DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

1971-04-30 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 5

   Recently here in Iowa City, a Free Medical Clinic was set up. It was mainly put together by a woman who is a social work graduate. Medical students, social work students, pharmacy and nursing students from the university all help staff the clinic. Also there are several doctors, a licensed pharmacist and a nurse there.
   I was introduced to the clinic when I went one evening with four other women. Three wanted to see doctors and the other two of us went to support them. We ended up spending the entire evening there and it turned out to be a real far out experience.
   Personally, I am scared to death of doctors. Until I was 18 I had a woman pediatrician and at that time I was tossed out to fend for myself at the university student health. Believe me, they were not anything like the woman doctor I'd always had. She had explained things to me, showing me how to insert a tampax and generally made me not ashamed to come for physicals. I was used to going to her whenever I was sick and getting prompt medical treatment. 
  Then came four years of unlearning everything I'd learned about doctors as a child. At student health they couldn't even give you a physical. To have a physical I would have to go to the hospital and spend at least $50. Also, I soon learned that you don't go there until you're practically on your death bed. Otherwise, you're told that you're burning the candle at both ends and what you really need is to go home, sleep, and stop your outside school activities. Sometimes when I came in to make sure I didn't have strep throat I'dhave to ask several times before they'd take a throat culture. Then came my most humiliating experience with student health. As traumas started pouring in on my I couldn't sleep, was nauseated, felt dizzy, had headaches and was a general mess. After so much I finally got up the nerve to go over to student health only to be told it was all in my head. I had my days and nights mixed up "young lady," and I would have to cut out my outside activities. Of course, I received nothing to help calm me down, and I went away furious and totally intimidated.
   With this background the next Friday my friends convinced me to go to the Free Clinic and get some medications. I was really scared to death about what I was going to say when the doctor asked me why I needed tranquilizers. I didn't want to tell him my life story, and I knew he could easily convince me that I wasn't really bad enough to need meds. Like the Friday before, we all went together and my sisters sat there with me while he asked me questions. I was still scared, but I knew my sisters were there and would me.
   As it happened I think the doctor was intimidated by so many of us to support each other. He just wasn't used to five women coming and staying with each other. He was an ok doctor and didn't hassle me in the least about the way I was feeling. He gave me a prescription and told me to come back in two weeks so he could talk with me again to see how things were.
  I imagine we'll spend alot of time inthe future at the Free Clinic. This summer I may even work there. I hope that our example of coming together, supporting each other, and supporting women we meet at the clinic encourages other women to come together.
   It is yet to be seen how the clinic will turn out. There are several really concerned people working there. However, the clinic is mainly staffed by medical students as always on ego trips and into the doctor thing. This is always a bummer. Also, an ad hoc committee has been formed with five medical people and seven people from the community. We have yet to see what they will do also.

