Gender, health and theory: conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective
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.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The distinction between sex and gender and recognition of their interaction in individual development are increasingly common in health studies, but the importance of this distinction is still not sufficiently recognized, and both terms continue to intermesh in some scientific studies and official health policy documents.
“The distinction between sex and gender and the recognition of their interaction in individual development are increasingly common in health studies. However, the importance of this distinction is still not sufficiently recognized, and both terms still continue to intermesh in some scientific studies and official documents on health policy (Connell, 2012).”
From Health From a Gender Perspective (2017) · cites this paper as Connell, 2012
The development of social models does not follow a categorical logic, as postulated by the model of the sexual role of gender.
“Nor does the development of social models follow a categorical logic, as postulated by the model of the sexual role of gender, which is also based on a dichotomy, although grounded in social rules and expectations rather than in biology (Connell, 2012).”
From Health From a Gender Perspective (2017) · cites this paper as Connell, 2012
These approaches are insufficient for various reasons: they do not fully explain the variable gender, unintentionally reinforcing the inaccurate binary constructions of sex (man/woman) and gender (masculine/feminine), thereby presupposing that sex and gender are easily separable; and they often favor the search for differences over the exploration of similarities.
“However, these approaches are insufficient for various reasons: they do not fully explain the variable gender, unintentionally reinforcing the inaccurate binary constructions of sex (man/ woman) and gender (masculine/feminine), thereby presupposing that sex and gender are easily separable; and they often favor the search for differences over the exploration of similarities (Connell, 2012; Springer”
From Health From a Gender Perspective (2017) · cites this paper as Connell, 2012
Cites
Crenshaw, K. (2018) · Feminist Legal Theory · doi:10.4324/9780429500480-5 · Cited by 9,510 · see citing works
The Complexity of Intersectionality
McCall, L. (2005) · Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society · doi:10.1086/426800 · Cited by 6,682 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Further, McCall (2005) describes anti-categorical approaches used by intersectionality scholars to deconstruct systems of categorization and instead focus on complex relations between multiple groups not only within but across identities and analytic categories.”
BackgroundEmbodiment: a conceptual glossary for epidemiology
Krieger, N. (2005) · Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health · doi:10.1136/jech.2004.024562 · Cited by 964 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Discrimination and Health Inequities
Krieger, N. (2014) · International Journal of Health Services · doi:10.2190/hs.44.4.b · Cited by 953 · see citing works
Disrupting gender norms in health systems: making the case for change
Hay, K., McDougal, L., Percival, V., Henry, S., Klugman, J., Wurie, H., Raven, J., Shabalala, F., Fielding-Miller, R., Dey, A., et al. (2019) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(19)30648-8 · Cited by 442 · see citing works
Gender-related variables for health research
Nielsen, M. W., Stefanick, M. L., Peragine, D., Neilands, T. B., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Pilote, L., Prochaska, J. J., Cullen, M. R., Einstein, G., Klinge, I., et al. (2021) · Biology of Sex Differences · doi:10.1186/s13293-021-00366-3 · Cited by 238 · see citing works
“It’s gym, like g-y-m not J-i-m”: Exploring the role of place in the gendering of physical activity
Coen, S. E., Rosenberg, M. W., & Davidson, J. (2018) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.10.036 · Cited by 119 · see citing works
Men, masculinity, and engagement with treatment as prevention in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Chikovore, J., Gillespie, N., McGrath, N., Orne-Gliemann, J., Zuma, T., & On Behalf of the ANRS 12249 TasP Study Group (2016) · AIDS Care · doi:10.1080/09540121.2016.1178953 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
Merz, S., Jaehn, P., Mena, E., Pöge, K., Strasser, S., Saß, A.-C., Rommel, A., Bolte, G., & Holmberg, C. (2023) · Critical Public Health · doi:10.1080/09581596.2021.1951668 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
‘Where is the space for continuum?’ Gyms and the visceral “stickiness“ of binary gender
Coen, S. E., Davidson, J., & Rosenberg, M. W. (2021) · Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health · doi:10.1080/2159676x.2020.1748897 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Ahlgren, C., Fjellman-Wiklund, A., Hamberg, K., Johansson, E. E., & Stålnacke, B.-M. (2016) · Disability and Rehabilitation · doi:10.3109/09638288.2015.1127435 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Health From a Gender Perspective
Sánchez-López, M. P., & Limiñana-Gras, R. M. (2017) · The Psychology of Gender and Health · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-803864-2.00001-8 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
- Authors
- Connell, R.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Connell, Raewyn
- ORCID
- Connell, Raewyn
- Venue
- Social Science & Medicine
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2012-06
- Volume
- 74
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1675-1683
- ISSN
- 0277-9536 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1982794430
- Cited by
- 860
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 47 · 2025: 66 · 2024: 58 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 103 · 2020: 90 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 72 · 2017: 55 · 2016: 53 · 2015: 48 · 2014: 48 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 19
- FWCI
- 104.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Social Science & Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Gender, Health, and Social Inequality
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Feminist Theory and Gender Studies
- Keywords
- gender and health, gendered embodiment, poststructuralism, colonialism, structural violence, globalization, gendered institutions, health sector, reproductive body, global health policy
- MeSH terms
- Anorexia, Concept Formation, Female, Humans, Male, Models, Theoretical, Sex Factors, Social Environment, Global Health, HIV Infections, Women's Health, Men's Health
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
