A Conceptual Muddle: An Empirical Analysis of the Use of ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’ in ‘Gender-Specific Medicine’ Journals

Hammarström, Anne; Annandale, Ellen

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0034193

Cited by 66 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Many contemporary gender scholars see sex and gender as distinct, though the concepts are often conflated in both academic and nonacademic contexts (Cowan 2005;Hammarstrom and Annandale 2012;Pryzgoda and Chrisler 2000;Wickes and Emmison 2007). "Sex" refers to the division of bodies into categories based on genitals, chromosomes, and/or hormone levels (West and Zimmerman 1987).…”

Section: Aligning Theory and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Categories Are Not Enough

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Grand Valley state university, usa aLiya saperstein stanford university, usa recently, scholars and activists have turned their attention toward improving the measurement of sex and gender in survey research. the focus of this effort has been on including answer options beyond "male" and "female" to questions about the respondent's gender. this is an important step toward both reflecting the diversity of gendered lives and better aligning survey measurement practice with contemporary gender theory. However, our systematic examination of questionnaires, manuals, and other technical materials from four of the largest and longest-running surveys in the united states indicates that there are a number of other issues with how gender is conceptualized and measured in social surveys that also deserve attention, including essentialist practices that treat sex and gender as synonymous, easily determined by others, obvious, and unchanging over the life course. We find that these understandings extend well beyond direct questions about the respondent's gender, permeating the surveys. a hyper-gendered world of "males" and "females," "brothers" and "sisters," and "husbands" and "wives" shapes what we can see in survey data. if not altered, surveys will continue to reproduce statistical representations that erase important dimensions of variation and likely limit understanding of the processes that perpetuate social inequality.

show abstract

Section: Aligning Theory and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Categories Are Not Enough

2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…shows the conceptualisations of each concept in recent research. First, the ‘static difference’ perspective treats ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ as dichotomous variables on an individual level 5. This perspective is often used in the research tradition of ‘gender-specific medicine’6 7 which defines itself as ‘the science of how men and women differ in their normal function and in the experience of disease’ 6.…”

Section: Sex and Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Central gender theoretical concepts in health research: the state of the art

Hammarström

Johansson

Annandale

et al. 2013

J Epidemiol Community Health

Self Cite

121

152

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of gender perspectives in health science, there is conceptual confusion regarding the meaning and the use of central gender theoretical concepts. We argue that it is essential to clarify how central concepts are used within gender theory and how to apply them to health research. We identify six gender theoretical concepts as central and interlinked-but problematic and ambiguous in health science: sex, gender, intersectionality, embodiment, gender equity and gender equality. Our recommendations are that: the concepts sex and gender can benefit from a gender relational theoretical approach (i.e., a focus on social processes and structures) but with additional attention to the interrelations between sex and gender; intersectionality should go beyond additive analyses to study complex intersections between the major factors which potentially influence health and ensure that gendered power relations and social context are included; we need to be aware of the various meanings given to embodiment, which achieve an integration of gender and health and attend to different levels of analyses to varying degrees; and appreciate that gender equality concerns absence of discrimination between women and men while gender equity focuses on women's and men's health needs, whether similar or different. We conclude that there is a constant need to justify and clarify our use of these concepts in order to advance gender theoretical development. Our analysis is an invitation for dialogue but also a call to make more effective use of the knowledge base which has already developed among gender theorists in health sciences in the manner proposed in this paper.

show abstract

“…But "gender equality," as noted by many, is a framework without fixed content; instead, it is a discourse filled with a variety of meanings and often ambiguous proposals (Bacchi, 2009;Hammarström & Annandale, 2012;van Eerdewijk & Davids, 2014). It means that ideas of gender equality can be used for different purposes and therefore can lead to a variety of outcomes (Olivius, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unintended Consequences of Gender Equality Promotion in Swedish Multicultural Contraceptive Counseling: A Discourse Analysis

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, we explore how reproductive health care providers in Sweden, a country often described as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, incorporate gender equality ideals in multicultural contraceptive counseling. In the tension between gender equality promotion on one hand and respect for cultural diversity and individualized care on the other, we will demonstrate that values of gender equality were often given priority. This is not necessarily undesirable. Nevertheless, our proposal is that the gender equality ideology may inhibit providers' ability to think differently about issues at stake in contraceptive counseling, which may negatively influence women's possibilities to obtain adequate support. At the end of the article, we suggest how health care providers' reflexivity might be used as a working tool for increased awareness about the taken-for-granted cultural norms that exist in their clinical milieu.

show abstract

A Conceptual Muddle: An Empirical Analysis of the Use of ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender’ in ‘Gender-Specific Medicine’ Journals

Cited by 66 publications

References 34 publications

New Categories Are Not Enough

New Categories Are Not Enough

Central gender theoretical concepts in health research: the state of the art

Unintended Consequences of Gender Equality Promotion in Swedish Multicultural Contraceptive Counseling: A Discourse Analysis

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About