Sex & Gender in Biomedicine: Theories, Methodologies, Results

Editorial

Editorial Ineke Klinge & Claudia Wiesemann Gender Medicine has become a remarkable feature of international medical research , be it in publication or journal titles, lecture series or newly founded academic chairs as recently in Vienna. The growing use of the term Gender Medicine highlights that a scientific domain has evolved striving to integrate sex and gender aspects in biomedical research, clinical practice and public health. In Gender Medicine the recognition of sex and gender aspects moves beyond the political and social dimensions that drove feminism and gender mainstreaming but recognises that sex and gender are strong determinants of health, illness and disease, of diagnosis , therapy and salutogenesis. After years of pioneering by individual groups and university departments with a special interest in studying and addressing sex and gender issues in health and disease, we are now witnessing an ever stronger support by institutional bodies, research organisations and funding bodies as for example the European Commission. In Germany, the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony has made an important contribution to this development. Since 2001 they have been funding international guest professorships in their Maria-Goeppert-Mayer Programme for gender research. Within this programme, Claudia Wiesemann, Silke Schicktanz and Inken Köhler from Göttingen University Medicine were successful to attract a guest professorship on Gender Medicine for their university. This initiative was supported by the Dean of Faculty, Cornelius Frömmel, and co-financed by the Göttingen Medical School. Ineke Klinge & Claudia Wiesemann 12 During winter semester 2008/2009 Ineke Klinge from Maastricht University, The Netherlands, held this professorship at the Medical Faculty of the University of Göttingen titled Sex and Gender in Biomedicine. She taught the seminar Women, Men and Medicine. How it Matters to be a Man or Woman in Medicine for medical students and an interdisciplinary seminar Gender, Diversity and Images of Men and Women in Health Care Practices. Next to clinical lectures she initiated a practical workshop Scientific Excellence and ‘Sexy Research’. A workshop on Sex and Gender in Biomedicine for students in Molecular Medicine and developed research contacts with various departments at Göttingen University Medicine. Her inaugural lecture is published in this book. On the occasion of this guest professorship a series of lectures was organised in which knowledgeable experts shared the latest developments regarding sex and gender issues in their fields of expertise. In this book, we have collected some of the contributions to exemplify concepts, approaches, methods and results in the field. In the first chapter, biomedical scientist and gender expert Ineke Klinge introduces the field of Gender Medicine. She starts off with an overview of critical reviews of traditional biomedicine made by the women-and-health movement, feminist biologists and gender scholars that led up to an innovative perspective that is now known as Gender Medicine. She next addresses the European Union policy for gender equality in research as a driving force for this new specialty and its accomplishments . Examples of newly gained insights in diseases like asthma, osteoporosis and depression are given. The author shows how this innovative approach can be fruitfully applied to all medical specialties. This is demonstrated by the fact that Gender Medicine today is firmly established in societies, institutes, journals and networks. In the long run this will lead to better knowledge on the gendered body and better health outcomes for women and men. Bioethicists Silke Schicktanz, Sabine Woehlke, and Mark Schweda apply a methodology of sex and gender research to the field of organ transplantation. They examine the at first view appalling fact that women more often donate organs whereas men more often receive them. Their findings illustrate how fruitful it is to combine biological, epidemiological, ethical and cultural approaches to analyse the clinical outcome of this rapidly evolving and hotly disputed medical field. Drawing upon extensive quantitative and qualitative findings they arrive at an in-depth explanation of sex imbalances in organ donation. They also offer insights on the impact of gender roles in organ transplantation relevant for medical practices as well as for the bioethical discourse. The emerging field of neuroscience offers another instructive example of how the gendered body can be addressed. Two papers by biologist Sigrid Schmitz and neuropsychologist Kirsten Jordan scrutinise recent neuroscientific findings from a gendered perspective and show how a gendered methodology not only helps avoid the pitfalls of sex and gender stereotypes but also leads to cutting-edge research results. Editorial 13...