Theorising women’s health and health inequalities: shaping processes of the ‘gender-biology nexus’

ABSTRACT

Since the theoretical frameworks and conceptual tools we employ shape research outcomes by guiding research pathways, it is important that we subject them to ongoing critical reflection. A thoroughgoing analysis of the global production of women’s health inequality calls for a comprehensive theorization of how social relations of gender and the biological body mutually interact in local contexts in a nexus with women’s health. However, to date, the predominant concern of research has been to identify the biological effects of social relations of gender on the body, to the relative neglect of the co-constitutive role that these biological changes themselves may play in ongoing cycles of gendered health oppressions. Drawing on feminist and gender theoretical approaches, and with the health of women and girls as our focus, we seek to extend our understanding of this recursive process by discussing what we call the ‘shaping processes’ of the ‘gender-biology nexus’ which call attention to not only the ‘gender-shaping of biology’ but also the ‘biologic-shaping of gender’. We consider female genital mutilation/cutting as an illustration of this process and conclude by proposing that a framework which attends to both the ‘gender-shaping of biology’ and the ‘biologic-shaping of gender’ as interweaving processes provides a fruitful approach to theorising the wider health inequalities experienced by women and girls.

SPECIAL ISSUE:

• Gender and Health Inequality

KEYWORDS:

• Biology
• female genital mutilation/cutting
• inequality
• feminism
• theoretical

Responsible Editor Peter Byass, Umeå University, Sweden

Responsible Editor Peter Byass, Umeå University, Sweden

Acknowledgments

None.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics and consent

Not applicable.

Paper context

Analyses of the relationship between social and biological factors in the production of women’s health inequality have focused predominantly on how social factors become embodied to the relative neglect of the reciprocal role played by the biological body in shaping its social world. Drawing on feminist and gender theory we develop a novel theoretical approach which attends not only to the ‘gender-shaping of biology’ but also to the ‘biologic-shaping of gender’ as interweaving processes.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by The Swedish Research Council dnr 344-2011-5478.

Notes on contributors

Ellen Annandale

EA took primary responsibility for writing and revising the manuscript. All authors contributed to developing and revising the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.