WoMaHN

Women’s Marginalized Health Network (WoMaHN) 

WoMaHN is a newly established research network that gathers scholars with an interest in marginalization of women’s embodiment and health from perspectives within the critical social sciences, gender studies, philosophy, and medical humanities. On this page, you find more info about the network (the network’s website will be launched soon). In January 2024, we will had our inaugural symposium at Tilburg University. The call for papers (now closed) can be found here.

Introduction 

In recent years scholarly and societal attention has been directed to the historical and contemporary marginalization of women’s health in medicine and public discourses. In a series of three symposia, we plan to establish WoMaHN (Women’s Marginalized Health Network), a network that aims to enhance research in the critical social sciences and humanities on women’s marginalized health. The symposia engage with three major concerns with respect to aspects of (the medicalization of) women’s health and embodiment that are overlooked, under researched and silenced.  

1. Lived experiences of women's embodiment, health and illness.

2. Social critiques to women's health, illness and medicalization.

3. Feminist futures of women's health, illness and medicalization.

In each of the symposia we bring together scholars from (inter)disciplinary fields such as the qualitative social sciences, philosophy, cultural studies, feminist-, race- and disability- studies, feminist science and technology studies, and health and medical humanities. As such, the symposia series function to enable interuniversity/international collaborations as a starting point for the establishment of a network that gathers interdisciplinary scholars who seek to working on the marginalization of women’s health and embodiment. 

Background

Scholarship in critical social sciences, gender studies and medical humanities have in the last decades pointed to the need for further studies and theoretization of the marginalization, medicalization, stigma and silence that historically and in the present adhere to many aspects of women’s embodiment and health. For example, such work has demonstrated how such processes render certain individuals and bodies to be considered “normal” and “abnormal”, thus shaping illness experiences and care encounters. More specifically, it has also theorized women’s experiences of embodiment and medical practices as situated in broader social contexts. Such work has, for example, conceptualized how menstruation, reproduction, pregnancy, and menopause have become medical concerns while suffering resulting from them at the same time has been considered “natural” aspects of life. As such, it has underscored the dismissal and neglect of women’s embodiment in health and demonstrated the normative force of medical frameworks and practic. However, more research is needed on the complexities of aspects of women’s embodiment and health that are taboo, that are surrounded by social silence, that are mislabeled, and/or wherein women are stereotyped, unjustly treated, or not taken seriously. Examples of such aspects include but are not limited to: endometriosis, menopause, pregnancy- and birth-related complaints, vulva- and ovarian cancer, breast cancer, transgender health, vaginismus, gynecological issues, and infertility. 

While the marginalization of women’s embodiment and health have been core concerns at the nexus of critical social sciences, gender studies and medical humanities there are few networks that particularly bring together scholars with an interest in advancing knowledge at this intersection. In light of the academic and more recent public attention that has been given to the marginalization of women’s embodiment and health it is thus urgent to facilitate and build research collaborations which contributes to unpack the complexities of these issues. 

Aims 

• Initiate and contribute to the development of interdisciplinary innovative research to meet the challenges of the marginalization of women’s embodiment and health. 

• Enable dialogues and collaboration between early career and senior scholars in the field of critical social sciences and humanities with regards to the topic of women’s health. 

• Identify persistent knowledge gaps and research needs with regards to the critical appraisal women’s health and initiate research that responds to such gaps and needs. 

• Establish a durable network for research on women’s marginalized health – WoMaHN: Women’s Marginalized Health Network. 

  WoMaHN is organized by eight key members:

  Marjolein de Boer, Tilburg University, the Netherlands (co-founder)

  Lisa Guntram, Linköping University, Sweden (co-founder)

  Birgitta Haga Gripsrud, University of Stavanger, Norway

  Lisa Lindén, Chalmers University, Sweden

  Jane Macnaughton, Durham University, the UK

  Kari Nyheim Solbrække, University of Oslo, Norway

  Cassandra Phoenix, Durham University, the UK

  Petra Verdonk, Amsterdam UMC-VU, the Netherlands