Gender Scripts in Medicine and Narrative

Book excerpt: Gender is an exciting area of current research in the medical humanities, and by combining the study of medical narratives with theories of gender and sexuality, the essays in Gender Scripts in Medicine and Narrative illustrate the power of gender stereotypes to shape the way medicine is practiced and perceived. The chapters of Gender Scripts in Medicine and Narrative investigate gendered perceptions and representations of healers and patients in fiction, memoir, popular literature, poetry, film, television, the history of science, new media, and visual art. The fourteen chapters of Gender Scripts in Medicine and Narrative are organized into four cohesive sections. These chapters investigate the impact of gender stereotypes on medical narratives from a variety of points of view, considering narratives from diverse languages, time periods, genres, and media. Each section addresses some of the most pressing and provocative issues in theories of gender and the medical humanities: I. Gendering the Medical Gaze and Pathology; II. Monitoring Race through Reproduction; III. Rescripting Trauma and Healing; and IV. Medical Masculinities. Along with these sections, Gender Scripts Medicine and Narrative features a preface by Rita Charon, MD, PhD, Director and Founder, The Program in Narrative Medicine, Columbia University, a foreword by Marcelline Block, and an introduction by Angela Laflen. This collection takes a truly interdisciplinary look at the topic of gender and medicine, and the impressive group of contributors to the anthology represent a wide range of academic fields of inquiry, including medical humanities, bioethics, English, modern languages, women's studies, film theory, postcolonial theory, art history, the history of science and medicine, new media studies, theories of trauma, among others. This approach of crossing boundaries of genre and discipline makes the volume accessible to scholars who are concerned with narrative, gender, and/or medical ethics. Click for a recent review of this title.