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This paper explores the intersection of gender and class concerning welfare clients with medically unexplained symptoms. The study is conducted in Denmark using qualitative interviews with welfare officers and clients. The paper's focus is on how issues of gender and class intersect in the negotiation of illness among welfare officers and clients. The particular client group in question consists of individuals that are defined by their lack of a bio-medical diagnosis. Their 'lack' of identity accentuates how gender and class become central in the categorisation practices, constructing the ill person as either bio-medically sick or as a person who may be suffering but only from diffuse psychological problems. The paper shows that it is predominantly poorly educated women without a bio-medical diagnosis that welfare officers describe as suffering from psychological problems despite the fact that the women themselves focus on physical ailments in their illness stories. Men and better-educated women are described by the welfare officers as tired and exhausted or truly stressed after a long working life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminised caring occupations like nursing and social work are popularly considered to be respectable occupations for women. This objective of this paper is to investigate the role of respectability in paid caring work by women within nursing and social work. This paper draws on Ball's conceptualisation of respectability as a heuristic device in the analyses of 39 in-depth interviews with women who work and study in nursing and social work. The paper finds that normality, morality, impression management and esteem are central to the operation of respectability in the paid caring occupations and concludes with recommendations for rethinking the relationship between respectability and these occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how masculinity may help us understand the varying ways political leaders are responding to the coronavirus crisis. By focusing directly on masculinity as a social process, this analysis contributes to the broader literature on gender and leadership, unpacking the gendered double bind that leaders who identify as men must navigate in acknowledging and responding to risks. I examine the responses of Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump suggesting that their respective struggles to acknowledge and respond to the public health threat were not simply the result of a lack of available information to inform rational policy decisions. Acknowledging risk and taking measures to prevent rather than 'fight' are not culturally neutral, they are coded as feminine and 'weak'. Clearly, the delay in the response and subsequent spread of the virus in North America was not inevitable, other jurisdictions were able to respond more quickly. The masculinity double bind may have been one of the factors that undermined a prompt response in the increasingly macho context of North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for exploring the ways in which class and gender interact in occupational fields. In recent years, very little research has been specifically concerned with the relationship between gender and class. Much of the literature which grapples with the question of how gender and class interact contains theoretical limitations which appear to stem from a reliance on categorical theories of both class and gender. In this paper it is proposed that, when used in conjunction, the approaches of Bourdieu and Butler provide a framework for exploring class and gender in terms of embodied practice. In order to illustrate the possibilities enabled by 'appropriating Bourdieu and adding Butler', the paper suggests ways in which this conceptual framework makes possible the examination of the complex relations between gender and class within one particular area of 'women's work': the field of nursing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper was to expand upon research documenting the adverse mental health effects of food insecurity by assessing the explanatory role of gender differences in family roles and arrangements among a nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults. Using data from the combined 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 cycles of The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we estimated a series of models using adult food insecurity measures and self-reported gender as main predictors of depressive symptoms and alcohol use. Our results demonstrate that marriage is protective against greater depressive symptomatology among women and men, and higher alcohol consumption among men. However, the protective effects of marriage against high alcohol use are reduced within the context of food insecurity among men. Further, the results indicate that parenthood is protective against greater depressive symptoms and alcohol consumption among women, but not men. The protective effects of having children are, however, diminished among women in food insecure households. These findings add to the growing literature on the mental health consequences of household food insecurity, and extend this work by clarifying ways in which family roles come to bear on gender differences in the association between food insecurity and psychological and behavioural outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines assumptions that surround the way that aged care and assistance is conceptualised and discussed. Problems with the concept of care became apparent with the critique of care theory by the disability movement in the 1980s and continue to this day. Debates arose initially between those who sought to identify care as a gender-based duty that serves to burden those who take responsibility for it, and those who reject the concept as a form of socially constructed dependency. The paper considers the problematic sociological foundations of this critique - the failure to incorporate an understanding of the body into much sociological theory and the significance