Women's Health Issues
Volume 18, Issue 3 , Pages 151-154 , May 2008

Exposing Gender Bias in Medical Taxonomy: Toward Embracing a Gender Difference Without Disenfranchising Women

  • James D. Katz, MD

      Affiliations

    • Dr. Katz is an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Division of Rheumatology.
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorrespondence to: James D. Katz, MD, FACP, FACR, Associate Professor of Medicine, Director, Division of Rheumatology, The George Washington University, 3-416, 2150 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20037. Fax: 202-741-2490.
    • ,
  • Rachel Seaman, MD

      Affiliations

    • Dr. Seaman is the Chief Medical Resident in the Department of Medicine.
    • ,
  • Shari Diamond, MD

      Affiliations

    • Dr. Diamond is a Rheumatologist.

Received 25 February 2008 ,Accepted 11 March 2008.

References 

  1. Andrist L. A feminist model for women's health care. Nursing Inquiry. 1997;4:268–274
  2. Andrist LC, Arias RD, Nucatola D, Kaunitz AM, Musselman BL, Reiter S, et al. Women's and providers' attitudes toward menstrual suppression with extended use of oral contraceptives. Contraception. 2004;70:359–363
  3. Andrist LC, MacPherson KI. Conceptual models for women's health research: reclaiming menopause as an exemplar of nursing's contributions to feminist scholarship. Annual Review of Nursing Research. 2001;19:29–60
  4. Armstrong K. Medicalizing normality? (Management of irritability in babies). Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. 2000;36:301
  5. Abeles AM, Pillinger MH, Solitar BM, Abeles M. Narrative review: The pathophysiology of fibromyalgia. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2007;146:726–734
  6. Barsky AJ, Peekna HM, Borus JF. Somatic symptom reporting in women and men. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2001;16:266–275
  7. Berger A, Dukes E, Martin S, Edelsberg J, Oster G. Characteristics and healthcare costs of patients with fibromyalgia syndrome. International Journal of Clinical Practice. 2007;61:1498–1508
  8. Bombardier CH, Buchwald D. Chronic fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia (Disability and health-care use). Medical Care. 1996;34:924–930
  9. Bornstein RF. Depathologizing dependency. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 1998;186:67–73
  10. Bridges KM. On the commodification of the black female body: The critical implications of the alienability of fetal tissue. Columbia Law Review. 2002;102:123–167
  11. Burgess DJ, van Ryn M, Crowley-Matoka M, Malat J. Understanding the provider contribution to race/ethnicity disparities in pain treatment: Insights from dual process models of stereotyping. Pain Medicine. 2006;7:119–134
  12. Carville SF, Arendt-Nielsen S, Bliddal H, Blotman F, Branco JC, et al. EULAR evidence based recommendations for the management of fibromyalgia syndrome. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. 2008;67:536–541
  13. Chesler P. Women and madness. In: New York: Palgrave Macmillan; 2005;p. 1–44
  14. Michael P. Gender and insanity in nineteenth-century Wales. Clio Medica. 2004;73:95–122
  15. Duffy L. Culture and context of HIV prevention in rural Zimbabwe: The influence of gender inequality. Journal of Transcultural Nursing. 2005;16:23–31
  16. Endresen GK. Fibromyalgia: A rheumatologic diagnosis?. Rheumatology International. 2007;27:999–1004
  17. Frick KD, Jones AS. Gender bias in economic evaluation methods: Quality of life and family role effects. Women's Health Issues. 2008;18:4–6
  18. Gijsbers van Wijk CM, van Vliet KP, Kolk AM. Gender perspectives and quality of care: Towards appropriate and adequate health care for women. Social Science & Medicine. 1996;43:707–720
  19. Glenton C. Chronic back pain sufferers—Striving for the sick role. Social Science & Medicine. 2003;57:2243–2252
  20. Greer G. The change (Women, aging, and the menopause). In: New York: Fawcett Columbine; 1991;p. 239–241
  21. Gureje O, Simon GE, Von Korff M. A cross-national study of the course of persistent pain in primary care. Pain. 2001;92:195–200
  22. Hamilton WT, Gallagher AM, Thomas JM, White PD. The prognosis of different fatigue diagnostic labels: A longitudinal survey. Family Practice. 2005;22:383–388
  23. Henry MS. Uncertainty, responsibility, and the evolution of the physician/patient relationship. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2006;32:321–323
  24. Hodgkiss A. From lesion to metaphor: Chronic pain in British, French and German medical writings 1800–1914. Clio Medica. 2000;58:1–218
  25. Hughes CK, Higuchi P. Ka Lokahi Wahine: A culturally based training for health professionals. Pacific Health Dialog. 2004;11:166–169
  26. Huibers MJ, Wessely S. The act of diagnosis: Pros and cons of labeling chronic fatigue syndrome. Psychological Medicine. 2006;10:1–6
  27. Shugg J, Liamputtong P. Being female: The portrayal of women's health in print media. Health Care for Women International. 2002;23:715–728
  28. Jones AS, Frick KD. Gender bias in economic evaluation methods: Time costs and productivity loss. Women's Health Issues. 2008;18:1–3
  29. Koehler PJ. Freud's comparative study of hysterical and organic paralyses: How Charcot's assignment turned out. Archives of Neurology. 2003;60:1646–1650