WHERE ARE YOU ELIZABETH?
   Two weeks ago Friday from 7:30 to 11, five of us women spent a delightful and reassuring evening at the Free Medical Clinic above the River City Non-Free Trade Zone. I say delightful because there wasn't a big frosty-dlassed door to walk through with a buzzer to announce our entrance, or piped in Musac which nobody listens to anyway, and no gigantic pile of magazines which everyone thumbs through but really doesn't read. The first thing you see is a small-tall table with a file on one end under a bed-stand type lamp with a very nice women passing out information sheets. (Not life history, name, birth, etc.) There were plenty of fold-out chairs and benches for people to sit on and no one had to stand for very long. There weren't very many small children, but there were stuffed toys and people to play with. A short while later another women came around and asked about previous medication and allergic reactions to certain drugs. Everyone's temperature & blood-pressure was taken in one corner of the waiting area. There is a big room in back where people not requiring physical exams may talk with the examiner or talk to them before a physical examination. There are also free birth control handbooks, pap-smears, and equipment to test for VD.
   Since the space for private physical examinations is limited, one might have to wait a little while and this is where the reassuring part comes in. We decided that none of us would talk to or be examined by anyone alone. If two of us were called at once, one would wait and accompany the other. Two of us went who didn't need to be examined at this particular time but it was very reassuring to know that when we did it wouldn't be alone. Tensions often mount when you don't know what to expect or know your body is going to be examined by someone you don't kn w. Not being alone and hav- someone who knows and cares about you is so important during these times. Take a friend with you and take them in with you. It was a good feeling to know we'd helped each other and we'd grown a little closer because of it. Sisterhood IS Powerful!
    The only thing that bothered me was the seemingly over abundant supply of medical students, (male) with female nursing students to assist them. Where are the Elizabeth Blackwells of the 70's?
   Looking back on the evening I felt particularly glad that I didn't have to be examined. I didn't think this attitude of "what's O.K. for you might not be for me" was fair at all. I thought about it quite a while and tried to decide exactly what would have made me feel more secure there and decided I would have had no objection to being examined by a woman, either med-student, nurse, or any woman that could have helped me. I realize the problems involved in setting up an all women medical clinic, and I think the Free Medical Clinic is a fantastic  move, BUT I also know that there are women medical students, nurses, social workers, all women that know much more than they are given credit for or allowed to do by written or unwritten law. There is no reason, in my opinion, to set up a duplicate hierarchy in a free medical clinic that already exists in the medical profession today. Surely there can be more ingenuity, creativity, and human awareness in a free medical clinic than a hospital or like institution. There are people struggling to keep the clinic from turning into a toy hospital and they need our support!
Help keep the clinic free and ask to see a WOMAN! WHERE ARE YOU ELIZABETH?

The Doctor is in.

[hand drawings of people]

   I decided that my nervousness and depression had reached its peak but was afraid to go to the free clinic. Whenever I really lose control I'm terrified of being committed. I've been through that psychiatry scene before and it's for shit. I finally expressed this to some of the women I live with although I felt ridiculously paranoid. They were wonderful and went to the clinic with me and supported me. The clinic was a real high. I didn't have to face a med student or doctor alone. Someone always stayed with me. The doctor I saw did suggest I see a counselor but when I refused he didn't push it. I felt I was listened to and that what I said was accepted as valid. I received some pills free. It was like a fantasy -- being treated respectfully and for free.
   Sometimes I enjoy work when I can pretend it's after the revolution and what we're producing is what will meet people's needs and that all of us on the assembly line had an equal say in what we did and how. The clinic was like that the first night and just the experience of decent care and support from other women made me feel much better. But just as I must come to and see what I'm helping produce on that line is worthless shit that no one needs but will make a profit for someone and pay me a minimum wage, I came to the clinic the next week and saw how nothing is free and the med students and doctors had no intention of treating us on any other than their own terms. 
   One of us went to get their perscription for a mild tranquilizer refilled. This time she was really pressured about seeing a counselor and some of us intervened to explain the real material conditions that were upsetting us all and how we could talk to each other about them but we had no power to change them and neither did any fuckin counselor. After that we were told in effect that we could not get prescriptions if we continued to come to the clinic together. We would each have to see a doctor alone. Our support of each other was a threat to the unchallenged power of the doctor. It seemed like we could continue to get help there but only by allowing ourselves to be intimidated by seeing a doctor alone or possibly seeing a counselor we didn't want to see. 
   Medical students and doctors are not generally poor (to say the least) and seem freaked out by how many people have come to them for some kind of tranquilizer. They don't understand how natural that is -- that people without money are as nervous about poverty as those who can afford to go to a private physician, that people are freaked out over having no homes or no jobs or jobs they're constantly afraid of losing. How the hell they think going to some damn counselor once a week to tell him you're pretty upset living in this shit pile, that being a woman in this world is hard, that being poor in America is rough, that being a radical woman in America can mean your extinction kinda scares you sometimes, that being gay in a straight world takes courage you don't always have --- how they think that's gonna change things for you, I don't know. But then they don't have to think very hard. They're men, they're privileged, they're Gods.
   Anyway I wouldn't go to the free clinic expecting better care. It's the same shit, you just don't have to lay any cash down. But not having to pay is not the entire meaning of free.

