Conference Programme, Abstracts & Papers

Session 10B - Gendering Health, Illness and Disease
Chair: Andy Ruddock

Carrying the Weight of Disease: Female Obesity in Morocco.
Adina Keryn Batnitzky
School of Geography, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom

Often referred to as the developing world’s new burden of disease, obesity constitutes a major and growing health epidemic in Morocco, in particular for women.  In this paper, I focus on how gender operates to affect obesity risk in the Moroccan context.  I suggest that we can explain the significant difference in male and female obesity rates (22% of women versus 8% of men) in Morocco through an examination of men’s and women’s household roles.  I find that current social and economic theories, including the nutrition transition theory, are inadequate in explaining the persistent gender differentials in health status across time and place.  In contrast, by utilizing a theoretical framework and an empirical context that combines findings from both quantitative and qualitative research, my work offers a new basis for understanding why women are far more likely than men to be obese in the Moroccan context.  The effect of gender on risk of obesity was found to operate through men’s and women’s household roles. These roles for women, in turn, are both derived from, and are dependent on, social, economic and cultural contexts, such as marital status, age, education, and particular aspects of material lifestyle.  The findings highlight the relationship between gender, social class, culture and health in Morocco.  I also emphasize the importance of considering the everyday and chronic health experiences of women rather than solely concentrating on reproductive health as constituting ‘women’s health.’  I call upon researchers to consider how household organization influences the health status of particular household members and, in particular, how non-egalitarian social roles may deleteriously affect women’s health. 

Gendered Distress in Women's Narratives about Cardiac Artery Disease in Kainuu, Finland
Marjo Taivalantti
Department of Art Studies and Anthropology, University of Oulu, Finland

Coronary artery disease is number one cause of death among women in Finland, but fewer women perceive it as their greatest health threat. Biomedical research about CAD is numerous, but women’s everyday heart disease experiences have gotten less attention. Region of Kainuu in north-eastern part of Finland has been, and still is perceived infamous for its high prevalence of this particular illness. It is also a vast geographical area where official health care settings can be afar. In my paper, which is a part of my ongoing PhD research in cultural anthropology, I will describe the everyday experiences of Kainuu women with CAD. The focus is on how feminine gender is represented in women’s stories and how it gives meaning to their illness experiences. I will discuss the ideas of ‘distress’ and ‘worrying’ which seem to link gender and the experienced illness, but I will also discuss what these women’s narrations seem to suggest on ‘how to feel better’.  The material I will be drawing from consists of 20 women’s accounts about their illness experiences during the years of 2004-2006.

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Shame on You: Discourses of Health, Class and Gender in the Promotion of Cosmetic Surgery Within Popular Media
Julie Doyle and Irmi Karl
Media and Communication Studies, University of Brighton, Brighton, and University of Brighton, United Kingdom

This paper offers a discourse analysis of the current  (series 3) 10 Years Younger (Channel 4) TV programme and website in order to demonstrate the ways in which cosmetic surgery is being integrated and normalised within a more traditional beauty regime of style, make-up and hair. Furthermore, our analysis will demonstrate how ‘public shaming’ is being used as a key factor in justifying permanent surgical procedures to either re-establish a lost youthful look or to acquire a publicly acceptable appearance where ‘genes’ have failed.
The parading of the contestants (prior to their makeover) in the public spaces of cities/towns in order to identify their flaws and guess their age, has at its core an aspect of public shaming. The key aspect of ‘shaming’ is very importantly closely related to questions of class and social status; a discursive relationship which has not been given much attention within feminist literature on cosmetic surgery so far. The programme’s emphasis on endorsing cosmetic surgery specifically through public shaming, as a remedy for female bodies marked by age and (class) lifestyle, thus moves cosmetic surgery from the realm of the private/narcissistic to the public domain, where it becomes a woman’s social duty to appear young, healthy and attractive. This validation of cosmetic surgery is achieved, in part, through evoking the discourses around public health and class. Subsequently, surgery is promoted as a viable means of regulating the uncontrolled (female) body.
Whilst the first two series establish a connection between health, beauty and its signification through youthful appearance, the current website and TV series strongly reinforces those discursive links and in fact makes cosmetic surgery the foremost part of any woman’s beauty and health regime. A discourse analysis of both the programme and the website will critique how concepts of health, class and gender are being used to promote and normalise cosmetic surgery as part of an accepted health and therapeutic beauty regime for all women.