Women Safety

Gender Safety (Oral Presentation 2.5.3) 6th Australian Women’s Health Conference Explore Gender in Policy and Practice that Leads to Better Health Outcomes Denele Crozier, Helen Dooley, Sue McClelland, Roxanne McMurray Individual Oral Presentation Some feminists have argued that the use of the term ‘gender’ has rendered women invisible. In many ways I agree with them – at one stage in NSW we had a state policy ‘health for all’ in which ‘people’ were having babies. Gender use is also an issue of terminology, many people think gender equates with ‘women’; a colleague of mine is attending a women’s luncheon at the University of Wollongong for diversity week, the official invitation called the luncheon, the “gender luncheon” but the function was organised as a women-only event. That said, the use of gender as a concept and a tool in program development and application, in Australia and internationally has clearly improved health outcomes for women in more ways then we could have dreamed. By the very use of the term ‘gender’ one is required to define it - which can then allow for defining the cultural, legal and systemic nature of the gender experience. In 2003, the NSW Department for Women defined ‘A gendered approach to health may be described as any research methodology, policy or practice that takes account of the differences between women and men that influence each gender’s capacity to reach and maintain optimal health’. (1) I particularly like the gender context currently in use in the NSW Health Women’s Health Plan 2009-2011 which identifies the gender context as ‘the product of the laws and social customs that determine male and female roles and shape the learned behaviours, relationships, attitudes and expectations that society ascribes to men and women’. (2) Sounds a lot like feminism to me…although there are few policies that would refer to the development of gender as having some historical relevance to the dominant culture which has historically been...