Open Access"Female Body Concerns in Health Research: A Feminist Psychological Perspective "
Author(s) -
Tissy Mariam Thomas
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
artha journal of social sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0975-329X
DOI - 10.12724/ajss.10.4
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , dimension (graph theory) , psychology , psychological research , feminism , biological sex , femininity , social psychology , sociology , gender studies , psychoanalysis , mathematics , artificial intelligence , computer science , pure mathematics
The biological model in health research is biased to women issues by minimizing them into anatomical and physiological factors. As one critical article put it 'women are studied for what distinguishes them from men their breast-and genitals"[Meyerowitz and Hart,7993]. The paper presents a critical review of strands of health research and feminist psychology, which have drawn upon biological concepts (eg,hormones) and processes (eg, reproduction) to account for perceived tigender differences in health research. The overemphasis of biological dimension of gender differences is analysed with the background of philosophical assumptions of health research. The social construction of gender bias in eating disorders is also explored in the later section of the paper. Thus the paper attempts to bring the attention of health researchers to the problem of endorsing stereotypical accounts of women gender in health research and neglecting social, discursive practices, which define femininities.