Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-175) and index.

Machine generated contents note: CHAPTER 1 -- Gender and the Social Construction of Illness: Overview -- Sex Differences and Gender Statuses -- The Social Construction of Illness -- The Social Context -- Overview of the Book -- CHAPTER 2 -- Women Get Sicker, but Men Die Quicker: Social Epidemiology -- Birthing and Getting Born: Have Money or Be a Boy -- Adolescence and Young Adulthood: Good and Bad Social Pressures -- Adulthood: Health by Choice or by Circumstances? -- Work and Family: Protection and Danger -- Old Age: Women Live Longer but Not Better -- Dying: Gendered Death Dips -- Summary -- CHAPTER 3 -- