His and hers medicine? (Strategic) essentialism and women's health

Abstract

In her contribution "His and Hers Healthcare? (Strategic) Essentialism and Women's Health," Annelies Kleinherenbrink shows how mainstream policies, research, and campaigns that are focused on women's health have constructed and reified womanhood as a universal medical category, such that health disparities between women and men are assumed to be binary differences and to override, or at least precede, any other inequalities. In line with feminist theories that critique such appeals to universal womanhood, Kleinherenbrink argues that this strategy, while perhaps initially effective in creating a research agenda and gathering wide support for it, is ultimately likely to benefit only some (relatively privileged) women. More acknowledgement of intersectionality needs to be incorporated not as a disclaimer or future goal, but as a primary theoretical and methodological commitment.