Should Women Move Like Men? The Construction of Gender and Difference in Research on Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries

Abstract

This article investigates constructions of gender and difference in biomedical research on anterior cruciate ligament injuries. This injury is of interest because evidence shows a higher risk among females in some sports and there is extensive research on this topic. The analysis examined consensus statements from 6 anterior cruciate ligament research retreats spanning 11 years. The initial mission of the retreats was to examine factors related to a possible gender bias in incidence. Over time there was increasing emphasis on explaining the mechanisms of the injury and injury prevention. Conceptualizations of gender were multifaceted and as research evolved showed a tendency to move away from essentialist and categorical constructions. The discussion suggests that the location of this research in a broader agenda of injury prevention helped to distance it from a narrow focus on gender difference and provided the context for increasingly nuanced conceptualizations of gender.

Keywords:

• Gender
• sport medicine

Notes

1. The analysis showed higher rates in spring football specifically.

2. The search was conducted on February 18, 2015. Surgical terms were excluded because there is extensive research on surgical procedures associated with ACL repairs and inclusion of references on this topic would have greatly inflated the number of publications.

3. References for the consensus statements in chronological order are Davis and Ireland (2001, 2003); Davis et al. (2007); Shultz et al. (2008, 2010, 2012).

4. The mission statement was worded slightly differently in the second and third retreats and there was no specific mission statement indicated in the consensus statement for the fourth retreat.