that the conceptualisation has for understanding the need for personal assistance in advanced old age. While the disability critique of care is firmly grounded in a sociological analysis, it overemphasises the social construction of social relations and ignores the visceral reality of the body. Longevity care, in contrast, needs to explicitly acknowledge that ageing is an embodied and physical process that generates a need for care. The conclusions are tested against recent Australian data and research on care needs and preferences amongst older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the obstacles to understanding the links between social inequality and mental health distress is the reliance on heterogeneous diagnostic categories. In this paper, it is argued that a solution to this problem is to explore more homogenous experiences of distress. This paper investigates one particular form of distress: paranoia. The relationship between social inequality and paranoia is then examined, focusing on two aspects. Firstly, it is argued that social inequality might affect the experience of paranoia itself since the experience of the surveillance encountered in the everyday use of public space may vary depending on one's location in social categories like gender, 'race' and culture and class (these social categories are, of course, themselves stratified by social inequality). Secondly, mental health service users' locations in these categories may influence the way that the plausibility of ostensibly paranoid claims are evaluated by mental health professionals. Within the discussion of each category, links are drawn between community and clinical samples to understand how the experience of paranoia may be influenced by these social categories. The paper concludes with implications for research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The twentieth century has witnessed an epidemic of metaphors in our attempt to make sense of sexuality and sexual health. This paper explores some of those constructs in order to gain insights into how we think, and ultimately how we practice. While many metaphors come from the wider culture, our health care institutions are a product of that same culture and we cannot help but be influenced by them and use the metaphors ourselves (Plummer 1995). In this paper, we will examine the use of notions of contamination, transmission and contagion to describe non-infectious social phenomena such as homosexuality and homophobia. Social constructionism discusses sexuality and gender, not as essential characteristics, but as socially produced, reproduced and transmitted, with the latter's symbolic similarity to infection transmission. However, while non-hegemonic expressions of gender and sexuality are viewed through these metaphors, the hegemonic variations remain unproblematised. As such, the unproblematised hegemonic representations are more likely to be viewed by the public as bearing essential qualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Menopause is an important health transition for women, but health-related research has largely failed to account for menopause in a meaningful way, especially when making group comparisons. Age often stands in for menopausal status; at times, it is treated as a dichotomy; however, these are clearly oversimplifications. Menopause is a process that takes place over several years, and varies in onset, length, and expression through symptoms. Defining menopause dichotomously or linking it with age obscures variability in women's experiences and overlooks patterns in physical health, mental health, and quality of life. This paper reviews research to highlight menopausal differences by age, race, and lifestyle factors in the United States. It suggests ways to incorporate a life course-based view of menopause in health research, improving our understanding of women's health outcomes on multiple dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways in which anorexia nervosa (AN) has been described and explained has differed drastically over time, although since it was first named in 1874 it has been primarily associated with women and girls, it is argued in this paper that it came to be more fundamentally associated with femininity due to certain disciplinary changes in the psy sciences. The influential psychiatrist Hilde Bruch lamented the loss in clarity of the clinical picture that was the result of psychoanalytic interpretations, to remedy this she reformulated AN into a pathology that was the result of the individual being too determined by external influences. Bruch's changes increased the emphasis that psychiatrists placed on the relationship between women and their social context and the lack of individual autonomy that many felt. Feminist writers adapted Bruch's theory to suggest that patriarchal culture was colonizing the lives of women and that social rather than individual change needed to occur. Psychiatrists subsequently developed scales for assessing gender identity which switched the emphasis back onto individuals and rendered gender as an individualised, quantifiable, manipulable object. When reified and individualised in this fashion it became more legitimate to discuss femininity as causative of, and masculinity as a protection against, AN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent critiques of contemporary obesity discourses that link 'modern Western lifestyles' to an 'obesity epidemic', the population's weight remains a central concern of current dietary guidelines. Food choices that are considered beneficial to maintaining a certain weight are understood to play a key role in one's health. This concern reflects medico-moral assumptions about the properties of food and what people should eat. However, the impact of obesity discourses on different individuals and social groups is rarely considered, although there is some evidence that people do generate, reflect and resist the norms and standards set for them, including those that relate to food/weight. In this paper, we will examine the perspectives on fatness and food choice amongst