Silent voices: Women, complementary medicine, and the co-optation of change

Flesch, Hannah

doi:10.1016/j.ctcp.2007.03.005

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Research offers a complex understanding of the relationship between gender and health in traditional medical settings, yet we know far less about how gender plays out in unconventional health care settings (Flesch ). Heelas and Woodhead () hypothesise that women are drawn to the holistic or wellbeing culture because they are more likely than men to develop the subjective self in relation to others, which is also a focus of many CAM therapies.…”

Section: Doing Health As Doing Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Heelas and Woodhead () hypothesise that women are drawn to the holistic or wellbeing culture because they are more likely than men to develop the subjective self in relation to others, which is also a focus of many CAM therapies. And Flesch () goes a step further to ask how women's participation in CAM, as practitioners and users, may reinforce their status as a subordinate group. Some research finds that men with potentially terminal conditions, such as cancer and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), more readily embraced the emotional and physical benefits of CAM (Foote‐Ardah , Pawluch et al .…”

Section: Doing Health As Doing Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Undoing gender? The case of complementary and alternative medicine

Brenton

Elliott

2013

Sociology Health & Illness

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Despite a rich body of sociological research that examines the relationship between gender and health, scholars have paid little attention to the case of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). One recent study (Sointu 2011) posits that men and women who use CAM challenge traditional ascriptions of femininity and masculinity through the exploration of self-care and emotions, respectively. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews with middle-class Americans who use CAM, this article instead finds that men and women interpret their CAM use in ways that reproduce traditional gendered identities. Men frame their CAM use in terms of science and rationality, while simultaneously distancing themselves from feminine-coded components of CAM, such as emotions. Women seek CAM for problems such as abusive relationships, low self-esteem, and body image concerns, and frame their CAM use as a quest for self-reinvention that largely reflects and reproduces conventional femininity. Further, the reproduction of gendered identities is shaped by the participants' embrace of neoliberal tenets, such as the cultivation of personal control. This article contributes to ongoing theoretical debates about the doing, redoing and undoing of gender, as well as the literature on health and gender.

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Section: Doing Health As Doing Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Doing Health As Doing Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Undoing gender? The case of complementary and alternative medicine

Brenton

Elliott

2013

Sociology Health & Illness

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“…As suggested by the participants, a long term outcome of this transition may be that biomedicine will eventually co-opt CAM fields. Drawbacks of this scenario may include, but are not limited to: a more curative rather than preventive approach to healthcare, less empowerment for the patient, and the overall devaluation of non-biomedical services and knowledge [17-19]. Nevertheless, it appears CAM is beginning to be brought into a relationship with biomedicine, signalling a long and challenging process of integration for contemporary healthcare systems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A qualitative study on the term CAM: is there a need to reinvent the wheel?

Gaboury

April

Verhoef

2012

BMC Complement Altern Med

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BackgroundAs complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has developed extensively, uncertainty about the appropriateness of the terms CAM and other CAM-related terms has grown both in the research and practice communities. Various terms and definitions have been proposed over the last three decades, highlighting how little agreement exits in the field. Contextual use of current terms and their respective definitions needs to be discussed and addressed.MethodsRelying upon the results of a large international Delphi survey on the adequacy of the term CAM, a focus group of 13 international experts in the field of CAM was held. A forum was also set up for 28 international experts to discuss and refine proposed definitions of both CAM and integrative healthcare (IHC) terms. Audio recordings of the meeting and forum discussion threads were analyzed using interpretive description.ResultsMultiple terms to describe the therapies, products, and disciplines often referred to as CAM, were considered. Even though participants generally agreed there is a lack of optimal definitions for popular CAM-related umbrella terms and that all terms that have so far been introduced are to some extent problematic, CAM and IHC remained the most popular and accepted terms by far. The names of the specific disciplines were also deemed adequate in certain contexts. Focus group participants clarified the context in which those three terms are appropriate. Existing and emergent definitions of both CAM and integrative healthcare terms were discussed.ConclusionsCAM and other related terms could be used more effectively, provided they are used in the proper context. It appears difficult for the time being to reach a consensus on the definition of the term CAM due to the uncertainty of the positioning of CAM in the contemporary healthcare systems. While umbrella terms such as CAM and IHC are useful in the context of research, policy making and education, relevant stakeholders should limit the use of those terms.

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“…Some authors (Brenton and Elliott 2014; Flesch 2007, 2010; Scott 1998) have made an association between CAM and feminist campaigns, seeing the former as an alternative space to develop gender-sensitive health care. Certainly, whilst the majority of users are women (Adams et al 2003; Bishop et al 2010; Harris et al 2012), it must be remembered that women are also the primary consumers of conventional medicine, and its use by males is not insignificant (Cant and Watts 2019).…”

Section: A ‘New’ Medical Pluralism: Cam and Mainstream Marginalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Research suggests that CAM is experienced by women as empowering, affording personal control over health and health care. Women practitioners are also drawn to CAM for similar reasons (Cant et al 2011; Flesch 2007). However, it would be simplistic to see CAM as unequivocally empowering: women’s use of CAM may serve to reinforce dominant ideologies that emphasise individual responsibility, and is contained through access to marginalised therapeutic modalities that do not have state support.…”

Section: A ‘New’ Medical Pluralism: Cam and Mainstream Marginalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical Pluralism, Mainstream Marginality or Subaltern Therapeutics? Globalisation and the Integration of ‘Asian’ Medicines and Biomedicine in the UK

Cant

2020

Society and Culture in South Asia

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Medical Pluralism refers to the coexistence of differing medical traditions and practices grounded in divergent epistemological positions and based on distinctive worldviews. From the 1970s, a globalised health market, underpinned by new consumer and practitioner interest, spawned the importation of ‘non-Western’ therapeutics to the UK. Since then, these various modalities have coexisted alongside, and sometimes within, biomedical clinics. Sociologists have charted the emergence of this ‘new’ medical pluralism in the UK, to establish how complementary and alternative medicines have fared in both the private and public health sectors and to consider explanations for the attraction of these modalities. The current positioning of complementary and alternative medicines can be described as one of ‘mainstream marginality’ ( Cant 2009 , The New Sociology of the Health Service, London: Routledge): popular with users, but garnering little statutory support. Much sociological analysis has explained this marginal positioning of non-orthodox medicine by recourse to theories of professionalisation and has shown how biomedicine has been able, with the support of the state, to subordinate, co-opt and limit its competitors. Whilst insightful, this work has largely neglected to situate medical pluralism in its historical, global and colonial contexts. By drawing on post-colonial thinking, the paper suggests how we might differently theorise and research the appropriation, alteration and reimagining of ‘Asian’ therapeutic knowledges in the UK.

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Silent voices: Women, complementary medicine, and the co-optation of change

Cited by 20 publications

References 42 publications

Undoing gender? The case of complementary and alternative medicine

Undoing gender? The case of complementary and alternative medicine

A qualitative study on the term CAM: is there a need to reinvent the wheel?

Medical Pluralism, Mainstream Marginality or Subaltern Therapeutics? Globalisation and the Integration of ‘Asian’ Medicines and Biomedicine in the UK

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