Sociological approaches to the gendering of emotions in health and illness

Feminist critiques in the second half of the 20th century emphasised how polarisations between public/private mind/body and reason/emotion are intrinsically gendered. Post-colonial critiques, and more recently, work on intersectionality, have further highlighted how other social groups are constructed as lacking both reason and sensibility. In other words, emotions can be viewed within a social hierarchy and identity ‘science’ embedded in colonialism may perceive ‘race as gendered, gender as raced’, with other endless permutations and intertwinings across sexuality and social class. The process of ‘essentialisation’ of emotion and the assumptions behind emotional stereotyping through social characteristics has major implications for the health of individuals at the micro level, and of how health professionals respond, access to care and the perpetuation of health inequalities at the macro level. In this chapter we explore how the use of an emotional lens has allowed sociologists of health and illness to develop insights into the experience of many chronic illness conditions across idiopathic pain, medically unexplained symptoms and mental health.