-base to support diversity in leadership development remains a priority.

Intersectional Feminism and Behavior Analysis.

This paper compares facets of behavior analysis and intersectional feminist theory. We begin by describing the history of issues related to gender and sexuality in behavior analysis. Then, we explain how the goals of feminism and applied behavior analysis are aligned, with a focus on intersectional feminism. Intersectional feminism examines the influence of interacting variables (e.g., race, gender, and sexuality) that affect one's experiences and behaviors, rather than focusing on a single factor, such as gender. Pragmatic behaviorism and intersectionality have many parallels, and by exploring them, researchers can generate more comprehensive explanations of behavior. With prevalent gender, race, and sexual orientation biases in contemporary society, it may be important for behavior analysts to be able to recognize these contingencies that have been previously overlooked. Describing the conceptual commonalities between these disciplines may be a stride towards inclusivity and advancement of the goals of each discipline.