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Gender, health and theory: Conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective

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  • Connell, Raewyn

Abstract

Public policy documents on gender and health mostly rely on categorical understandings of gender that are now inadequate. Poststructuralist thought is an advance, but relational theories of gender, treating gender as a multidimensional structure operating in a complex network of institutions, provide the most promising approach to gendered embodiment and its connection with health issues. Examples are discussed in this article. A crucial problem is how to move the analysis beyond local arenas, especially to understand gender on a world scale. A relational approach to this question is proposed, seeing gendered embodiment as interwoven with the violent history of colonialism, the structural violence of contemporary globalization, and the making of gendered institutions on a world scale, including the corporations, professions and state agencies of the health sector. Gender is seen as the active social process that brings reproductive bodies into history, generating health consequences not as a side-effect but in the making of gender itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Connell, Raewyn, 2012. "Gender, health and theory: Conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 74(11), pages 1675-1683.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:74:y:2012:i:11:p:1675-1683
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sen, Gita, 2009. "Health inequalities: Gendered puzzles and conundrums. The 10th Annual Sol Levine Lecture on Society and Health, October 6, 2008," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1006-1009, October.
    2. Bates, Lisa Michelle & Hankivsky, Olena & Springer, Kristen W., 2009. "Gender and health inequities: A comment on the Final Report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1002-1004, October.
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