CFP: Special Issue of TOPOI – Philosophy of sex and gender in gender-medicine

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TOPOI: An International Review of Philosophy

Special Issue “Philosophy of sex and gender in gender-medicine”

DEADLINE: April 30, 2015

OVERVIEW

In recent decades, the relevance of sex and gender in influencing health and diseases, not only those clearly sex- and gender-related, has been increasingly acknowledged and a new branch of medicine – that is, gender-medicine – has rapidly advanced. Broadly speaking, gender-medicine investigates when and how sex and gender matter in medicine by examining the biological, physiological, pathophysiological, cultural, historical, psychological, and sociological impacts of sex and gender on human health, as well as their implications for various aspects of medical practice, such as research, teaching, diagnosis, cures, therapies, and preventive strategies. From a philosophical point of view, many issues are worthy of consideration.

Which notions of sex and gender may be more appropriate to gender-medicine? Is the distinction between sex and gender still tenable or useful in medicine? Can sex and gender differences be effectively separated? Are both notions equally relevant? Do human beings differ biologically, physiologically and pathophysiologically in relation to their sex? Or do they differ culturally, historically, psychologically and socially in relation to their gender? Is there any relevant sex and gender difference in the phenomenology of illness?

From a medical point of view, might the appreciation of sex and gender differences positively influence the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, and therapies of diseases? Might it be able to fill some significant gaps in our medical knowledge with respect to both diagnostics and treatments? Is there any medical, ethical or epistemological reason to exclude females/women from clinical trials? Is it needed to revise anatomical tables and medical text books to better consider sex and gender differences? Or abstraction and generalization are still the optimal choice?

Medicine often presupposes a dualistic attitude in regard to sex and gender. Is sex and gender dualism the only viable alternative? Is the exclusion of intersexual, transsexual, and transgender people really based on biological and medical facts? Are these people diseased? Or would it be better, both from an ethical and an epistemological point of view, to recognize that there are more than two sexes and genders?

Gender-medicine has the merit to have stressed the importance of the two variables of sex and gender in medicine. Are there other categories, such as age, disability, ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, social class, sexual orientation, that should also be considered by medicine?

Increasing the number of female/women among medical communities is surely an ethical matter, but is it also an epistemological problem? Might females/women be able to contribute to ensure better, more objective, more rational, less biased, or at least ‘less false’ medical hypotheses and medical theories? Might feminist values favour the growth of medical knowledge?

Would the appreciation of sex and gender differences affect how the patient is actually seen and treated medically by health care practitioners? Which is the role of sex and gender stereotypes in shaping the patient/doctor relationship? Are there significant disparities in consideration and treatment related to the patient’s sex and gender? Or related to the health care practitioners’ sex and gender? Are these disparities helpful or adverse in establishing the best preventive strategies, diagnoses, prognoses, and therapies with respect to specific diseases?

Contributors are invited to address these and other philosophical questions that are raised by gender-medicine.

Contributions should be original and not submitted elsewhere. All papers will be subject to double- blind peer-review.

GUEST EDITORS: Maria Cristina Amoretti and Nicla Vassallo (University of Genoa)

CONFIRMED INVITED CONTRIBUTORS

Sylvie Gambaudo, University of Durham (UK)

James Marcum, Baylor University (USA)

Leah McClimans, University of South Carolina (USA)

Mari Mikkola, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany)

Eileen Willis, Flinders University (Australia)

DEADLINE: April 30, 2015

LANGUAGE: English

WORD LIMITS: up to 8.000 words, references and footnotes included

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION AND FORMATTING: All manuscripts should be prepared for double-blind peer-review and also include a title page containing contact details, a brief abstract and list of keywords for indexing purposes.

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