RAB Source Entry 2- Evelyn Castillo

Research Question: How does Pain Dismissal Affect Women’s Health?

Source Entry 2: Op-Ed Piece

MLA Citation 

Yanique, Tiphanie. “Opinion: My Pregnancy Caused Crushing Pain. Why Didn’t My Doctors Think That Was a Problem?” Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2023, www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-26/black-women-maternal-health-pain-doctors-pregnancy-birth-control.

Summary 

The open editorial piece, “My Pregnancy Caused Crushing Pain. Why didn’t My Doctors Think That Was A Problem?” by Typhanie Yanique is a story of how her pain has been constantly ignored by her doctors, forcing her to change to different doctors just to accomplish getting the right treatment. Yanique opens the op-ed piece by sharing her story of how she suffered extreme pain during pregnancy yet she was not attended to her needs rightfully causing her a broken pelvis later on. Yanique explains, “Even Black women, raised and educated in this society, can assume our bodies should be sick or broken.” The author points out that internalized racism and misogyny is not only normalized into white medical practitioners but also into black women medical practitioners. Yanique shares another story in which after choosing to have an IUD and experiencing pain and bleeding her gynecologist decided to ignore her request to replace the IUD and instead was told to wait. Yanique later explains that a different doctor heard her story and changed the IUD which was “sideways and bloody. It had been scraping me.” The author finalizes the op-ed piece by stating her takeaway of these medical dismissal pains and concludes that the only way for women to have proper medical treatment is if doctors listen instead of assuming women’s symptoms. 

Rhetorical Analysis 

The genre is a op-ed piece. The primary audience are women and people in the medical field. The purpose is to share an experience. The appeal of pathos is present in the text based on the fact that the author is sharing her personal story. The author uses pathos to empathize with the primary audience by sharing emotions and using narrative techniques. The author also used ethos “as a novelist” Yanique shares her relevant credibility. Yanique is credible because she is a professor at Emory University and is the author of four books.  Los Angeles Times is a reliable source because it is a regional American daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles, California in 1881. LAT bases its information in  analysis and fact Reporting in terms of reliability. This article was published in March 2023 which adds to the currency. 

Key Quotes: 

1. “My pubic bone felt broken. The same obstetrician assured me that the pain I was feeling was normal.” (par 3)
2. “This gynecologist was a Black woman. And yet here I was again. She assumed pain to be my body’s natural and acceptable state.” (par 14)

“My doctor listened to my specific story and assumed that my narrative was valuable in

3. treating me. We both agreed that my being healthy was normal.” (par 16)