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Feminism & Psychology
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The Impact of Medical and Sexual Politics on Women's Health

Linda Gannon

Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 62901 USA, lgannon{at}siu.edu

Hidden agendas impacting women's health care are explored in the context of the intersecting effects of capitalism as the ideology of medical politics, and patriarchy as the ideology of sexual politics. The mutually enhancing forces of medical and sexual politics collide in scientific reductionism - biological determinism for her'. Women are valued according to their ability and willingness to bear and raise children; illnesses and remedies for those women who are unwilling or unable to conform are invented. Thus, the `raging hormones' of puberty and pregnancy tend to be viewed as good and healthy while those associated with the menstrual cycle and menopause are portrayed as unhealthy and in need of alteration. The medical and psychological professions maintain and enhance their power, prestige and profits and serve the patriarchy by labeling events in the normal life course of women as illnesses, reinforcing social misogyny with medical misogyny, emphasizing reproduction rather than health in prioritizing empirical and clinical research, and attributing women's emotions and behaviors to hormonal fluctuations rather than economic, political and social causes.

Feminism & Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 3, 285-302 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/0959353598083004
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