Let just say you have this annoying headache for a while and decide to go to the doctor. After some tests, everything is apparently fine, and you leave the practice with a painkiller prescription. However, a few weeks go by and, even though you are taking the medication correctly, the pain is still disturbing you. Hence, you go to the doctor once again. The first question you might be asked is, “is there anything preoccupying you?” Diagnoses and treatments involve subjective factors, thus, understanding these particularities is an essential tool to address each case in the best possible way.

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I am sure you can relate to this story and that you understand that life is not unidimensional. As much as being healthy is not exclusively about having good blood test results, the same is valid for life in society: it has several layers. The subjects’ identities are not limited to only one sphere of their lives nor the marginalization oppressions to which they are exposed. When a woman of color lives in a peripheral area, her intersectional identity encompasses at least gender, race, and class (Crenshaw, 1991). Nevertheless, the intersections vary over time and are as plural as local contexts may be, including religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and culture (Laurel, 2006). One must seriously consider this juxtaposition of marginalizations to identify opportunities to invest in efficient and effective alternatives and create innovative solutions to cope with structural inequalities.

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Building up opportunities to tackle women’s health challenges inevitably comprises substantial institutional transformations from a gender equality perspective, which mandatorily needs to go beyond cisgender standards and include transgender and gender nonbinary people (Moseson et al. 2020).

 

The possibilities provided by traditional strategies do not fully cover such profound structural changes, mostly considering we live in a fast-changing world –  something for what 2020 was a constant reminder. In other words, it means we cannot keep on engaging in the same strategies expecting different results. 

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By understanding that living is a political act itself and crosses all areas of human lives, we grasp that gendered political institutions define the rules of the game, directly affecting our possibilities for both continuity and change (Kenny, 2014). On the one hand, that is outrageous because not even science is an exception for that matter. Notwithstanding scientific discourse’s claims to be gender-neutral, it cloaks a historical gender gap, as the default body [the “human” body] was and mostly still is the male cisgender one. Mainstream knowledge production consistently ignores female specificities and experiences, such as different responses to particular medications, which may result in inadequate treatment or even premature death (Criado-Perez, 2020). On the other hand, perceiving institutions as political and social constructs may bring hope because they are not immutable. Instead, they are an object of human action, and political decisions can factually improve them – we just need to take gender equity action.

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The current status quo kills, harms, and severely injures women and girls all over North and Latin America in multiple forms.

 

We are not talking about faceless victims: we keep losing Marias and Emmas. Farahs and Andreas suffer unfair and painful consequences all around the region due to improper access to healthcare. Nevertheless, we also have countless Alejandras, Claritas, and Paulines politically organizing themselves to make a difference in women and girls’ healthcare opportunities. They are everywhere – schools, universities, companies, small businesses, non-governmental organizations, the congress. They have ideas, and they are connected.

 

Women and girls are essential stakeholders for the decision-making processes in healthcare.

 

Changing this reality demands us to actively listen to these women first, bringing their opinions, demands, and suggestions to the upfront in a collective action from academia, governments, non-governmental institutions, and private initiatives.