Black and White women and men living in Vancouver and Halifax, Canada. With this examination, we will challenge conventional assumptions about the singular 'modern Western lifestyle' that leads to obesity concerns by teasing out some of the social, cultural and political contexts within which people conceptualise issues regarding weight and make their food choices. By examining the experiences of both women and men we will also provide important insights into the gendered ways in which people engage with obesity discourses and the injunction to 'eat healthily' as a form of weight management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preventing disease is by definition a valuable objective, and most debates have revolved around improving the effectiveness of prevention. In this discussion, I explore the latent functions - the unintended consequences - of what I call the 'project of prevention'. Although many latent functions are welcome, some have undesirable effects, and it is therefore important to instigate a rich exchange between innovative theory and rigorous research to minimise such effects. I argue that the hazards are particularly acute in the absence of a reflexive and critical awareness of the political environment and the cultural economy within which prevention occurs. In the paper, I sketch the challenges to mobilising that awareness, show some of the limitations of the conventional theoretical approaches to prevention, and point to directions for developing more fruitful perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the association between civic engagement and self-rated health among a sample of adults living in refugee camps in Jordan. The analysis is based on a cross-sectional sample survey of all households residing in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, and interviewed in the spring and summer of 1999. The outcome variable is self-rated health. Associations between civic engagement and self-rated health are assessed using ?2 tests and logistic regression models. Findings from a logistic regression model show that civic engagement, as measured primarily by membership in clubs and other civic groups, has a significant association with self-rated health net of the effects of demographic, human capital and health risk factors. The final model shows that the effects of control variables are in the anticipated direction, with age, marital status, health risk, education and poverty statistically significant. However, the findings pertaining to civic engagement hold for men but not women. We conclude that civic engagement is a powerful and significant predictor of self-rated health status among refugee men living in poor communities, but not for women. Low literacy and persisting patriarchy may account for the non-significant association between civic engagement and health status among women in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an emerging trend to recognise the importance of fathers in health service provision. This is consistent with feminist objectives to re-shape fatherhood to enhance gender equity in the home and in the workplace. How best to include fathers in services, overwhelmingly utilised by mothers, is now a topic of considerable interest. However, the desire to re-shape fatherhood in ways conducive to gender equity is easily co-opted by conservative political agendas which do not seek to re-shape fatherhood but re-claim the rights of fathers by re-instating paternal authority within the family. This cooption is facilitated by new fatherhood discourses utilised by many service providers which blame mothers for the lack of fathers' involvement in early infant care. The paper argues that mother-blaming is aggravated by service providers who fail to understand the nature and extent of maternal anxiety and by unrealistic images of the new father. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alcohol consumption is a significant public health concern in Australia, with men disproportionately represented in treatment for health issues related to heavy drinking. Despite this, little is known about the experiences of these men or the gender dynamics that may shape heavy drinking. Increasingly, the treatment of alcohol and other drug-related issues, including those related to heavy drinking, is based on a biopsychosocial approach. Within this framework, heavy drinking is understood as a symptom of individual pathology in the context of various social 'factors' that influence individual capacity to exercise agency. Following the work of Karen Barad, this article employs a feminist science studies account of agency to formulate heavy drinking as a gendered 'phenomenon': enacted and sustained through the 'intra-action' of other phenomena. Drawing on interviews with men who drink heavily, our analysis explores how the phenomenon of men's heavy drinking materialises through the intra-actions of gender, isolation and healthcare. We argue that heavy drinking is not a sign of failed individual agency but an expression of entangled agencies. In concluding, we suggest it is possible to enhance the well-being of men who drink heavily by addressing specific gendered intra-actions in the making of heavy drinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I develop a feminist posthumanist account of biomedical policymaking as a material-discursive intervention that shapes the emergence of phenomena in the scientific laboratory. The setting is United States (U.S.) biomedicine, where a recent policy of the National Institutes of Health has mandated the consideration of sex in basic and preclinical research. Called Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV), the mandate configures cell lines and animal models as the next frontier in the project of advancing gender equity in biomedical research. Given sex and gender are increasingly recognised as having complex, entangled, and dynamic effects on human health and illness, how do laboratory animals respond to their attempted enrolment in this regulatory intervention? Through a qualitative analysis of this policy domain, I show