a womAn?  April 30, 1971   Page 5

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Recently here in Iowa City, a Free Medical Clinic was set up. It was mainly put together by a woman who is a social work graduate. Medical students, social work students, pharmacy and nursing students from the university all help staff the clinic. Also there are several doctors, a licensed pharmacist and a nurse there. I was introduced to the clinic when I went one evening with four other women. Three wanted to see doctors and the other two of us went to support them. We ended up spending the entire evening there and it turned out to be a real far out experience. Personally, I am scared to death of doctors. Until I was 18 I had a woman pediatrician and at that time I was tossed out to fend for myself at the university student health. Believe me, they were not anything like the woman doctor I'd always had. She had explained things to me, showing me how to insert a tampax and generally made me not ashamed to come for physicals. I was used to going to her whenever I was sick and getting prompt medical treatment. Then came four years of unlearning everything I'd learned about doctors as a child. At student health they couldn't even give you a physical. To have a physical I would have to go to the hospital and spend at least $50. Also, I soon learned that you don't go there until you're practically on your death bed. Otherwise, you're told that you're burning the candle at both ends and what you really need is to go home, sleep, and stop your outside school activities. Sometimes when I came in to make sure I didn't have strep throat I'dhave to ask several times before they'd take a throat culture. Then came my most humiliating experience with student health. As traumas started pouring in on my I couldn't sleep, was nauseated, felt dizzy, had headaches and was a general mess. After so much I finally got up the nerve to go over to student health only to be told it was all in my head. I had my days and nights mixed up "young lady," and I would have to cut out my outside activities. Of course, I received nothing to help calm me down, and I went away furious and totally intimidated. With this background the next Friday my friends convinced me to go to the Free Clinic and get some medications. I was really scared to death about what I was going to say when the doctor asked me why I needed tranquilizers. I didn't want to tell him my life story, and I knew he could easily convince me that I wasn't really bad enough to need meds. Like the Friday before, we all went together and my sisters sat there with me while he asked me questions. I was still scared, but I knew my sisters were there and would me. As it happened I think the doctor was intimidated by so many of us to support each other. He just wasn't used to five women coming and staying with each other. He was an ok doctor and didn't hassle me in the least about the way I was feeling. He gave me a prescription and told me to come back in two weeks so he could talk with me again to see how things were. I imagine we'll spend alot of time inthe future at the Free Clinic. This summer I may even work there. I hope that our example of coming together, supporting each other, and supporting women we meet at the clinic encourages other women to come together. It is yet to be seen how the clinic will turn out. There are several really concerned people working there. However, the clinic is mainly staffed by medical students as always on ego trips and into the doctor thing. This is always a bummer. Also, an ad hoc committee has been formed with five medical people and seven people from the community. We have yet to see what they will do also. WHERE ARE YOU ELIZABETH? Two weeks ago Friday from 7:30 to 11, five of us women spent a delightful and reassuring evening at the Free Medical Clinic above the River City Non-Free Trade Zone. I say delightful because there wasn't a big frosty-dlassed door to walk through with a buzzer to announce our entrance, or piped in Musac which nobody listens to anyway, and no gigantic pile of magazines which everyone thumbs through but really doesn't read. The first thing you see is a small-tall table with a file on one end under a bed-stand type lamp with a very nice women passing out information sheets. (Not life history, name, birth, etc.) There were plenty of fold-out chairs and benches for people to sit on and no one had to stand for very long. There weren't very many small children, but there were stuffed toys and people to play with. A short while later another women came around and asked about previous medication and allergic reactions to certain drugs. Everyone's temperature & blood-pressure was taken in one corner of the waiting area. There is a big room in back where people not requiring physical exams may talk with the examiner or talk to them before a physical examination. There are also free birth control handbooks, pap-smears, and equipment to test for VD. Since the space for private physical examinations is limited, one might have to wait a little while and this is where the reassuring part comes in. We decided that none of us would talk to or be examined by anyone alone. If two of us were called at once, one would wait and accompany the other. Two of us went who