WGS.151 | Spring 2016 | Undergraduate

Gender, Health, and Society

Readings

[F] = Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sex / Gender: Biology in a Social World. Routledge, 2012. ISBN: 9780415881463. [Preview with Google Books]

[G] = Gordis, Leon. Epidemiology. 5th ed. Saunders, 2013. ISBN: 9781455737338. [Preview with Google Books]

[H] = Hennekens, Charles H., and Julie E. Buring. Epidemiology in Medicine. Little, Brown, and Company, 1987. ISBN: 9780316356367. [Preview with Google Books]

[J] = Jacob, Krista, ed. Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice. Seal Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781580051859.

[JA] = Jaggar, Alison M. Just Methods: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Reader. Routledge, 2008. ISBN: 9781594512049.

[JO] = Jordan, Brigitte. Birth in Four Cultures: A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden, and the United States. 4th ed. Revised and expanded by Robbie Davis-floyd. Waveland Press Incorporated, 1992. ISBN: 9780881337174. [Preview with Google Books]

[L] = Luker, Kristin. Abortion & the Politics of Motherhood. University of California Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780520055971. [Preview with Google Books]

[M] = Martin, Emily. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. Beacon Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780807046456.

[W] = Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Anchor, 2008. ISBN: 9780767915472.

[WA] = Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel. On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950–1970 . The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780801858765.

WEEK # TOPICS READINGS
1 Biology, History, and Conceptual Frameworks

Doyal, Lesley. “Sex, Gender, and Health: The Need for a New Approach.” British Medical Journal 323, no. 7320 (2001): 1061–63.

Krieger, N. “A Glossary for Social Epidemiology.” Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 55, no. 10 (2001): 693–700.

[F] Chapter 1: A Genderless Future?

[F] Chapter 2: Of Spirals and Layers.

[F] Chapter 8: Pink And Blue Forever.

[F] Chapter 9: The Developmental Dynamics of Pink and Blue.

Optional (further detail on epidemiology)

[H] Chapter 1: Definition and Background.

2 Cardiovascular Disease and Hormone Therapy

Johnson, Paula A. MD, MPH, and Rachael S. Fulp, MPH. “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Coronary Heart Disease in Women; Prevention, Treatment, and Needed Interventions.” Women’s Health Issues 12, no. 5 (2002): 252–71.

Skim

Grodstein, Francine, ScD, JoAnn E. Manson, MD, et al. “A Prospective, Observational Study Of Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy and Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease.” Annals of Internal Medicine 133, no. 12 (2000): 933–41.

Writing Group for the Women’s Health Investigators. “Risks And Benefits of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women.” The Journal of the American Medical Association 288, no. 3 (2002): 321–33.

Optional (further detail on study designs)

[H] Chapter 2: Design Strategies in Epidemiologic Research.

[H] Chapter 5: Descriptive Studies.

3 Gender Analysis

Krieger, Nancy. “Genders, Sexes, and Health: What Are the Connections—and Why Does It Matter?International Journal of Epidemiology 32, no. 4 (2003): 652–57.

Optional (further detail about measures of association)

[G] Chapter 3: The Occurrence of Disease: I. Disease Surveillance and Measures of Morbidity.

[G] Chapter 4: The Occurrence of Disease: II. Mortality and Other Measures of Disease Impact.

[G] Chapter 11: Estimating Risk: Is There an Association?

[G] Chapter 12: More on Risk: Estimating the Potential for Prevention.

Optional (further research method examples)

[H] Chapter 4: Measures of Disease Frequency and Association.

Optional

[JA] pp. 105–90.

4 Pregnancy and Birth

[M] Chapter 4: Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Birth.

[JO] Chapter 6: The Achievement of Authoritative Knowledge in an American Hospital Birth.

Geronimus, Arline T. “Black / White Differences in the Relationship of Maternal Age to Birthweight: A Population–Based Test of the Weathering Hypothesis.” Social Science & Medicine 42, no. 4 (1996): 589–97.

Optional (further detail on trials)

[H] Chapter 8: Intervention Studies.

5 Sexually Transmitted Infections

Higgins, Jenny A., PhD, MPH, Susie Hoffman, et al. “Rethinking Gender, Heterosexual Men, and Women’s Vulnerability To HIV / AIDS.” American Journal of Public Health 100, no. 3 (2010): 435–45.

Fisher, Joslyn W., MD, MPH, and Susan I. Brundage MD, MPH. “The Challenge of Eliminating Cervical Cancer in the United States: A Story of Politics, Prudishness, and Prevention.” Women & Health 49, no. 2–3 (2009): 246–61.

Haug, Charlotte MD, PhD, MSc. “The Risks and Benefits of HPV Vaccination.” The Journal of the American Medical Association 302, no. 7 (2009): 795–96.

Adams, M., B. Jasani, et al. “Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Prophylactic Vaccination: Challenges for Public Health and Implications for Screening.” Vaccine 25, no. 16 (2007): 3007–13.

Vohra, Sameer. “To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate: The Story of Hamilton, Columbia.” Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University.

6 Abortion

[G] Chapter 9: Cohort Studies.

[L] Chapter 5: Women and the Right to Abortion.

[J] Higgins, Jenny. Chapter 2: Sex, Unintended Pregnancy, And Poverty: One Woman’s Evolution from ‘Choice’ to ‘Reproductive Justice’.

Rosenfield, Allan, and Deborah Maine. “Maternal Morality–A Neglected Tragedy: Where is the M in MCH?The Lancet 326, no. 8446 (1985): 83–85.

Starrs, Ann M. “Safe Motherhood Initiative: 20 Years and Counting.” The Lancet 368, no. 9542 (2006): 1130–32.

Optional (further detail on cohort studies)

[H] Chapter 7: Cohort Studies.

Optional (further detail on bias and confounding)

[H] Chapter 11: Analysis of Epidemiologic Studies: Evaluating the Role of Bias.

[H] Chapter 12: Analysis of Epidemiologic Studies: Evaluating the Role of Confounding.

7 Sexual Orientation

[F] Chapter 6: Thinking About Homosexuality.

Young, Rebecca M., PhD, and Ilan H. Meyer, PhD. “The Trouble with ‘MSM’ And ‘WSW’: Erasure of the Sexual–Minority Person in Public Health Discourse.” American Journal of Public Health 95, no. 7 (2005): 1144–49.

8 Gender Identity and Expression

[H] Chapter 6: Case-Control Studies.

[F] Chapter 5: Am I a Boy or a Girl?–The Emergence of Gender Identity.

Fausto–Sterling, Anne. “The Five Sexes, Revisited.” The Sciences 40, no. 4 (2000): 19–23.

Moynihan, Clare. “Theories in Health Care and Research: Theories of Masculinity.” British Medical Journal 317, no. 7165 (1998): 1072–75.

Optional (further detail about case-control studies)

[G] Chapter 10: Case-Control and Other Study Designs.

9 Contraceptives

[W] Chapter 8: The Black Stork–The Eugenic Control of African American Reproduction.

[WA] Chapter 4: Debating the Safety of the Pill, pp. 73–80.

Optional

[WA] Chapter 3: Sex, Population, and the Pill.

[WA] Chapter 4: Debating the Safety of the Pill, pp. 102–81.

[WA] Chapter 5: Oral Contraceptives and Informed Consent.

10 Mental Health and Sex–Based Research

[F] Chapter 10: Epilogue – The Future of Gender (And Sex).

Richardson, Sarah S. “Sexing the X: How the X Became the ‘Female Chromosome.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 37, no. 4 (2012): 909–33.

Saltonstall, Robin. “Healthy Bodies, Social Bodies: Men’s and Women’s Concepts and Practices of Health In Everyday Life.” Social Science & Medicine 36, no. 1 (1993): 7–14.

Cayleff, Susan E. “‘Prisoners Of their Own Feebleness’: Women, Nerves and Western Medicine—A Historical Overview.” Social Science & Medicine 26, no. 12 (1988): 1199–208.

Zita, Jacquelyn N. “The Premenstrual Syndrome: ‘Dis–easing’ the Female Cycle.” Hypatia 3, no. 1 (1988): 77–99.

Optional

[F] Chapter 3: Of Molecules and Sex.

[F] Chapter 4: Of Hormones and Brains.

11 Final Project Presentations No readings assigned
12 Final Project Presentations No readings assigned

Course Info

As Taught In
Spring 2016
Learning Resource Types
Lecture Notes
Written Assignments with Examples
Instructor Insights