Feminist Perspectives of Health - Unit 4 Notes

4.1 Introduction

• Purpose: Understand how gender and well-being discussions have evolved in Sociology of Health and Illness over the last few decades and how feminist theory informs empirical work and challenges misogyny and patriarchal structures.
• Key concerns:
  • Relationship between gender and well-being, including women’s invisibility, the confluence of sexuality and gender, and the critique of binary thinking.
  • Use of sociological understandings of the body and post-structural connotations to observe gendered body expectations and health/illness states.
• Feminist contributions:
  • Movements that question, challenge, or refute the exclusively biological approach to health.
  • Coexistence of alternative knowledge with ‘legitimate’ knowledge in health
• Holistic feminist conceptual framework:
  • Based on eight key ideas 8 and marked by critical attitudes toward medical and public (social) institutions.
  • Contrast with biomedicine: a mechanical view that parts the body; holistic view sees the person as a whole (body and mind) interacting with social and physical environments.
  • Health is defined as a holistic product of social interactions, not just a medical condition.
  • Recognition of both shared Human physiology and social differences, acknowledging differences between individuals, including males and females.
• Historical framing:
  • Over the past 25 years, gender and health research has explored how gender theory informs empirical work and the feminist challenge to sexism and the patriarchal order (Bradby, 2008).

4.2 Learning Objectives

• To understand the relationship between Gender and Health.
• To know the Feminist Perspectives of Health.
• To know the relationship between Medicine and Gender.
• How medical science is Men-centric?
• Where are the women in Medicine, Medical Science and Medical Profession?

4.3 The Feminist Perspectives of Health

• Feminism is not a single unified position in sociology; several major strands exist, including Liberal feminism, Socialist/Marxist feminism, Radical feminism, and Postmodern/post-structuralist feminism (Coffey, 2004).
• Core agreement across strands:
  • There are significant power differences between men and women in society, reflected in illness patterns, health, and health care access.
• A feminist lens treats childbirth as both a biological experience and a cultural/political phenomenon embedded in gender relations (and thus a key area for feminist study).
• Eight key ideas in the holistic feminist framework are elaborated in the discussion of health and gender, emphasizing critical stances toward medical/public institutions.

4.3.1 Liberal feminism

• Core stance: balances individual rights with population-level concerns; grounded in moral principles and utilitarian arguments.
• Liberal health-care commitments:
  • Health care as an equal right for all, supported by universal coverage via social insurance; equitable financing; commitment to equality in health care.
• Focus on gender health disparities:
  • Investigates why health disparities exist between men and women, considering roles and economic circumstances.
  • If women achieve the same socioeconomic status as men, health care standards should rise.
• Professional representation:
  • Seeks equality for women in higher-status medical positions; highlights the under-representation of women in top medical roles and the perception of nursing as a lower-status feminine career.
• Women’s autonomy in health care:
  • Emphasizes women’s lack of authority in interactions with medical professionals and advocates for greater female input in decisions around delivery and contraception.
• Criticisms by radical/postmodern critics (Annandale, 1998):
  • Liberal feminism operates within the patriarchal system; patriarchy underpins oppression, so working inside it may be limited.
  • Radical/essentialist and postmodern feminists critique liberal feminism for largely serving the interests of white, middle-class women by prioritizing access to professions and power, which may not translate into broad structural change for all women.
• Radical critique of the body and emotion:
  • Radical feminists argue that women’s bodies and emotional expression are treated as disadvantages to be overcome to achieve equality.

4.3.2 Socialist Feminism

• Core idea: marries Marxist analysis with feminist concerns; debates exist about whether the approach is primarily Marxist or feminist, but it integrates both.
• Health inequalities: mirrors liberal aims to reduce health disparities but argues that true change requires altering the capitalist-patriarchal structure.
• Structural change over incremental reform:
  • Advocates replacing capitalism with a socialist system where men and women share equal responsibility and status.
• Doyal (1995) on medicine and gender:
  • Medicine reinforces capitalism by defining disease as anything that reduces worker productivity.
  • Medicine reinforces patriarchy by framing women’s health around reproduction, domestic duties, and provision of a reserve labor force.
  • New technologies and medicines commercialize aspects of female health (pregnancy, childbirth, hormonal cycles, aging symptoms).
• Women’s labor and health:
  • Doyal argues that women face a “double day” of paid work plus substantial domestic responsibilities, driving gendered health inequalities.
  • Women undertake more at-home care and outside work; heterosexual intercourse can expose women to health risks (e.g., cervical cancer) and gendered health issues
  • Women lack control over fertility; male control over fertility has serious health implications; health care systems reinforce class, gender, and ethnic inequalities.

