Abstract
The differences in health between men and women have been object of great interest, but interpretations tend to be naturalized and essentialists. Gender-oriented studies have criticized this literature and offered new analythical alternatives. The present study was intended to describe the profile and trends of scientific production on gender and health in Brazil. Data sources comprised the Research Groups Directory of Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (National Research Council), CAPES (Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) Thesis Bank, and four journals available in SciELO--Scientific Eletronic Library Online. Fifty-one groups with at least one line of research in the subject were identified, with regional and institutional concentrations. The results confirmed the marked growth of scientific production in this field as 98 master and 42 doctoral dissertations and 665 articles on gender and health were retrieved. Women authored 86.0% and 89.0% of doctoral and master dissertations respectively, and 70.5% of the articles. Most were published in the 2000s when diversification of the studied topics was also seen. The studied subjects can be divided into five subgroups: reproduction and contraception; gender and violence; sexuality and health with emphasis on STD/AIDS; work and health, including domestic and night work; other emergent or less explored topics. There are major political, epistemological and methodological challenges for strengthening these advancements. The gender perspective offers possibilities for enlightment of theoretical dilemmas in public health. Furthermore, it can be added to other intellectual and political efforts towards understanding health and its determinants and fighting against inequalities and for social justice.
Highlights
For a long time health differences between men and women have been naturalized following so-called neutral biological theories
The present study aims at beginning to explore this emerging thematic field by profiling and describing trends of scientific work on gender and health in Brazil
Four periodicals were explored: Revista de Saúde Pública (RSP), published by Faculdade de Saúde Pública da Universidade de São Paulo (FSP-USP) and it is the oldest journal in the field; Cadernos de Saúde Pública (CSP), published since 1985 by Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (ENSP-Fiocruz); and Ciência e Saúde Coletiva (CiSC) and Revista Brasileira de Epidemiologia (RBE), both created by the Associação Brasileira de Pós-Graduação em Saúde Coletiva (Abrasco - Brazilian Association of Collective Health Postgraduate Programs) in 1996 and 1998 respectively
Summary
For a long time health differences between men and women have been naturalized following so-called neutral biological theories. Studies investigating “woman” – an empirical category – were replaced by “gender” studies – an analytical category that rejected the biological determinism of sexual differences and emphasized the social construction of female and male.[52] In the 1990s, men were included as an empirical category and an approach questioning hegemonic masculinity models was joined to the efforts deconstructing essentialism. “Gender” is a grammatical term borrowed by AngloSaxon feminists and alludes to the social organization of the relation between the sexes.[86] A pronounced increase in the use of ‘gender’ in English titles is noticeable in the Web of Science interface of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)/Thomson database This can be attributed to its adoption by academic feminism after 1970.48 Before its nongrammatical use was rarely seen and “sex” was used to make a distinction between men and women.
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