Please join the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program for our next session of Works in Progress, a workshop series for graduate student research.

The series continues with K.M. Begian-Lewis, graduate student in the English Department (Rhetoric and Writing Studies). K.M. will share "Birth Control Prescriptions for Ovarian Bleeding: How Context Affects Medical Language Neutrality." 

Description: I will share my in-progress prospectus on the language that medical professionals use when prescribing or suggesting birth control for the treatment of ovarian bleeding conditions such as PCOS or endometriosis. We will look at some of the relevant history of the medical treatment of POC, consider how this history provides context for modern medical interaction with patients with ovarian bleeding, and dive into some of the details of the qualitative study I will be undertaking to better understand these interactions and how the language used by medical professionals is perceived by participants who have been prescribed birth control for ovarian bleeding conditions.

About the series: The central goal of the workshop series is to help foster community support among graduate students with research and teaching interests in feminism, trans studies, and/or queer studies. 

The series is an opportunity for graduate students to share work at any stage of development, whether dissertation work, MA thesis work, seminar work, or presentation work—but genuine works in progress. The workshop is not focused on “finished products.” Instead, the series is an opportunity for students to share work among a peer community and request feedback that is most helpful, supportive, and motivating for the stage they are at.

The series, however, is not a substitute for the necessary work students do with their own departments, advisors, or committee members, nor, given the likely cross-disciplinary nature of the work shared, would the group always be able to address discipline-specific matters. The group would be, rather, a form of care and support for graduate students and their work, something akin to academic mutual aid. To paraphrase Frank O’Hara, we want to put our work between people instead of between pages.