Review

Careful caring

GENDER, HEALTH AND HEALING: the public/private divide
Edited by Gillian Bendelow, Mick Carpenter, Caroline Vautier and Simon Williams
Routledge, 2001, £18.99

Thankfully, this is not just another collection of essays by the usual suspects in medical sociology. It brings together some of the work presented at a conference to celebrate the life and work of Meg Stacey. Her work, which is no doubt known to many healthmatters readers, has addressed many important aspects of health and social policy, as well as providing lively, critical analysis within sociology.

The contributors were asked to reflect on the ‘public/private’ split in relation to gender, health and healing – central themes in Stacey’s work – and to consider how health care spans these spheres and is informed by feminist thinking and practice.

The range of the essays is very wide, touching on all the key areas of health care, formal and informal, paid and unpaid. The essays are grouped under three headings: human reproduction and the struggle for control of the biological and social processes related to it; gender inequality and the division of labour; and how social change is reflected in and shapes health care systems.

There is a ‘critical continuity’ evident in the book, celebrating the practice of careful thinking in the sociology of health and illness. More unexpected is that this analysis is not just careful, but caring. As Stacey writes in her conclusion, this reflects the fact that the ultimate aim of research and analysis must be to help to mitigate intended, unintended and unnecessary human suffering associated with gendered inequality and ill health and with patriarchal forms of health intervention.

Anyone who worries that academic reflection on health and illness is detached from the messiness of experience, or removed from political and moral purpose, can take heart from this volume. Leaving aside the pleasures of fiction and poetry, it is the most enjoyable read I have had in recent months. And if you think I should get out more, get hold of a copy and see for yourself.