Parker Rhiannon, Larkin Theresa, Cockburn Jon
Faculty of Law, Humanities, and the Arts, University of Wollongong, Northfields Ave, Wollongong NSW 2522, Australia.
Graduate School of Medicine, University of Wollongong, Northfields Ave, Wollongong NSW 2522, Australia.
Soc Sci Med. 2017 May;180:106-113. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.03.032. Epub 2017 Mar 18.
Empirical research has linked gender bias in medical education with negative attitudes and behaviors in healthcare providers. Yet it has been more than 20 years since research has considered the degree to which women and men are equally represented in anatomy textbooks. Furthermore, previous research has not explored beyond quantity of representation to also examine visual gender stereotypes and, in light of theoretical advancements in the area of intersectional research, the relationship between representations of gender and representations of ethnicity, body type, health, and age. This study aimed to determine the existence and representation of gender bias in the major anatomy textbooks used at Australian Medical Schools. A systematic visual content analysis was conducted on 6044 images in which sex/gender could be identified, sourced from 17 major anatomy textbooks published from 2008 to 2013. Further content analysis was performed on the 521 narrative images, which represent an unfolding story, found within the same textbooks. Results indicate that the representation of gender in images from anatomy textbooks remain predominantly male except within sex-specific sections. Further, other forms of bias were found to exist in: the visualization of stereotypical gendered emotions, roles and settings; the lack of ethnic, age, and body type diversity; and in the almost complete adherence to a sex/gender binary. Despite increased attention to gender issues in medicine, the visual representation of gender in medical curricula continues to be biased. The biased construction of gender in anatomy textbooks designed for medical education provides future healthcare providers with inadequate and unrealistic information about patients.
实证研究表明，医学教育中的性别偏见与医疗服务提供者的负面态度和行为有关。然而，距离研究解剖学教材中男女平等呈现的程度已经过去了20多年。此外，以往的研究尚未超越呈现数量的范畴，去探讨视觉上的性别刻板印象，并且鉴于交叉性研究领域的理论进展，也未探讨性别呈现与种族、体型、健康和年龄呈现之间的关系。本研究旨在确定澳大利亚医学院使用的主要解剖学教材中性别偏见的存在情况和呈现方式。对2008年至2013年出版的17本主要解剖学教材中6044张可识别性别的图像进行了系统的视觉内容分析。对同一教材中发现的521张叙事性图像（代表一个展开的故事）进行了进一步的内容分析。结果表明，解剖学教材图像中的性别呈现除了在特定性别的章节外，仍然以男性为主。此外，还发现存在其他形式的偏见：刻板的性别化情感、角色和场景的视觉呈现；缺乏种族、年龄和体型的多样性；以及几乎完全遵循性别二元论。尽管医学领域对性别问题的关注度有所提高，但医学课程中性别呈现的视觉方式仍然存在偏见。为医学教育设计的解剖学教材中性别呈现的偏见构建，为未来的医疗服务提供者提供了关于患者的不充分且不现实的信息。