how laboratory animals reveal the context-specific character of sex, its multiplicity and elusiveness as a so-called biological variable, and the considerable work needed to shore up human ideologies of sex as a pervasive cross-species form of binary difference. I suggest that while regulatory interventions constrain patterns of mattering, they also serve as agential openings in which laboratory animals can 'kick back' and reconfigure the pursuit of knowledge, particularly as it relates to difference and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine the ways transitions are constructed and represented within healthcare settings vis-à-vis lived experiences. Drawing on in-depth interviews with transgender people and data from a document analysis, we examine how transgender peoples' experiences fit within conceptualisations of transition(s) in healthcare guidance documents used in England. We take up Pearce's ([2018]. Understanding trans health. Bristol: Policy Press) suggestion to (re)think trans beyond 'condition', and rather as 'movement', to view being trans as a social identity rather than a defect. Our findings show how trans people and transitions are imagined through often linear narratives of movement in/out of transition. Through this framing, fluidity and gender liminal spaces are made invisible, where health care is imagined for certain transitions but not others. Our analysis attends to tensions that emerge in the complexity of transition(s) as well as the intricate ways in which transgender people are responding to often restrictive ontologies of medical transition. As a conceptual tool, 'trans as movement' can be used to create space for more expansive ontologies of gender that confront the harms and restrictions imposed by the gender binary, and offer alternative ways of (re)imagining multiplicity in transition trajectories and futures for both those in healthcare delivery, and for trans patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many healthcare workers are 'on the move' as part of their employment, travelling often great distances to such places as patients'/clients' homes and community clinics. Healthcare workers' experiences of this employment-related geographic mobility have been relatively invisible even though mobility is necessary for home and community care. Interviews with professional (e.g. nurses) and paraprofessional (e.g. personal care assistants) healthcare workers in Nova Scotia (Canada) found that mobility includes safety risks, and health and economic costs, although a few professionals had employment contracts that helped to protect them against such risks and costs. Paraprofessionals appear to be most impacted by the economic costs given their lower incomes. Many healthcare workers also experienced travel positively, as time away from fixed sites, and associated this time with freedom. The risks of mobility were understood by some workers as part of a duty to care, but a few suggested that the health and economic costs are an undue burden, pointing to an opening for challenging these conditions. There is a need for regulations to ensure all healthcare workers are safe as they are mobile to and from fixed sites, and do not have to shoulder the health or economic costs of mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents an overview of the topics discussed within the issue. The relations between health, gender, class, policy and the labeling of disease and concepts such as social capital are investigated. The use of technologies in clinical work and the management and funding of the healthcare system are examined.

It is widely acknowledged that people with higher socioeconomic positions and women smoke less, avoid alcohol abuse, and eat more healthily. Yet far less is known about the interaction of socioeconomic status with gender, especially in the Italian context. Here we address this issue by employing Abel’s adaptation of Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory and Courtenay’s theory of gender construction and health. Using 2012 data from the Multipurpose survey on Daily Life, we first show that cultural capital is better than social class in predicting an adult’s compliance with health recommendations, although this does not hold true for alcohol intake. We then look at the interaction of gender with cultural capital measures in order to determine how gendered forms of consumption change with increasing levels of cultural capital. The results show that the gender gap diminishes at higher levels of cultural capital following a twofold pattern: most often men’s marginal benefit increases at a higher rate than that of women; however, we also find evidence that the gap diminishes because women start adopting unhealthy behaviours as their level of cultural resources increases. Overall, these findings indicate that cultural capital plays an important role in reconstructing gender role models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although issues of health have been thoroughly analysed in the field of migration studies, there are still very few studies that seek to understand the reproductive health of women in migratory processes. This article analyses the reproductive health of Bolivian migrant women living in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, through an analysis focused on the community assets that migrants deploy in the health-disease-care process within restrictive contexts of access to the health system. The research consisted of an exploratory study using in-depth interviews with Bolivian migrant women and health professionals through the implementation of semi-structured guidelines. The work shows that, in an environment characterised by a health system that acts to exclude, migrant women develop a series of rational strategies where they draw on community assets embodied in forms of selfcare of the body and in community networks. Based on a process of reframing memories related to health practices in the Andean world, these women incorporate these assets and more easily confront the obstacles that they must overcome as migrants in