Interview with GenderSci Lab member Maayan Sudai, Assistant Professor of Law and of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Haifa

The public health perils of overstating sex differences

Where is gender in the biosocial moment?

Comic by Brianna Weir : Signs vs. Science

Two recent papers challenge the idea that men evolved to prefer slim women with small waists because they are healthier and more fertile.

Brain sex-difference research usually focuses on average differences between men and women. Neuroscientist Daphna Joel challenges this approach by asking, “Wait! What exactly do you mean by ‘difference’?”

The memo's authors appeal to science, but referring to biological traits such as genitals and genes does not make their definition of sex scientific. This selective definition of sex deviates from scientific consensus about the nature of human sex and gender. 

The SWHR task force operationalizes ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ as research variables with sweeping explanatory potential in biomedicine. The manner in which they do so reveals a theoretical gulf between a widely practiced genre of bioscience knowledge production in women’s health research and critical feminist approaches to science, medicine, and the body.