How are sex, gender and health interwoven? Theoretical development in a Northern European context

Overview

Gender theories from the humanities and social sciences are important contributions to gender research in health, but lack robust theorisation about health. While most feminist researchers today agree about the need to analyse both ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ there is a dearth of research on how ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are interwoven. The purpose of this project is to develop theories of how sex/gender and health are interwoven in a Northern European context.

The research questions are:

• How can we move beyond a dichotomous view of the concepts of “sex” and “gender”?
• How are sex/gender interwoven with health, focusing on e.g. gender constructions, gender relations, life conditions, bodily experiences, stress and biological markers?
• Is the interweaving of sex/ gender with health related to intersectional power dimensions related to age, class, ethnicity and sexuality?

Our theoretical points of departures are a combination of social constructivism and materialist feminism. Theory building was undertaken in a double theorizing process carried out through two different but parallel approaches: analysis of theoretical texts (step 1) and theoretical development through empirical analyses of diverse samples (step 2). These two processes delivered partial knowledge which was concurrently linked together and finally integrated at key junctures of theorisation. The project aims to make contributions to both the feminist literature as well as to the field of health.

Research Starts: 1st October 2012
Research Ends: 30th September 2016

People

Ellen Annandale is working on the project with Anne Hammarström (PI) and colleagues at Umeå University in Sweden.

Research Outputs

Publications

E. Annandale, M. Wiklund and A. Hammarström (2019) ‘Theorising Women’s Health and health inequalities: shaping processes of the “gender-biology nexus”’ Global Health Action, 11 (3): 87-96.

Published Version: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16549716.2019.1669353

E. Annandale and A Hammarström (2015) ‘Gender equality in the couple relationship and leisure-based physical exercise’. PLos One, 10 (7)

Published Version: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0133348

A. Hammarström, K. Johansson, E. Annandale, C. Ahlgren, L. Aléx, M. Christianson, S. Elwér, C. Eriksson, A. Fjellman-Wiklund, K. Gilenstam, P. Gustafsson, L. Harryson, A. Lehti, G. Stenberg, P. Verdonk (2014) ‘Central gender theories in health research – the state of the art’, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 68: 185-90.

Published Version: https://jech.bmj.com/content/68/2/185

E. Annandale and A. Hammarström (2015) ‘A New Biopolitics of Gender and Health? “Gender-specific medicine” and Pharmaceuticalization’, In S. Bell and A. Figert (eds.) Reimagining Biomedicalization, Pharmaceuticals, and Genetics: Old Critiques and New Engagements. Routledge, pp. 41-55.

Published Version: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/york-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1974367 

Conference papers

2015. Annandale and A. Hammarström 'Gender-specific medicine' and the biopolitics of health’, British Sociological Association, Medical Sociology Group Conference, York University

2015 E. Annandale and A Hammarström ‘Gender-specific medicine’ and the pharmacological body. European Sociological Association Conference, Prague

2013 E. Annandale  and A. Hammarström ‘A new biopolitics of gender and health? “Gender-specific medicine” and pharmaceuticalisation in the twenty-first century’. Symposium Big Pharma, Big Medicine and Technoscience: Investigating intersections in the twenty-first century. Bowdoin College, Maine USA.