didn't need to be examined at this particular time but it was very reassuring to know that when we did it wouldn't be alone. Tensions often mount when you don't know what to expect or know your body is going to be examined by someone you don't kn w. Not being alone and hav- someone who knows and cares about you is so important during these times. Take a friend with you and take them in with you. It was a good feeling to know we'd helped each other and we'd grown a little closer because of it. Sisterhood IS Powerful! The only thing that bothered me was the seemingly over abundant supply of medical students, (male) with female nursing students to assist them. Where are the Elizabeth Blackwells of the 70's? Looking back on the evening I felt particularly glad that I didn't have to be examined. I didn't think this attitude of "what's O.K. for you might not be for me" was fair at all. I thought about it quite a while and tried to decide exactly what would have made me feel more secure there and decided I would have had no objection to being examined by a woman, either med-student, nurse, or any woman that could have helped me. I realize the problems involved in setting up an all women medical clinic, and I think the Free Medical Clinic is a fantastic move, BUT I also know that there are women medical students, nurses, social workers, all women that know much more than they are given credit for or allowed to do by written or unwritten law. There is no reason, in my opinion, to set up a duplicate hierarchy in a free medical clinic that already exists in the medical profession today. Surely there can be more ingenuity, creativity, and human awareness in a free medical clinic than a hospital or like institution. There are people struggling to keep the clinic from turning into a toy hospital and they need our support! Help keep the clinic free and ask to see a WOMAN! WHERE ARE YOU ELIZABETH? The Doctor is in. [hand drawings of people] I decided that my nervousness and depression had reached its peak but was afraid to go to the free clinic. Whenever I really lose control I'm terrified of being committed. I've been through that psychiatry scene before and it's for shit. I finally expressed this to some of the women I live with although I felt ridiculously paranoid. They were wonderful and went to the clinic with me and supported me. The clinic was a real high. I didn't have to face a med student or doctor alone. Someone always stayed with me. The doctor I saw did suggest I see a counselor but when I refused he didn't push it. I felt I was listened to and that what I said was accepted as valid. I received some pills free. It was like a fantasy -- being treated respectfully and for free. Sometimes I enjoy work when I can pretend it's after the revolution and what we're producing is what will meet people's needs and that all of us on the assembly line had an equal say in what we did and how. The clinic was like that the first night and just the experience of decent care and support from other women made me feel much better. But just as I must come to and see what I'm helping produce on that line is worthless shit that no one needs but will make a profit for someone and pay me a minimum wage, I came to the clinic the next week and saw how nothing is free and the med students and doctors had no intention of treating us on any other than their own terms. One of us went to get their perscription for a mild tranquilizer refilled. This time she was really pressured about seeing a counselor and some of us intervened to explain the real material conditions that were upsetting us all and how we could talk to each other about them but we had no power to change them and neither did any fuckin counselor. After that we were told in effect that we could not get prescriptions if we continued to come to the clinic together. We would each have to see a doctor alone. Our support of each other was a threat to the unchallenged power of the doctor. It seemed like we could continue to get help there but only by allowing ourselves to be intimidated by seeing a doctor alone or possibly seeing a counselor we didn't want to see. Medical students and doctors are not generally poor (to say the least) and seem freaked out by how many people have come to them for some kind of tranquilizer. They don't understand how natural that is -- that people without money are as nervous about poverty as those who can afford to go to a private physician, that people are freaked out over having no homes or no jobs or jobs they're constantly afraid of losing. How the hell they think going to some damn counselor once a week to tell him you're pretty upset living in this shit pile, that being a woman in this world is hard, that being poor in America is rough, that being a radical woman in America can mean your extinction kinda scares you sometimes, that being gay in a straight world takes courage you don't always have --- how they think that's gonna change things for you, I don't know. But then they don't have to think very hard. They're men, they're privileged, they're Gods. Anyway I wouldn't go to the free clinic expecting better care. It's the same shit, you just don't have to lay any cash down. But not having to pay is not the entire meaning of free. a womAn? April 30, 1971 Page 5