Fabíola Rohden

The construction of sexual difference in medicine

This article discusses the work of some key players in the current debate on the construction of the notion of sexual difference in modernity, taking as the focus of analysis and illustration the theses submitted at the School of Medicine in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during the 19th century. The objective is to confront the argument that the difference between the sexes comes to be taken for granted and considered immutable by science. This emphasis on a natural difference between the sexes is related to transformations that occurred beginning in the late 18th century (growing industrialization and urbanization, more extensive participation by women in the labor market, the emergence of womens rights movements) that required changes in the established gender relations. Still, it is precisely through the attempts to prove that the difference was natural that one perceives how unstable and threatening it was. Interventions such as womens education and labor market participation were capable of altering and even subverting the difference. Thus, natural was not synonymous with definitive or guaranteed.

O império dos hormônios e a construção da diferença entre os sexos

Within the context of the theoretical debate on gender and science, the article discusses the process of redefining gender and sex differences using so-called biological or natural markers. It identifies how gender differences undergo naturalization using a logic of substantialization or materialization. This process is exemplified in how medicine views women, promoting explanatory models of economics of the female body that are at times centered around organs like the uterus and ovaries, at other times centered on the mechanics of hormones, and, most recently, focused on genetic and neurological differences. More specifically, it follows the discovery of so-called sex hormones and its relation to a dualist perspective of gender. These powerful chemical messengers helped shaped the passage from the logic of excess surrounding sex through the late nineteenth century, to the imperative of insufficiency, prevalent since the mid-twentieth century.

Gênero, sexualidade e raça/etnia: desafios transversais na formação do professor

Este artigo apresenta uma experiencia piloto de formacao a distância de profissionais de educacao nas tematicas de genero, sexualidade, orientacao sexual e relacoes etnico-raciais, resultado de uma articulacao entre diversos ministerios do governo federal (Secretaria Especial de Politicas para Mulheres, Secretaria Especial de Politicas de Promocao da Igualdade Racial e o Ministerio da Educacao), o British Council e o Centro Latino-Americano em Sexualidade e Direitos Humanos da Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro. O curso, ocorrido entre maio e setembro de 2006, teve como publico-alvo professores/as do ensino fundamental em seis municipios da rede publica e seu objetivo primordial foi ampliar a compreensao sobre a dinâmica dos processos de discriminacao na sociedade brasileira, especificamente o racismo, o sexismo e a homofobia, possibilitando o fortalecimento de acoes de combate a essas discriminacoes.

O campo da sexologia no Brasil: constituição e institucionalização

Neste artigo apresentamos e discutimos os resultados parciais da investigacao sobre a constituicao do campo da sexologia contemporânea no Brasil, parte da pesquisa comparativa Sexualidade, ciencia e profissao na America Latina. Uma segunda onda sexologica surgiu no Brasil em finais dos anos 1970 no Rio de Janeiro, com um vies essencialmente clinico, e em Sao Paulo, com um vies educacional. A decada seguinte marcou um periodo de institucionalizacao no qual sao criadas as duas associacoes que hoje polarizam o campo em torno de uma sexologia mais ecletica e multiprofissional e da chamada medicina sexual, em geral dominada pelos urologistas. Discutimos os significados dessa polarizacao em termos das disputas profissionais subjacentes e das concepcoes de genero implicadas em tais disputas.

A ciência na mídia e as estratégias de reafirmação da bipolaridade entre os gêneros: o caso do Globo Repórter

From the study of Globo Reporter television program this article discusses the media articulations between nature and gender issues. We selected two editions, shown in consecutive weeks, which undertake great effort to explain the differences of gender and for maternal love, since essentialists notions and the privilege of the biologic body, in accordance with the efforts these medical sciences have been making in search of the truth about the issue, despite the social and cultural aspects of this construction.