Are Male Bodies Preferred Over Female Bodies?
A study by Mary Campbell was created to test the hypothesis that male and female bodies were equally represented in human anatomy textbooks. Eight textbooks that were widely used by west coast medical students were chosen, and only illustrations were tested.
Findings: Males were obviously overrepresented in these standard anatomy illustrations. Males made up 64% of illustrations, while females were depicted in only 11%. The other 25% were gender-neutral, which means that gender could have been shown but wasn’t, or where both genders were shown. In urogenital (gender-specific) illustrations, males and females were much more equally represented. Males were in 48% and females were in 45% of the illustrations. 7% were gender-neutral. These findings showed that there was a sexist attitude in the medical profession, because so many illustrations were depicted as being male. Men used to be considered the only “worthy” patients, and females were considered to be less important, therefore resulting in more knowledge and more comfort in the male human body over the female human body. “He” can be used to describe any human being, whereas “she” automatically qualified a human being as female. Even though females were very much less likely to be used in illustrations that could either have been male or female, they were nearly equally represented in the reproductive system chapters. This goes to show that females were considered important, but only because of the body parts men didn’t have. Female lungs, muscles, and blood were not as important as a male’s, but once body parts that males didn’t posses and that males needed in procreating needed to be illustrated, the female body was suddenly important.
The dominance of male anatomy was significant even in medical professions. Males were constantly being overrepresented in textbook illustrations, and women were being greatly underrepresented. Male bodies were seen as the superior in comparison to women. Women were mostly represented where men could not be, for instance, reproduction.
Giacomini, M. (1986). Gender bias in human anatomy textbook illustrations. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 10(4), 413-420.