Strategies for empowering women's voices in the medical culture.

Abstract

Power and knowledge are closely connected, and this is no less true for the medical profession than it is for any other sphere of life. Knowledge is constructed by voice. Unfortunately, women's voices are often silent in the factory where medical knowledge is produced. Medicalization and ignoring are symptoms of the medical oppression of women's voices. Empowerment of women's voices at various levels within the medical culture is essential for influence and social reconstruction. In this regard, a research project on alternative approaches to physician-patient communication as well as research methods is presented. Knowledge constructed from women's voices will be neglected by medical power unless it can hold up to systematic investigative procedures. Sensitive and sensible research from women's voices requires methodology that preserves women's messages and transforms them into medical knowledge. Such efforts may ultimately lead toward construction of a feminine medical epistemology--a medical knowledge that reflects women's reality.