different stages of their reproductive health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining work and family can be a significant source of tension and conflict. For young dual-earner couples especially it is a challenge to find a balance. We examine the impact of negative work-to-family and family-to-work spillover on feelings of depression and life satisfaction, as well as crossover effects between partners. Of particular interest are differences between married and cohabiting partners. Dyadic data stemming from a subsample of the Belgian survey 'Relationships in Flanders' (2010) are used (N newlywed couples = 376, N recently cohabiting couples = 344). Regressions confirm that both work-to-family and family-to-work spillover are major stressors. In line with gender role theories, men seem somewhat more affected by family-to-work spillover; women by work-to-family spillover, also when their partner allows work to interfere with family. Overall, the cohabiting do not feel more distressed, but do feel less satisfied with life. Moreover, interesting differences appear when comparing both groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the stress process model with a sample of 475 Louisiana newlyweds, this research explores whether a more legally rigorous form of marriage (covenant marriage) substantially reduces depressive symptom disparities between Black and White spouses. Results suggest that Black and White wives share similar depressive symptom levels in the first few months of their marriage. Black husbands have higher levels of depression than White husbands. Life stressors substantially mediate the race gap in depressive symptoms for husbands, while buffers have little effect. After controlling for stressors, buffers and demographic measures, covenant marriage seems to buffer wives against depressive symptoms, though only weakly. For husbands, covenant marriage has no effect and does not reduce the race gap in depression. Thus, while covenant marriage may either select on wives with better mental health or buffer against depressive symptoms for some wives, covenant marriage does not have advantages for husbands, and especially distressed Black husbands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Indigenous women who receive intercultural healthcare programs manage to develop cooperation networks, get involved in community affairs and improve their reproductive healthcare. It concentrates on the case of the Bolivian intercultural health program 'EXTENSA' and analyzes how this program is successful at activating greater community participation in health prevention and improving the reproductive healthcare of the Indigenous women who live in the Department of Beni, Bolivia. Through an ethnographic analysis, it argues that community participation and healthy behaviors are the result of tapping into bonding social capital and fostering women's empowerment. The analysis shows that the program gives women community leaders and women networks members (who predate EXTENSA) access to different types of resources, allowing women to transform their community assets into sources of collective empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite concerns about stress levels in young people, research about stress and stressors among boys and girls that apply an intersectionality approach is scarce. This cross-sectional study explored gender, class (indicated by academic orientation) and multi-group (gender/class) patterning of perceived stress and reported stressors in a sample of 1,663 17-year-old Swedish students. The students, especially girls, were highly stressed. No class differences were found. Performance-related stressors were predominately indicated by students in academic programmes and girls (regardless of class). Looks-related stress was more common among girls than boys, whilst economic and relational stressors were mostly indicated by vocational programme students, particularly girls. There was a complex gender and class patterning of stress due to demands and lack of money. The interplay of gender and class should be acknowledged in identifying determinants of stress in young people. Possible implications for mental health are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Men have a stake in ending gendered violence but this stake has not yet been widely embraced by men. Thus we must think carefully about our future strategic directions. Taking the case of sexual violence, I suggest that these directions involve re-thinking sexuality and sexual health by considering absences in the scholarly and policy literatures. While young people are constantly exhorted in popular media to be sexual and to undertake sex, young men have not been engaged by 'critical' analyses of sexuality. The critical literatures - which include writings in Gender/Sexuality studies and Preventive Health - aim to offer alternative understandings of heterosexuality which move beyond the imperatives of the popular media. Yet such critical approaches remain undeveloped, largely negative and/or focussed upon danger rather than considering heterosexuality in positive terms that might offer a substantive alternative and encourage young men in particular to embrace the aim of egalitarian sexual practices, including ending sexual violence. Tensions in Gender/Sexuality scholarship, and Preventive Health sex education materials which draw upon that scholarship, produce significant absences with regard to analysis of heterosexuality and heterosexual subjects. In this context, existing research indicates that recognition of pleasure in sexual health has resulted in increased use of condoms by men and greater involvement of women in the negotiation of sexual practices. Such research is not just relevant to prevention of disease, but has implications for strategies regarding sexual violence. Re-imagining the theoretical framing of Gender/Sexuality studies and Preventative Health to take account of pleasure in sexuality and sexual health is not just a theoretical issue but has some very practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]