Gender Medicine: What has sex got to do with it?

re:publica 2016

Room: Stage 7
Sarah Hiltner
The net is constantly changing and the spread of knowledge is amazing. Giving you the opportunity to build networks with communities far away from your current position. These connections also bring forth that new scientific areas can develop, interact and spread throughout the world. Sex and gender specific medicine is one of those areas. Sex- and gender-specific medicine (SGSM) is a young field that managed to recently develop all over the world; originating in most cases from women studies.

For the longest time male scientists have studied male bodies and often applied this knowledge to the female body, resulting in a number of biased results.

For example the heart attack: in many cardiology books it is defined with the cardinal symptom: chestpain, possibly radiating towards the left shoulder, arm and neck. Additionally a strong feeling of discomfort is mentioned as well, most readers will probably recognize this description. Unfortunately many women (and some men) suffer from nausea, back pain, exhaustion or tiredness only. Sometimes, the defined core symptom (chest pain) is missing, hence: few will recognize the life threatening situation behind these symptoms.

This presentation will summarize the history of SGSM and its ideas to show where the bias in medical knowledge originates and why and how structural inequality of the sexes is still being reproduced. Closing with some examples of sex and gender differences for diseases.

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