Gendered Drugs And Medicine

Drugs are considered to be healers and harmers, wonder substances and knowledge makers; objects that impact on social hierarchies, health practices and public policies. As a collective endeavour, this book focuses on the ways that gender, along with race/ethnicity and class, influence the design, standardisation and circulation of drugs throughout several highly medicalised countries throughout the twentieth century and until the twenty-first. Fourteen authors from different European and non-European countries analyse the extent to which the dominant ideas and values surrounding masculinity and femininity have contributed to shape the research, prescription and use of drugs by women and men within particular social and cultural contexts. New and lesser-known, gender-specific issues in lifestyles and social practices associated with pharmaceutical technologies are analysed, as is the manner in which they intervene in life experiences such as reproduction, sexual desire, childbirth, depression and happiness. The processes of prescribing, selling, marketing and accepting or forbidding drugs is also examined, as is the contribution of gendered medical practices to the medicalisation and growing consumption of drugs by women. Gender relations and other hierarchies are involved as both causes and consequences of drug cultures, and of the history and social life of gender in contemporary drug production, use and consumption. A network of agents emerges from this book’s research, contributing to a better understanding of both gender and drugs within our society.

This book, by bringing together critical pharmaceutical studies and feminist technoscience studies, explores the way drugs produce sexed and/or gendered identities for those who take – or resist – them, and how feminist technoscience studies can contribute a theoretical lens with which to observe sex and gender in the pharmaceuticalization processes. Topics explored in this diverse collection include the use of hormones to delay puberty onset for trans children; HPV vaccination against cervical cancer in Sweden, the UK, Austria and Colombia; Alzheimer’s discourses; and the medication of prostate issues. Ericka Johnson has brought together an innovative and timely collection that demonstrates gender as relevant in studies of pharmaceuticals, and provides multiple examples of methodological and theoretical tools to consider gender while studying drugs.

Drugs are considered to be healers and harmers, wonder substances and knowledge makers; objects that impact on social hierarchies, health practices and public policies. As a collective endeavour, this book focuses on the ways that gender, along with race/ethnicity and class, influence the design, standardisation and circulation of drugs throughout several highly medicalised countries throughout the twentieth century and until the twenty-first. Fourteen authors from different European and non-European countries analyse the extent to which the dominant ideas and values surrounding masculinity and femininity have contributed to shape the research, prescription and use of drugs by women and men within particular social and cultural contexts. New and lesser-known, gender-specific issues in lifestyles and social practices associated with pharmaceutical technologies are analysed, as is the manner in which they intervene in life experiences such as reproduction, sexual desire, childbirth, depression and happiness. The processes of prescribing, selling, marketing and accepting or forbidding drugs is also examined, as is the contribution of gendered medical practices to the medicalisation and growing consumption of drugs by women. Gender relations and other hierarchies are involved as both causes and consequences of drug cultures, and of the history and social life of gender in contemporary drug production, use and consumption. A network of agents emerges from this book’s research, contributing to a better understanding of both gender and drugs within our society.

Argues that the rise in psychiatric drug treatments was not a radical turn away from psychoanalysis, but instead carries on Freudian assumptions, especially in relation to gender.

A trailblazing assessment of sex and gender differences in reactions to drug therapy, this volume reflects the topic’s growing recognition. Analyses by international experts on both pharmacokinetics and drug development are informed by an extensive data set.

Tranquillisers are prescribed to almost twice as many women as men, yet very little gender-based research has been carried out on the social context of their use. Gendered Moods offers the first feminist analysis of the gendered character of psychotropic drug use, based on studies of long-term psychotropic drug users and the content of drug advertising. The authors argue that gender differences in psychotropic drug use are manifestations of the gendered construction of society as a whole, and that, as a result, women are particularly susceptible to being channelled into a state of dependency on prescribed drugs. Exploring current social scientific debates relating to drug users and providers, Gendered Moods also provides a critical review of previous research. It is a much needed introduction to a neglected area of study.

The 12th volume of International Development Policy explores the relationship between international drug policy and development goals, both current and within a historical perspective. Contributions address the drugs and development nexus from a range of critical viewpoints, highlighting gaps and contradictions, as well as exploring strategies and opportunities for enhanced linkages between drug control and development programming. Criminalisation and coercive law enforcement-based responses in international and national level drug control are shown to undermine peace, security and development objectives. Contributors include: Kenza Afsahi, Damon Barrett, David Bewley-Taylor, Daniel Brombacher, Julia Buxton, Mary Chinery-Hesse, John Collins, Joanne Csete, Sarah David, Ann Fordham, Corina Giacomello, Martin Jelsma, Sylvia Kay, Diederik Lohman, David Mansfield, José Ramos-Horta, Tuesday Reitano, Andrew Scheibe, Shaun Shelly, Khalid Tinasti, and Anna Versfeld.

Take care of yourself with this easy-to-follow guide that features questions to ask your doctor and a simple chart to keep track of your medications.