«Woman as norm» and «man as pathologic». A historical revision?
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Abstract
Recent discourse on health inverts the traditional positions of gender where men were supposed to be in good health, women not. The article proposes answers to the question of why this discourse emerged during the last twenty years. Then the important effects of this discourse on the constitution of medical and epidemiological knowledge are analysed. Some effects were one-sided and therefore problematic for men as for women, namely the relation to their body and the gendered appropriation of the medical offer. Men and women were distributed to different fields of practice separated by gender, which limited their freedom of choice. The gendered discourse has also affected health politics which led to an unequal distribution of resources often not in line with the needs of men and women.
