Where Is the Woman in Preventive and Social Medicine?

Medicine as a body of knowledge has incorporated dominant class, caste and other biases/prejudices and notions. Its view of the human system is contextualised in a hegemonic, patriarchal class society, interpreting and transforming information and insights acquired through scientific investigation into knowledge suitable to the social environment in which it was grounded. Medicine and its practice have influenced the construction of gender roles in society through biologically deterministic arguments. These notions have acquired credibility through their practice in medicine, citation in medical journals and training, and are especially reinforced through research. Textbooks and instructional materials impart values that students imbibe and in course of time integrate into clinical practice and research. This understanding forms a basis for reviewing textbooks in preventive and social medicine, a subdiscipline that aims to ground the understanding and management of disease and medical practice in a social context.