Since the women's health movement blossomed in the
1970s, there has been an ever-increasing trend toward examining all
aspects of human health for evidence of sex differences. But some of the
movement's major achievements - such as a federal mandate to collect and
analyze data by sex in all health research - may paradoxically turn out to
be obstacles for understanding health differences between and within
sex/gender groups. Building on her earlier work in Brain Storm: The
Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences and using examples from both
physical and mental health research, this 2011 Silver Science lecture
by Rebecca Jordan-Young reviews some basic questions about
measurement in "sex-specific" medicine that could revolutionize the
field and yield research and clinical practice that is actually far more
specific and scientific than the current approach. What kind of variable
is "sex," and can it be measured separately from "gender"? When we have
information on specific biological mechanisms underlying health
differences, what does the variable "sex" add to our analyses? Introduced by
BCRW Acting Director Elizabeth Castelli, Rebecca Jordan-Young delivered this
lecture on October 11, 2011.