Paediatrics: Should Gender Be an Issue?

Over the last two decades textbooks of paediatrics have shown a significant change towards being more gender sensitive. A textbook of the 1970s, one of the two reviewed here, continues to carry the baggage of a stultified clinical approach to child health and disease, while the more recent one, brought out by a professional association of paediatricians shows that at least some leading authors are acknowledging the social and epidemiological context of paediatric practice in India. But even this textbook falls short of providing a new model of practice incorporating a gender sensitive perspective.