Rethinking Gender Culture And Health

This volume creates the space for scholars, health professionals and development experts from three continents to engage in a vibrant discussion about the complexities of black women's health in Africa and the African Diaspora; particularly, the intersection of gender, race, class, age, culture, ethnicity and nationality in creating inequalities and determining outcomes. Traditional practices are given a voice in the conversation.

'Here be dragons' was the traditional warning used by ancient mapmakers to indicate dangerous, or simply unknown, lands. These were the dwelling places of fantastical beasts, creatures such as dragons, sea serpents, unicorns, griffins and mermaids. Throughout the ages, such beasts have been viewed in complex and contradictory ways because they embody both our fear and our fascination of the unpredictable natural world around us. They appear in the earliest myths and accompany the heroes of medieval romance and folktales. Whether as the symbolic creatures of myth, or as the marvellous beasts of medieval legend and travellers' tales, fantastic animals have always inspired art and literature. Today they feature among the many marvels that populate the alternative worlds of fantasy and the outer reaches of cyberspace. Drawing on sources as diverse as myth, history and folklore, this book explores the ways in which mythical beasts continue to inhabit our fantasies and to define our constantly changing relationship to both real and imagined worlds.

This volume presents work at the interface of feminist theory and mental health. The editors a stellar array of contributors to continue the vital process of feminist theory building and critique.

From imaginary numbers to the fourth dimension and beyond, mathematics has always been about imagining things that seem impossible at first glance. In x+y, Eugenia Cheng draws on the insights of higher-dimensional mathematics to reveal a transformative new way of talking about the patriarchy, mansplaining and sexism: a way that empowers all of us to make the world a better place. Using precise mathematical reasoning to uncover everything from the sexist assumptions that make society a harder place for women to live to the limitations of science and statistics in helping us understand the link between gender and society, Cheng's analysis replaces confusion with clarity, brings original thinking to well worn arguments - and provides a radical, illuminating and liberating new way of thinking about the world and women's place in it.

Medical Entanglements uses intersectional feminist, queer, and crip theory to move beyond “for or against” approaches to medical intervention. Using a series of case studies – sex-confirmation surgery, pharmaceutical treatments for sexual dissatisfaction, and weight loss interventions – the book argues that, because of systemic inequality, most mainstream medical interventions will simultaneously reinforce social inequality and alleviate some individual suffering. The book demonstrates that there is no way to think ourselves out of this conundrum as the contradictions are a product of unjust systems. Thus, Gupta argues that feminist activists and theorists should allow individuals to choose whether to use a particular intervention, while directing their social justice efforts at dismantling systems of oppression and at ensuring that all people, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, class, or ability, have access to the basic resources required to flourish.

For the past half century, intellectuals and other critics have lamented America s descent into a therapeutic cultureor in Christopher Lasch s lasting phrase, a culture of narcissism. But is that the case? The essays in this collection take a fresh look at therapeutic culture and its critiques. Rather than a cesspool of self-involvement, therapeutic culture may instead be a productive and meaningful way that people negotiate with issues of culture, society, race, gender, and identity. Most important, the editors and contributors grapple with the historically and socially constructed nature of therapeutic culture and its influence. With its dazzling array of contributors and perspectives, this is a book worth getting off the couch for."

This interdisciplinary collection examines the shaping of local sexual cultures in the Asian Pacific region in order to move beyond definitions and understandings of sexuality that rely on Western assumptions. The diverse studies in AsiaPacifiQueer demonstrate convincingly that in the realm of sexualities, globalization results in creative and cultural admixture rather than a unilateral imposition of the western values and forms of sexual culture. These essays range across the Pacific Rim and encompass a variety of forms of social, cultural, and personal expression, examining sexuality through music, cinema, the media, shifts in popular rhetoric, comics and magazines, and historical studies. By investigating complex processes of localization, interregional borrowing, and hybridization, the contributors underscore the mutual transformation of gender and sexuality in both Asian Pacific and Western cultures. Contributors are Ronald Baytan, J. Neil C. Garcia, Kam Yip Lo Lucetta, Song Hwee Lim, J. Darren Mackintosh, Claire Maree, Jin-Hyung Park, Teri Silvio, Megan Sinnott, Yik Koon Teh, Carmen Ka Man Tong, James Welker, Heather Worth, and Audrey Yue.

This Handbook illustrates how gender, ethnicity, age, and even sexual orientation and understanding influence the health practices and risk factors for health problems in diverse groups of people. Contributions from leading researchers in psychology, health, and epidemiology provide an interdisciplinary approach to the topic. In addition to epidemiological issues, this book discusses the view that public health policy and programs must be individually tailored to specific groups to maximize their effectiveness. Part I deals with the effects of stress on the health of diverse populations. Part II of the book raises the issues of varied health risk factors and health practices for different cultural and socioeconomic groups. Part III examines specific health problems and issues common to women and men of varying ethnicity. The last section deals with the health problems of specific populations. Featuring the latest information for understanding how diverse groups of people perceive and respond to issues relating to their health, this Handbook should prove to be a valuable resource to a wide range of practitioners and researchers in psychology, medicine, psychiatry, sociology, social work, nursing, exercise science, and counseling.

Contemporary critiques of sexuality have their origins in the work of Michel Foucault. While Foucault's seminal arguments helped to establish the foundations of queer theory and greatly advance feminist critique, Lynne Huffer argues that our interpretation of the theorist's powerful ideas remains flawed.

In today's globalised world, it is increasingly important to understand the otherness of different societies and their beliefs, histories and practices. This book focuses on a burning cultural issue: how concepts and constructions of gender and sexuality impact upon health, medicine and healthcare. Starting from the premise that health is neither a universal nor a unitary concept, it offers a series of interdisciplinary analyses of what sickness and well-being have been, are and can be. The originality of this book is its cross-cultural and trans-historical approach. Bringing together specially commissioned work by both major critical voices and young scholars in fields ranging from anthropology and art history to philosophy, political science and sociology, this volume challenges many traditional assumptions about gender, medicine and health-care. Issues addressed include: the politics and realities of female genital mutilation; sex-work and migration; the portrayal of mothering in contemporary African writing; the representation of AIDS in literature, photography and the media; the place of gender in ancient Egyptian health papyri; the dramatisation of morality and sexual over-indulgence in Thai literature; the relationship between myths of menstruation and power in early modern England; the role of anger in traditional Chinese medicine; and the ways in which both disease and sexual identities were redefined by cholera in the nineteenth century. The wide-ranging Introduction provides a historical and theoretical framework for what is defined here as Cultural Medicine, whilst fifteen original essays demonstrate from different perspectives that health is not merely a physiological and medical issue, but also a cultural and ethical one. An invaluable research and study resource, this book is written in a clear and accessible style and will be of interest to the general reader as well as to students of all levels, to teachers of a wide range of disciplines, and to specialist researchers of cultural studies and of medicine.