Research: Gender and Ethics

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CRB includes gender aspects in both research and teaching. Gender theory is an integrated part of the ethics training for nurses and doctors. CRB has a senior lecturer in nursing ethis and gender studies (Anna T Höglund).

Gender aspects are also part of several of our research projects. For example, gender was a central part of the project Setting priorities for the elderly in health care – ethical, political and social aspects (1999 - 2003). Gender is also an important aspect of research in clinical ethics.

Currently, we have a running research collaboration on ethical dilemmas in telenursing and one PhD project on gender aspects in telenursing. Another PhD project looks at the ethical and social aspects of HPV-vaccination and reproductive health.

The main task for bioethicists has always been to protect vulnerable patients and research subjects from harm and abuses. The legal and moral rights of patients and research subjects have also been at the core of this tradition. In spite of this, much research has observed how neither gender nor ethnicity or class, have been much observed within bioethics. Several reasons for this have been pointed out, for example that it relates to the focus on individualism and a principle-based arguing within mainstream bioethics.

Gender theory concerns cultural conceptions of masculinity and femininity as well as power relations between women and men. Further, it deals with the construction of identity for individual men and women related to cultural gender norms. Gender studies within bioethics concern gender inequalities in health and health care; the construction of gender in the encounter between the patient and the health care provider; the allocation of recourses in health care; and priority-setting in health care in relation to factors such as gender, ethnicity and age and more.

Selected publications

Books

Höglund AT, Gender and the War on Terrorism. The Justification of War in a Post-9/11 Perspective, Skrifter från Centrum för genusvetenskap/Crossroads of Knowledge 13, Uppsala universitet 2010. 248 pp. Order from: publications@gender.uu.se

Höglund AT, Inga lätta val. Om riktlinjer och etisk kompetens vid prioriteringar i vården. En studie i empirisk etik. Uppsala Studies in Faiths and Ideologies 15. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis 2005. 176 pp.

Höglund AT, Gender and the War on Terrorism. The Justification of War in a Post-9/11 Perspective. Crossroads of Knowledge 13. Uppsala: Universitetstryckeriet. Forthcoming. 248 pp.

Articles

Gottvall M, Tydén T, Larsson M, Stenhammar C, Höglund AT, Challenges and opportunities of a new HPV immunization program - Perceptions among Swedish school nurses, Vaccine, 2011;29(28):4576-4583.

Gottvall M, Tydén T, Höglund AT, Larsson M, Knowledge of human papillomavirus among high school students can be increased by an educational intervention, International Journal of STD & AIDS, 2010;21:558-562.

Höglund AT, Gender and Bioethics, in: Never Mind the Gap! Gendering Science in Transgressive Encounters, Blomqvist M & Ehnsmyr, E (eds), Skrifter från Centrum för genusvetenskap / Crossroads of Knowledge 15, Universitetstryckeriet, Uppsala 2010.

Höglund AT, Tydén T, Hannerfors AK, Larsson M, Knowledge of human papillomavirus and attitudes to vaccination among Swedish high school students, International Journal of STD & AIDS. 2009; 20(2):102-7.

Gottvall M, Larsson M, Hoglund AT, Tyden T. High HPV vaccine acceptance despite low awareness among Swedish upper secondary school students, Eur J Contracept Reprod Health Care, 2009;14:399-405

Höglund AT, Holmström I, 'It's easier to talk to a woman'. Aspects of gender in Swedish telenursing, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 2008;17:2979-2986.

Höglund AT, Genus, etnicitet och rättigheter: Om skapandet av identitet i ett mångkulturellt samhälle, in: Franck O (ed.), Genusperspektiv i skolan – om kön, kärlek och makt, Lund, Studentlitteratur, 2007: 89-106.

Höglund AT, Justice for Women in War? Feminist Ethics and Human Rights for Women, Feminist Theology, 2003;11(3):331-346.

Höglund AT, Vad har kön med kriget mot terrorismen att göra?, Internasjonal Politikk, 2006;1:7-28.

More information

• Anna T. Höglund, Senior Lecturer
  
  
• Maria Gottvall, PhD Student
  
  
• Roya Hakimnia, PhD Student
  
  

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