4.3.3 Radical feminism

• Core claim: exploitation and subjugation of women by men underpins modern civilization; changing capitalism or achieving equal rights alone would not fully liberate women.
• Universal exploitation: claims all women share exploitation regardless of ethnicity or class.
• Medicine as social control (Ehrenreich, 1978):
  • Medical explanations often depoliticize social determinants of female ill-health, offering individualistic explanations instead of addressing systemic gendered oppression.
  • Medical science can present itself as neutral and rational, while conveying social norms about appropriate female behavior.
• Historical case: late 19th-century medicine and women’s health (Ehrenreich & English, 1978):
  • Beliefs about energy competition among organs; women’s primary role as reproducers led to the belief that other activities (education, sports) diverted energy from reproductive organs.
  • Doctors attributed many health issues to uterine/ovarian disorders, reinforcing female frailty and justifying restrictions on women’s activities.
• Modern instances of medical control:
  • Graham & Oakley (1981) found differing frames of reference between women and male doctors regarding pregnancy and delivery; doctors framed delivery as potentially dangerous, while women framed it as a natural life event.
  • During medical assessments, doctors often dominated the interaction; nurses and women were positioned as subordinate; questioning the doctor was sometimes discouraged.
  • Fear of questioning or reliance on doctor’s jargon reinforced the doctor-patient power imbalance.
• Reclaiming reproduction:
  • The movement led to feminist groups like the Association of Radical Midwives aiming to restore women’s control over reproduction and challenge male-dominated medical authority.

4.3.4 Criticisms of radical feminism

• Essentialist view: radical feminists are accused of assuming a universal female essence, implying all women share fundamental traits across cultures and contexts.
• Opposing view (Annandale, 1998):
  • Women differ from one another due to social, cultural, and contextual factors; the best approach to understanding gender differences is to analyze society rather than assume a universal female nature.

4.3.5 Postmodern feminism

• Response to essentialism:
  • Postmodern feminists critique radical feminism for essentialism and argue that gender is not a fixed binary with inherent differences.
• Core claim: gender differences are not fixed; gender is constructed through discourse and embodied in everyday practices.
• Core concepts:
  • Gender is largely created through discourse (language, symbols) and is performative (Butler, 1990).
  • Gender is not intrinsic; it is enacted or performed in social contexts, and those who do not fit binary categories may be treated as deviant.
  • Emphasis on embodiment: the body and its relation to society reveal how gender is performed and regulated (e.g., how people display gender via body language, movement, facial expressions).
• Key example: Young (1990) Throwing like a Girl
  • Investigates how girls are taught to display less physical confidence; contrasts with men's perceptions of their bodies as complete and powerful.
  • Demonstrates how physical games and bodies are coded as feminine or masculine and how social judgments reinforce gender norms.
• Broader implications:
  • Postmodern feminism highlights body politics, gender boundaries, and power relations; it stresses the fluidity of gender and the need to include diverse identities (e.g., transgender, homosexual concerns) in feminist analysis.
• Synthesis with other strands:
  • Postmodern feminists acknowledge commonalities with liberal, socialist/Marxist, and radical strands while arguing that focusing solely on cross-gender differences misses intra-sexual differences and broader social dynamics.
• Theoretical orientation:
  • Connell (1995) is cited to emphasize that gender expressions are diverse and not strictly binary; there are multiple ways of being male or female, and identities can overlap or diverge across contexts.
• Overall aim:
  • To shift away from a binary, fixed view of gender toward an understanding of gender as dynamic, contextual, and socially constructed, with attention to power, embodiment, and discourse.

4.4 Let Us Sum Up

• (Note: The provided transcript does not include explicit content for this section. Summary would be drawn from the preceding sections as an integrated overview of liberal, socialist, radical, and postmodern feminist perspectives on health, with emphasis on how gender structures health outcomes and health care.)

4.5 Model Questions

• (Note: The provided transcript does not include explicit content for this section. Possible exam-style prompts based on the material could include:)
  • Explain how liberal feminism and socialist feminism differ in their diagnosis of health disparities between men and women.
  • Discuss Ehrenreich (1978) and the concept of medicine as social control in radical feminism.
  • What is meant by gender as performativity? How does Butler (1990) illustrate this with examples of everyday practices?
  • Describe Doyal’s (1995) critique of health care under capitalism and the idea of the “double day.”
  • How does postmodern feminism address essentialist critiques of earlier feminist theories? Give examples (e.g., Young, 1990).

4.6 References

• Bradby, 2008
• Annandale, E., 1998
• Doyal, L., 1995
• Ehrenreich, B., 1978
• Ehrenreich, E. & English, D., 1978
• Graham, I. & Oakley, A., 1981; 1986
• Young, I. M., 1990
• Connell, R. W., 1995
• Coffey, A., 2004
• (Other citations appear in the transcript as parenthetical references throughout.)