[Gender, health professions and public health].
In this article we review the main results of historical-social research on gender and medical practice, propose a model for applying a gender perspective to the study of healthcare professions, and analyze some current forms of gender bias in Spanish public health societies and publications. The main conclusions indicate: the historic construction of gendered professional identities; the existence of vertical segregation by sex in scientific societies and in journal editorial boards; the existence of androcentric practices in the scientific journals, exemplified by the style of using the initial letter of the authors' first name; the fact that scientific societies do not collect data by sex; the difficulties that all of this implies for quantitative investigations that study the sex variable and adopt a gender perspective; and the need to promote qualitative research on the issue.
Ortiz-Gómez
Teresa
T
Historia de la Ciencia e Instituto de Estudios de la Mujer, Universidad de Granada, Spain. tortiz@ugr.es
Birriel-Salcedo
Johanna
J
Ortega Del Olmo
Rosa
R
D005260:Female; D006281:Health Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011634:Public Health; D012923:Social Class; D013030:Spain