Gender and Health
Gender analysis of the relation between men and women can be understood in terms of cultural symbols, normative concepts, institutional patterns and elements of the identity. It involves a process of social construction which differentiates between men and women, and at the same time articulates them inside power relations over access to resources. The gender system sets specific conduct patterns, needs, epidemiological risks, roles, responsibilities and differences with respect to access to and control over resources between each sex. These differences generate inequities in human behaviors and in health status.
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- be familiar with the evidence relating gender inequalities to inequities in health outcomes;
- be able to undertake a structural analysis of local manifestations of gender inequality and their links to health inequity, including the conditions which shape health, experience of health care and role in providing health care;
- be reflexive regarding our own involvements in gender relations (roles, assumptions, behaviours, etc) and how these shape our perceptions and activism;
- acquire a range of strategies for addressing gender inequalities both in the political domain and in our own practice.
Readings
Final Report of Gender and Health Equity Knowledge Network to the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health. See Executive Summary in particular
See also Gender inequity in health: why it exists and how we can change it. Special Supplement of Global Public Health, Volume 3 Supplement 1 2008. This supplement brings together the short versions of 8 reviews that were written in 2007 as part of the work of the Women and Gender Equity Knowledge Network (WGEKN) of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH).
Presentation
Leticia Artiles and Debora Tajer (2005) PERSPECTIVA DE GENERO Y SALUD (ppt)
This topic developed by Leticia Artiles and Debora Tajer
