Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå Centre for Gender Studies in Medicine, Research Project Challenging Gender, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2012;7(4):e34193. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034193. Epub 2012 Apr 18.
At the same time as there is increasing awareness in medicine of the risks of exaggerating differences between men and women, there is a growing professional movement of 'gender-specific medicine' which is directed towards analysing 'sex' and 'gender' differences. The aim of this article is to empirically explore how the concepts of 'sex' and 'gender' are used in the new field of 'gender-specific medicine', as reflected in two medical journals which are foundational to this relatively new field.
The data consist of all articles from the first issue of each journal in 2004 and an issue published three years later (n = 43). In addition, all editorials over this period were included (n = 61). Quantitative and qualitative content analyses were undertaken by the authors. Less than half of the 104 papers used the concepts of 'sex' and 'gender'. Less than 1 in 10 papers attempted any definition of the concepts. Overall, the given definitions were simple, unspecific and created dualisms between men and women. Almost all papers which used the two concepts did so interchangeably, with any possible interplay between 'sex' and gender' referred to only in six of the papers.
The use of the concepts of 'sex' and gender' in 'gender-specific medicine' is conceptually muddled. The simple, dualistic and individualised use of these concepts increases the risk of essentialism and reductivist thinking. It therefore highlights the need to clarify the use of the terms 'sex' and 'gender' in medical research and to develop more effective ways of conceptualising the interplay between 'sex' and 'gender' in relation to different diseases.
在医学领域，人们越来越意识到夸大男女差异的风险，同时也出现了一个日益壮大的“性别医学”专业运动，旨在分析“性”和“性别”差异。本文旨在通过对两个医学期刊的研究，实证探讨“性别医学”这一新领域中“性”和“性别”这两个概念的使用情况，这两个期刊是该相对较新领域的基础。
数据包括 2004 年每本期刊第一期的所有文章以及三年后一期（n = 43）的文章。此外，还包括该期间的所有社论（n = 61）。作者进行了定量和定性内容分析。在 104 篇论文中，只有不到一半使用了“性”和“性别”这两个概念。不到十分之一的论文尝试定义这两个概念。总体而言，给出的定义简单、不具体，在男性和女性之间制造了二元对立。几乎所有使用这两个概念的论文都将其互换使用，只有 6 篇论文提到了“性”和“性别”之间可能存在的相互作用。
“性别医学”中“性”和“性别”这两个概念的使用在概念上是混乱的。这些概念的简单、二元论和个体化使用增加了本质主义和还原论思维的风险。因此，这凸显了在医学研究中澄清“性”和“性别”术语的使用，并开发更有效的方法来概念化“性”和“性别”之间相互作用的必要性，以针对不同疾病。
