Gender Analysis of Traditional Medicines
Leena Abraham
This lecture consists of two parts. The first part provides a brief overview of the feminist critique of biomedical knowledge and practice. Here the discussion will be on the gendered construction of biomedical knowledge, the essentialising and feminizing tendencies within biomedical knowledge and practice and the gendering of biomedical profession.
In the context of the above, the second part of the lecture will attempt to explore gender issues in the construction of medical knowledge and practice of ISM [the Indian Systems of Medicine], both in the traditional and the modern formats. For instance, within Ayurvedic knowledge, how are masculine and feminine, male and female bodies, conceptualised? Are concepts such as prakruti, panchboota, guna, dosha, etc., gendered? How are menstruation, childbirth and menopause understood and handled in Ayurveda? How are these events linked to women's physical and mental health?
Traditionally, the Ayurvedic profession has been male dominant although women were actively engaged in the preparation of medicines at home, as care givers and in ensuring that the diet and other regimen are followed, and so on. The situation has changed with the opening of modern medical colleges. Now there are large numbers of professionally qualified women Ayurveda practitioners. Has this new reality altered the Ayurvedic practice? What have been the experiences of these women?
Some of these questions will be explored in the context of the existing feminist research and the limited data available on ISM.
References
Biology and Medicine — Western context
Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, (1973) Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, New York, The Feminist Press, 1973.
Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 years of the Experts Advice to Women, New York, Anchor Books, 1989.
Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, An Introduction to Women's Studies: Gender in a Transnational World, Boston, McGraw Hill, 2002 (Part One: Women's Bodies in Science and Culture).
Ann Oakley, The Captured Womb: A History of the Medical Care of Pregnant Women, New York, Basil Blackwell, 1984.
Nancy Tuana (ed.), Feminism and Science, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989.
Indian Context
Uma Chakravarti, Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India: Gender, Caste, Class and State, Economic and Political Weekly, April 3, 1993.
Janet Chawla, Child-bearing and Culture: Women Centered Revisioning of the Traditional Midwife, the Dai as a Ritual Practitioner, New Delhi, Indian Social Institute, 1994.
Janet Chawla and Sarah Pinto, Body as the Battleground of Meaning, in Mental Health from a Gender Perspective, edited by Bhargavi Davar, New Delhi, Sage, 2001.
gupta_procreation_pleasure.pdf — Charu Gupta, Procreation and Pleasure: Writings of a Woman Ayurvedic Practitioner in Colonial North India, Studies in History, Volume 21, No. 1, 2005, pp. 17-44.
shah_female_sexuality.pdf — Shalini Shah, Representation of Female Sexuality in the Ayurvedic Discourse of the Early Medieval Period, Studies in History, Volume 22, No. 1, 2006, pp. 45-58.
Leena Abraham's webpage
http://www.tiss.edu/tissc_faculty_leena.htm
Leena Abraham is Associate Professor at the Centre for Studies in Sociology of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She has done research and published extensively on themes such as youth sexuality, educational and employment opportunities of urban underprivileged children and the social history of medical education. Her current research is on the sociological understanding of Ayurvedic medicine in contemporary India.
(Personal publications)
abraham_true_love.pdf — Leena Abraham, Bhai-Behen, True Love, Time Pass: Friendships and Sexual Partnerships among Youth in an Indian Metropolis, Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Jul., 2002), pp. 337-353.
Leena Abraham, Ethical and methodological conflicts in sexuality research, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, January-March 2001-9(1). This electronic journal is on line, click on the following link to access Abraham's paper:
abraham_kumar_sexual_experiences.pdf — Leena Abraham; K. Anil Kumar, Sexual Experiences and Their Correlates Among College Students in Mumbai City, India, International Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 139-146+152.