Language carries meaning
I can vividly remember sitting on the carpet of my fifth-grade classroom learning what a period was for the first time. My teacher demonstrated how to use a tampon while the boys in our class were sent to P.E. I remember feeling like this lesson marked the start of my journey into womanhood, defined by my new understanding of female anatomy and the language used to describe it.
Over the course of the next few years, my encounters with women’s health increased. My mom, who raised me with strong feminist values, taught me about the “red underwear” protests and the #MeToo movement in 2018 – a hashtag that sparked widespread media attention and framed women’s health equality as a collective effort – something I felt ready to advocate for.
In 2022, the overturn of Roe v. Wade introduced me to the idea that reproductive care went beyond an individual’s choice. I observed women’s health being articulated using polarizing language, and how reproductive care was not only a biological choice, but also a political debate.
My understanding of women’s health deepened this past summer, when I spent a month in Mukono, Uganda on a class trip led by my professor. There, I was exposed to a completely new scope of women’s health and the language surrounding it.
In the first few days of the trip, my class visited a hospital in Mukono, passing pediatric centers, testing and vaccination rooms, laboratories, a maternal health ward and a malnutrition unit. I realized that the only area focused on women’s health was the maternal clinic. In other words, all women seeking care were grouped under the umbrella of “maternal health.” Women’s health was defined almost entirely through the language of childbearing, leaving little space for care centered on women as individuals rather than mothers.
Later in the trip, I shadowed a physician who specialized in reproductive health. Her role included STI and STD testing, menstrual health care, sexual health counseling and prescribing birth control. Despite the wide breadth of preventative care she offered, the sign on her office door read “family planning.” Standard women’s healthcare was once again labeled in a way that shifted attention from individual well-being to future reproduction.
Before we left Mukono, we visited a teen mothers clinic, helping young mothers, mostly between the ages of 16 and 20, navigate their situations. Our conversations focused on teen pregnancy as a consequence, rather than teen motherhood as an identity, framing these women in a stigmatizing way instead of highlighting their resilience and care.
Eventually, I noticed a pattern: that the diction surrounding women’s health consistently shifted focus away from individual care and toward a woman’s role in birthing children, shaping not only how care was delivered but how women themselves were understood in the community of Uganda.
I hope to pursue a career in women’s health, and with that comes the responsibility to empower, advocate for and understand the women seeking care. To do so, I will continue to pay attention to the subtle yet powerful ways language shapes how women’s health is understood. Words can be a driving force toward a more informed and equitable approach to women’s health. Whether it’s the vocabulary young girls learn in school, a hashtag on social media, or a sign on an office door, language carries meaning, and it changes how women’s health is perceived.