Midterm 1 Flashcards
What is the difference between a negative vs a positive definition of “health”?
Negative definition means the LACK of disease.
Positive definition means the PRESENCE of overall well-being.
What is the difference between a naturalist/descriptivist vs a normativist approach?
Naturalist-descriptivist: Believes that health can be separate from well-being, health levels are defined by a statistical deviation from a “norm” of biological functioning. Has a doctrine of specific etiology for things → reinforces dualism, reductionism, magic bullet approaches.
Normativist: Positive definition of health, linked to subjective psychological states. Healthiness is a resource.
What is the difference between disease and illness?
Disease is a pathology of the body, a deviation from the biological norm. Illness includes all aspects of “un-wellness” like social consequences, psychological consequences, physical deviations from normal abilities.
What does “specific etiology of disease” refer to?
The idea that diseases are due to a specific biological cause. (naturalist/descriptivist approach)
How does the “specific etiology of disease” model relate to magic bullet cures?
It leads to them. If there is a specific biological cause for a disease, there must be a specific biological cure (i.e. a pill or a surgery).
What are two statistical ways to measure health? What do they include?
Look at mortality rates; includes child mortality rates, mother mortality rates, causes of death in a population, life expectancy.
Look at morbidity rates; includes prevalence of disease and incidence of a disease (prevalence is spread, incidence is number of new cases), disability-adjusted life years DALYs.
Contrast biological vs social approaches to “sex” and “gender”.
Biological approach → sex. Defined by physical characteristics like internal/external genitalia, hormones, anatomy & physiology.
Social approach → gender. Less fixed than sex. Refers to social constructions of roles and relationships, traits, behaviors, values, socially ascribed power and influence. Gender is something that we act out, in our relative masculinity and femininity.
What are the 5 elements of SEX designation?
- Chromosomal sex
- Gonadal sex
- Hormonal sex
- Internal/reproductive sex
- External/genital sex
Contrast sociobiology and social constructionism.
Sociobiology: “Biology → destiny”, reduces complex gendered behavior to purely genetics. Reinforces the binary of male vs. female. Promotes male perspectives, generalizes from animals to humans. Wilson: “biological basis of all social behavior”, theory of cheap sperm → male promiscuity vs. precious egg → female monogamy
Social Constructionism: Social structures shape behaviors, preferences (including gender norms & stereotypes). Looks are historical factors of fluctuation of gender norms.
Discuss the medicalization of intersexuality (interventions, treatments, implications).
Is intersexuality (ambiguously-sexed bodies) a natural variation, or a mistake of nature? Tend to be seen as “syndromes” (Klinefelter, Turner).
Interventions take place even if there is no medical reason, only for aesthetics to conform to norms.
Can be prenatal, surgical, and psychological interventions. (Prenatal includes CAH → hormonal)
These interventions can cause pain and issues with well-being later in life. Some cultures accept ambiguous bodies as a 3rd gender (New Mexico, Hawaii, etc.)
Gender as binary vs. gender as a continuum?
Give some examples of gendered patterns of health.
Women lower mortality than men, higher morbidity.
Homosexual people way more likely to commit suicide.
Women are more likely to contract STI’s from sexual contact.
Women more likely to adjust their time to accomplish both paid & unpaid work. (second shift)
What are some causes for gender differences in mortality, morbidity? (Bird & Rieker)
Biological explanations: Women stronger/diff immune systems. leads to advantage plus autoimmune disorder disadvantage; estrogen provides more flexible circulatory system
Social explanations: Women’s social status leads to more health risks (lack of health insurance, pensions, lower income); gender differences in health behaviors (smoking, risk-taking)
Amplification & suppression.
What are amplification and suppression? (Bird & Rieker)
Amplification: When a biological difference is exacerbated by social factors.
Suppression: When a biological difference is reduced by social factors.
What are the 3 classic sociological theories?
- Structural Functionalism
- Conflict Theory
- Symbolic Interactionism
Who was a proponent of structural functionalism and what is the gist of it?
Durkheim → society is a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity & stability. Individual behaviors are determined by social structure.
Parson’s “Sick Role” part of social functionalism, sickness is deviance and role of clinician’s is to eliminate deviance.
Who was a proponent of conflict theory and what is the gist of it?
Marx → Economic forces determine social functioning, recognizes the inequalities and hierarchies in society. Conflict between economy and health interests. Medicine makes profit and so requires sick people to continue to consume.
What is the gist of symbolic interactionism?
- Identify meaningful social action among social actors. (and expections of these social actors → the “generalized other”. altho not gendered, leads to discussion of gender expectations)
- Explore individual’s own interpretations of their experiences.
