Grant: Project Grant

Pelvic Health and Public Health in Twentieth-Century Canada (PH | PH) explores how pelvic health issues became matters of growing public health concern between the late-1960s and 2000, a period characterized by growing feminist health activism. Relying on print, archival, and oral history research, the PH | PH project involves 10-15 case studies centred around themes including health activism and self-help, embodied knowledge, emotional labour, the construction of shame and stigma, and the persistence of gendered, racialized, and class-based inequities in the treatment of pain and provision of care. Topics of interest include: feminist models of healthcare; self-examination and medical reform; pap smears and cervical cancer screening; dysmenorrhea, endometriosis, and menstrual pain; yeast infections; pelvic inflammatory disease; urinary tract infections; vaginismus, vulvodynia, and sexual pain; and pelvic floor physiotherapy. In addition to traditional outputs such as conference presentations and journal articles that target interdisciplinary academics and clinicians, the PH | PH project includes creative knowledge mobilization efforts aimed at activist and public audiences, including graphic histories, blog posts, and film. This five-year project centres opportunities for trainees, ranging from undergraduate students to postdoctoral fellows, to gain experience in a range of historical methods, as they collect and digitize previously uncatalogued archival materials from feminist health organizations and conduct oral history interviews. The collection and digitization of these sources will benefit future researchers across disciplines studying gender and health in twentieth-century Canada. Fundamentally, the PH | PH project provides essential historical context for ongoing inequities and gaps in care that disproportionately affect women and non-binary individuals when seeking treatment for a range of pelvic health complaints, across various health settings.