  30. Kramer MK. Self-characterizations of adult female informal caregivers: gender identity and the bearing of burden. Research and Theory for Nursing Practice. 2005;19:137–161
  31. Linstead S. Abjection and organization: Men, violence, and management. Human Relations. 1997;50:1115–1145
  32. Lotto D. Freud's struggle with misogyny: homosexuality and guilt in the dream of Irma's injection. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 2001;49:1289–1313
  33. Mai FM. “Hysteria” in clinical neurology. Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences. 1995;22:101–110
  34. Mailis-Gagnon A, Giannoylis I, Downar J, Kwan CL, Mikulis DJ, Crawley AP, et al. Altered central somatosensory processing in chronic pain patients with “hysterical” anesthesia. Neurology. 2003;60:1501–1507
  35. Malterud K. Strategies for empowering women's voices in the medical culture. Health Care for Women International. 1993;14:365–373
  36. McBeth J, Macfarlane GJ, Benjamin S, Silman AJ. Features of somatization predict the onset of chronic widespread pain: Results of a large population-based study. Arthritis and Rheumatism. 2001;44:940–946
  37. Mead S, Hilton D. Crisis and connection. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal. 2003;27:87–94
  38. Merskey H. Hysteria: The history of an idea. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 1983;28:428–433
  39. Merskey H, Merskey SJ. Hysteria, or “suffocation of the mother.”. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 1993;148:399–405
  40. Müller W, Schneider EM, Stratz T. The classification of fibromyalgia syndrome. Rheumatology International. 2007;27:1005–1010
  41. Misbach J. Medicalizing melancholia: Exploring profiles of psychiatric professionalization. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. 2006;42:41
  42. Moen P, Chermack K. Gender disparities in health: Strategic selection, careers, and cycles of control. Journal of Gerontology. 2005;60B:99–109
  43. Moen P, Chermack K. Topic 5 (Gender and work in health inequalities). The Journals of Gerontology (Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences). 2005;60:S99–S108
  44. Morris DB. The culture of pain. In: Berkeley: The University of California Press; 1991;p. 103–124
  45. O'Brien Cousins S, Edwards K. Alice in menopauseland: The jabberwocky of a medicalized middle age. Health Care for Women International. 2002;23:325–343
  46. O'Callaghan MA, Andrist LC. The next step for emergency contraception: over-the-counter availability. Clinical Excellence for Nurse Practitioners. 2001;5:73–79
  47. Palmer D. Looking at philosophy (The unbearable heaviness of philosophy made lighter). (2nd ed.). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing; 1994;
  48. Paulson M, Danielson E, Norberg A. Nurses' and physicians' narratives about long-term non-malignant pain among men. Journal of Advanced Nursing. 1999;30:1097–1105
  49. Peele PB, Siminoff LA, Xu Y, Ravdin PM. Decreased use of adjuvant breast cancer therapy in a randomized controlled trial of a decision aid with individualized risk information. Medical Decision Making. 2005;25:301–307
  50. Purdy L. Women's reproductive autonomy: Medicalisation and beyond. Journal of Medical Ethics. 2006;32:287–291
  51. Risberg G, Hamberg K, Johansson EE. Gender perspective in medicine: a vital part of medical scientific rationality (A useful model for comprehending structures and hierarchies within medical science). BMC Medicine. 2006;24:4–20
  52. Roberts SJ, Garling J. The menstrual myth revisited. Nursing Forum. 1981;20:267–273
  53. Roughton RE. Rethinking homosexuality: What it teaches us about psychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 2002;50:733–763
  54. Russell D. Psychiatric diagnosis and the oppression of women. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. 1985;31:298–305
  55. Russo NF. Overview: Forging research priorities for women's mental health. The American Psychologist. 1990;45:368–373
  56. Sachs L. From a lived body to a medicalized body: Diagnostic transformation and chronic fatigue syndrome. Medical Anthropology. 2001;19:299–317
  57. Scully JL. What is a disease?. EMBO Reports. 2004;5:650–653
  58. Smith RD. The meaning of workplace discrimination for women with disabilities. Work. 2005;24:369–380
  59. Soltis-Jarrett V. Interactionality: willfully extending the boundaries of participatory research in psychiatric-mental health nursing. ANS (Advances in Nursing Science). 2004;27:316–329
  60. Thomas C. Medicine, gender, and disability: Disabled women's health care encounters. Health Care for Women International. 2001;22:245–262
  61. Weiss G. Urban flesh. Philosophy Today. 2005;49:116–128
  62. Weisz D, Gusmano MK, Rodwin VG. Gender and the treatment of heart disease in older persons in the United States, France, and England: A comparative, population-based view of a clinical phenomenon. Gender Medicine. 2004;1:29–40
  63. Whittle KL, Inhorn MC. Rethinking difference: a feminist reframing of gender/race/class for the improvement of women's health research. International Journal of Health Services. 2001;31:147–165

PII: S1049-3867(08)00038-8

doi: 10.1016/j.whi.2008.03.002

Women's Health Issues
Volume 18, Issue 3 , Pages 151-154 , May 2008

Article Tools