Feminism meets the “new” epidemiologies: toward an appraisal of antifeminist biases in epidemiological research on women's health

doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(00)00360-9

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 53, Issue 5, September 2001, Pages 553-567

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(00)00360-9 Get rights and content

Abstract

This essay explores an alternative paradigm for epidemiology, one which is explicitly informed by a feminist perspective. We intend to expand upon recent critiques and debates within the emergent fields of “critical”, “popular”, and “alternative” epidemiology to examine how epidemiology's conceptual models — which are meant to contribute to the prevention of social inequalities in health, but may instead reinforce social hierarchies based on gender, race, and class — constrain our understanding of health and disease. Specifically, we examine persistent antifeminist biases in contemporary epidemiological research on women's health. Issues highlighted include: problem definition and knowledge production in women's health; biological essentialization of women as reproducers; and decontextualization and depoliticization of women's health risks. As part of this critique, we include suggestions for an emancipatory epidemiology that incorporates an alternative feminist framework.

Section snippets

Introduction
If the biological finality of death can only be explained in wider social context then the complex realities of women's sickness and health must be explored in similar ways. In order to do this, traditional epidemiological methods have to be turned on their head. Instead of identifying diseases and then searching for the cause, we need to begin by identifying the major areas of activity that constitute women's lives. We can then go on to analyze the impact of these activities on their health and well being. Lesley Doyal (1995, p. 1)

Epidemiology is currently engaged in a moment of critical self-reflection, debating its models, theories, methods, levels of analysis, guiding principles, ethics, and future role in protecting the public's health.¹

“New” epidemiologies and their articulation with feminism

In this essay, we hope to contribute to an alternative paradigm for epidemiology, one which is explicitly informed by a feminist perspective. To this end, our thinking clearly has been informed by three emerging forms of “new” epidemiology, including: (1) the critical epidemiology of Krieger & colleagues (Fee & Krieger, 1994; Krieger et al., 1993; Krieger & Fee, 1994; Krieger & Zierler (1995), Krieger & Zierler (1996)); (2) the popular epidemiology of Brown (Brown (1992), Brown (1997)); and (3)

Problem definition and knowledge production in women's health

In the new movement toward a more self-reflexive, critical epidemiology, debates often center on what epidemiologists should study — namely, what topics are worthy of epidemiological engagement and investment. Less often questions are asked about why and how epidemiologists produce knowledge, make knowledge claims, and articulate “difference” from the conjunction of knowledge/power. These epistemological (i.e., theories about the nature and scope of knowing, including presuppositions and

Creating a feminist epidemiology

Having spelled out a number of antifeminist biases in epidemiological studies of women's health, we conclude this essay with a hopeful exhortation to all epidemiologists: Namely, a call for the development of an emancipatory, feminist epidemiology that is perceptive of and responsive to the great diversity of women, their multiple forms of oppression, and the breadth of their health needs as they themselves define them. The theorizing of Euro-American women of color (a.k.a. black feminists) (

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Robert A. Hahn, of the Division of Prevention Research and Analytic Methods, Epidemiology Program Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia. He planted the seeds of this essay and provided rich critical insights on the nature of current epidemiological practice.

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View full text

Feminism meets the “new” epidemiologies: toward an appraisal of antifeminist biases in epidemiological research on women's health

Abstract

Section snippets

“New” epidemiologies and their articulation with feminism

Problem definition and knowledge production in women's health

Creating a feminist epidemiology

Acknowledgements

Social Science and Medicine

Social Science and Medicine

Social Science and Medicine

Social Science and Medicine

Social Science and Medicine

Women's toxic experience

Building a new specialization on women's healthAn international perspective

Risk societyTowards a new modernity

Ecological enlightenmentEssays on the politics of the risk society

World risk society as cosmopolitan societyecological questions in a framework of manufactured uncertainties

Theory, Culture and Society

Women's ways of knowingThe development of self, voice, and mind

Women and smokingCurrent trends and issues of the 1990s

Journal of Substance Abuse

Women's health and women's rightsReproductive health hazards in the workplace

Unbearable weightFeminism, western culture, and the body

Popular epidemiology and toxic waste contaminationLay and professional ways of knowing

Journal of Health and Social Behavior

Popular epidemiology revisited

Current Sociology

Women, work, and household health in the context of development

Gender troubleFeminism and the subversion of identity

Weight and dieting concerns in adolescents. Fashion or symptom?

Pediatrics

Epidemiology as a toolkit for clinical scientists

Epidemiology

Social organization and riskSome current controversies

Annual Review of Sociology

“Like a mother to them”Stratified reproduction and West Indian childcare workers and employers in New York

Black feminist thoughtKnowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment

The cultural construction of the premenstrual and menopausal symptoms

Effects of solvent exposure and occupational stress on the health of blue-collar women

Epidemiology, clinical science and beyond

Epidemiology

Southern midwifery and organized health careSystems in conflict

Medical Anthropology

What makes women sickGender and the political economy of health

Witches, midwives and nursesA history of women healers

For her own good150 years of experts’ advice to women

AIDS and accusationHaiti and the geography of blame

The politics of research and activism

Women in painGender and morbidity in Mexico

Modern bodies, modern mindsMidwifery and reproductive change in an African American community

High tech and high heels in the global economyWomen, work, and pink-collar identities in the Caribbean

Women's mortalityA legacy of neglect

The broad street pump

Women and health policyOn the inclusion of females in clinical trials

Ain’t I a womanBlack women and feminism.

Feminist theory from margin to center

Teaching to transgressEducation as the practice of freedom

Infertility, infections, and iatrogenesis in EgyptThe anthropological epidemiology of blocked tubes

Medical Anthropology