Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T13:53:28.584Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Re-visioning Clinical Research: Gender and the Ethics of Experimental Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

Since modern medicine is based substantially in clinical medical research, the flaws and ethical problems that arise in this research as it is conceived and practiced in the United States are likely to be reflected to some extent in current medicine and its practice. This paper explores some of the ways in which clinical research has suffered from an androcentric focus in its choice and definition of problems studied, approaches and methods used in design and interpretation of experiments, and theories and conclusions drawn from the research. Some examples of re-visioned research hint at solutions to the ethical dilemmas created by this biased focus; an increased number of feminists involved in clinical research may provide avenues for additional changes that would lead to improved health care for all.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Altekruse, Joan and Rosser, Sue V. (In press). Women in the biomedical and health care industry. In Knowledge expbsion: disciplines and debates, Spender, Dale and Kramarae, Cheris (eds.). New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Arditti, Rita, Duelli Klein, Renate and Minden, Shelley. 1984. Test‐tube women: what future for motherhood? London: Pandora Press.Google Scholar
Report, Belmont. 1978. Washington, DC: Department of Health Education and Welfare. (Publication No. OS 78–0012).Google Scholar
Birke, Lynda. 1986. Women, feminism, and biobgy. New York: Methuen.Google Scholar
Bleier, Ruth. 1984. Science and gender: A critique of biobgy and its theories on women. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Bleier, Ruth. 1986. Sex differences research: Science or belief? In Feminist approaches to science, Bleier, Ruth (ed.). New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Boston Women's Health Book Collective. 1984. The new our bodies, ourselves. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Corea, Gena, Hanmer, J., Hoskins, B., Raymond, J., Duelli Klein, R., Holmes, H. B., Keshwa, M.Rowland, T. R., Steinbacker, R., (eds.) 1987. Man‐made women: How new reproductive technologies affect women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Corea, Gena and Ince, S. 1987. Report of a survey of IVF clinics in the USA. In Made to order: the myth of reproductive and genetic progress, Spallone, Patricia and Steinberg, Deborah L. (eds.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Cowan, Belita. 1980. Ethical problems in government‐funded contraceptive research. In Birth control and controlling birth: women‐centered perspectives. p. 3746, Holmes, Helen, Hoskins, Betty, and Gross, Michael (eds.), Humana Press, Clifton, N.J.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dill, Bonnie T. 1983. Race, class and gender: Prospects for an all‐inclusive sisterhood. Feminist Studies 9:(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreifus, Claudia. 1978. Seizing our bodies. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Deirdre. 1978. For Her own good. New York: Anchor Press.Google Scholar
Elgin, Suzette H. 1984. Native tongue. New York: Daw Book, Inc.Google Scholar
Fee, Elizabeth. 1981. Is feminism a threat to scientific objectivity? International Journal of Women's Studies 4: 213233.Google ScholarPubMed
Fee, Elizabeth. 1982. A feminist critique of scientific objectivity. Science for the People 14 (4):8.Google Scholar
Fee, Elizabeth. 1983. Women's nature and scientific objectivity. In Woman's nature, rationalizations of inequality, Lowe, Marian and Hubbard, Ruth (eds.). New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Filner, B. 1982. President's remarks. AWIS: XV (4), July/Aug.Google Scholar
Goldzieher, Joseph W., Louis Moses, Eugene Averkin, Scheel, Cora, and Taber, Ben. 1971a. A placebo‐controlled double‐blind crossover investigation of the side effects attributed to oral contraceptives. Fertility and Sterility 22 (9): 609623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldzieher, Joseph W., Moses, Louis, Averkin, Eugene, Scheel, Cora, and Taber, Ben. 1971b. Nervousness and depression attributed to oral contraceptives: A double‐blind, placebo‐controlled study. American Journal of Ob-stetrics and Gynecology 22, 10131020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Jean. 1985. Avoiding methodological biases in gender‐related research. In Women's health report of the public health service task force on women's health issues. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Public Service.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1978. Animal sociology and a natural economy of the body politic, Part I: A political physiology of dominance; and animal sociology and a natural economy of the body politic, Part II: The past is the contested zone: Human nature and theories of production and reproduction in primate behavior studies. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 4 (1): 2160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, Sandra. 1986. The science question in feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hein, Hilde. 1981. Women and science: fitting men to think about nature. International Journal of Women's Studies 4: 369377.Google Scholar