- Portray/report individual’s points of view in their own language, their own terms.
Who were some proponents of symbolic interactionism?
Weber, Mead, Goffman
Describe the 3 ‘waves’ of feminism.
1st wave: Late 1800’s to 1920’s → suffragists. Maternal feminists who wanted to protect the rights of women within their social roles, child protection.
2nd wave: Mid 1960’s on → Movements, non-traditional workforce, loud activism and challenges to social ideologies, legal reform.
3rd wave: 1990’s on → Complacency, start recognizing within-group diversity (race)
Who was an important woman in the 1st wave of feminism?
Margaret Sanger
Describe radical feminism.
During the 2nd wave, part of the Women’s Health Movement.
- Men oppress women through patriarchy
- Reproductive rights as a key focus (natural childbirth, control of reproduction, birth control, abortion)
- Tried to spread awareness, loud activism
- Boston Women’s Health collective → “Our bodies, ourselves”
Describe liberal feminism.
Change through formal measures (political, legal)
- Fight for equal rights in education, pay, health care.
- Affirmative action → social policies, etc.
- “National Consciousness Raising” more than just self-help and within group discussion.
- CRITIQUED → working Within a flawed system instead of changing the system, too mechanistic, too slow.
Describe Marxist & socialist feminism.
Women oppressed by capitalism:
- Women stuck in domestic sphere
- Capitalism benefits from women’s unpaid labor
- Men at the head of capitalism, so they are the ones profiting from women’s unpaid labor, and they need women to take care of them so women will forever be excluded from the profits of capitalism.
Describe postmodern feminism.
- Rejects binary conceptions of gender
- Avoidance of reductionism
- Complexity of gender identity linked to health
- Studies effects of media representations and linked health outcomes (i.e. eating disorders)
- Doesn’t exclude masculinity and health
What is a basic definition of intersectionality?
Multiple socially constructed identities and categories of difference (race, gender, social class, sexuality, age) INTERACT in society to produce a range of hierarchies and inequalities.
What are the origins of the term “intersectionality”?
Originated in the 60s/70s, feminist and civil rights movements. Black women felt that they were being excluded from both civil rights movement and feminist movement… started getting together to discuss this. Perfect example of the activist origins of intersectionality.
Legal/theoretical importance of the term began in the 1980’s, with the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas case:
Clarence Hill was a young potential judge, up for promotion, and his black young woman assistant accused him of sexual harassment. He said this was RACISM, she said no it’s SEXISM, and it was never really worked out properly.. he got off from an all-male jury. Kimberle Crenshaw was a legal theorist who started noticing this issue and investigating.
An interactive matrix of oppression, domination (Patricia Hill Collins)
What important things happened in the “Crash” movie excerpt?
- The middle-eastern people got insulted at the gun store, the man got kicked out and stereotyped as a terrorist.
- The gun salesman starting talking to the midde-eastern woman who spoke perfect english as if she was an idiot (racism? sexism?)
- The two black guys weren’t served at Starbucks (but they didn’t want coffee?)
- The two black guys saw a white woman cling to her man’s arm when she saw them (is it in their head or was that really a factor? was she just cold?)
- The two black guys actually stole the car…
What is the difference between Critical Race Theory and Anti-racism/antiracist theory?
Critical Race Theory emerged from legal studies (Kimberle Crenshaw) → focuses on race as socially constructed from historical and political context and struggle
Anti-racism/antiracist Theory emerged from racial feminist & civil rights activist movement → looks at other explanations for seeming differences “due to” race (ex. if a racial group has lower results on intelligence tests… it may actually be because this racial group is disadvantaged in SES and so lacks the knowledge…)
What is racialization?
A process of categorization of people based on assumptions about skin color & other characteristics. The “extension of dehumanizing and racial meanings to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, group”.
Groups (by race) which are “more likely to be:” poor/unhealthier/etc. Ex. black women more likely to die from breast cancer.
What are the 3 components of SES?
- Educational attainment
- Occupational status
- Income level
How are discriminatory ideas/practices connected to a lack of resources?
Lead to job discrimination, lack of health care access, differential wages.
What does “gender is relational” mean?
It means that gender isn’t a binary of masculine vs feminine, to understand gender you must study the relationship between them and the whole continuum.
What happened that was good/bad in the 1970’s regarding homosexuality?
Public focus grew, gay and lesbian social movements grew → good that awareness spread but bad because of homogenizing effect. Homosexual paradigm became White, male, middle-class. (lack of representation for black, other SES)
