Between sex and gender: an exploratory bibliographic study of health sciences

Abstract

The concepts of “sex” and “gender” are important because they disclose, in part, the founder opposition between nature and culture and the dichotomy between human sciences and biosciences. The text presents the paths taken by an exploratory and qualitative bibliographical research, whose objective was to investigate the uses of the terms “sex” and “gender” in health science publications, which are a privileged field for the subject analysis because of its interdisciplinarity. The sources of the research were articles made available in full in the Latin American and Caribbean Literature database (LILACS). According to previously defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 18 articles were selected. The main uses of the terms “sex” and “gender” were systematized and discussed based on three thematic categories, which sought to highlight the plurality of uses of the concepts studied, as well as some of their epistemological implications related to the duality between nature and culture, typical of the modern thinking. In addition, ethical and political effects were analyzed so that the discussion can be raised and become useful in the health sciences and, in particular, in the Collective Health.

Keywords:
Sex; Gender; Health Sciences; Epistemology