Hoffman, J.C. 1982. Biorhythms in human reproduction: The not‐so‐steady states. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7 (4): 829844.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Helen B. 1981. Reproductive technologies: The birth of a women‐centered analysis. In The custom‐made child? Holmes, Helen B., et al, (eds.). NJ: Humana Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, Helen B., Hoskins, B.B., and Gross, Michael. 1980. Birth control and controlling birth: Women‐centered perspectives. Clifton, New Jersey: Humana Press.Google Scholar
Hubbard, Ruth. 1983. Social effects of some contemporary myths about women. In Woman's nature: rationalizations of inequality, Lowe, Marian and Hubbard, Ruth (eds.). New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Jones, James H. 1981. Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Evelyn. 1982. Feminism and science. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7 (3): 589602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, Evelyn. 1985. Dynamic autonomy. In Reflections on gender and science. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kirschstein, Ruth L. 1985. Women's health: Report of the public health service task force on women's health issues. Vol. 2. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service.Google Scholar
Kramarae, Cheris and Treichler, Paul. 1986. A feminist dictionary. London: Pandora Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1970. The structure of scientific revolutions. (2nd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 1975. Language and woman's place. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Levine, Robert J. 1986. Ethics and regulation of clinical research. (2nd ed.). Baltimore: Urban and Schwarzenberg.Google Scholar
Levine, Robert J. 1978. The nature and definition of informed consent. The Belmont Report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. Appendix. 1. (DHEW Publication No. OS 78–0013) 3–1–91.Google Scholar
McLeod, S. 1987. Scientific colonialism: A cross‐cultural comparison. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Manley, Audrey, Lin‐Fu, Jane, Miranda, Magdalena, Noonan, Alan, and Parker, Tanya. 1985. Special health concerns of ethnic minority women in Women's health.Report of the public health service task force on women's health issues. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.Google Scholar
Money, John and Erhardt, Anke. 1972. Man and woman, boy and girl. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
National Science Foundation. 1986. Report on women and minorities in science and engineering. Washington, DC, NSF.Google Scholar
National Science Foundation science and engineering indicators. 1987. Washington, DC (NSB‐1, Appendix Table 4–10).Google Scholar
Norwood, Chris. 1988. Alarming rise in deaths. Ms. July, 6567.Google Scholar
Rosser, Sue V. 1988. Good science: Can it ever be gender‐free? Women's Studies international Forum 11 (1), 1319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruzek, Sheryl. 1988. Women's health: sisterhood is powerful, but so are race and class. Keynote address delivered at Southeast Women's Studies Association Annual Conference, February 27 at University of North Carolina‐Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Science and government report. 1988. Washington, D.C. March 1,18(4): 1.Google Scholar
Steering Committee of the Physician's Health Study Research Group. 1988. Special report: Preliminary report of findings from the aspirin component of the ongoing physician's health study. New England Journal of Medicine 318,4, 262264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorne, Barrie. 1979. Claiming verbal space: Women, speech and language in college classrooms. Paper presented at the Research Conference on Educational Environments and the Undergraduate Women, September 13–15, Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 1985. Women's health: Report of the Public Health Service Task Force on Women's Issues, vol. 2. Washington, D.C: Public Health Service.Google Scholar
Veatch, Robert M. 1971. Experimental pregnancy. Hastings Center report. 1: 23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, B.et al. 1980. People's science. In Science and Liberation, Arditti, Rita, Brennan, Pat, and Cavrak, Steven, (eds.). Boston: South End Press, (299319).Google Scholar