10 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
10 lines
1.8 KiB
Markdown
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title: "Gynepunk"
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Access to reproductive healthcare is limited in many countries for ideological reasons or for the lack of basic services, resulting in denial of bodily integrity. Sexual health and well-being can be a taboo, gynaecological procedures invasive and painful, medical profession dominated by heteropatriarchal values, contraceptives too expensive to many women and pregnancy terminations pushed into illegality. Even there where public welfare systems do provide a comprehensive reproductive healthcare, it still might remain unavailable to many vulnerable groups such as undocumented immigrants, LGBTIQ+ people, sex workers and the uninsured.
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To counter this heteropartriarchal state of affairs, in mid-2010s a group of bio-hackers has come together as GynePunks in Pechablenda, the TransHackFeminist space in the post-capitalist eco-industrial colony Calafou in Catalonia, with the objective of reclaiming gynaecology and repoliticising feminism through biotechnological practices. GynePunks have worked with the Hacketeria network to develop open-source toolkits for gynaecological self-diagnosis and first-aid, consisting of centrifuges made from upcycled hard-disks, microscopes from disused webcams and 3D printed speculums that are better adapted to women's anatomy.
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This do-it-together and do-it-with-others biolab allows women to conduct basic tests for infections, cervical cancers, STDs and pregnancies. To complement the production of gynaecological and lab instruments, GynePunks, who have moved on to work in different constellations, organise workshops and performances to instigate collective material-affective encounters with biotechnologies and learning processes aimed at destigmatising, democratising and decolonising reproductive health from the clutches of biomedical violence.
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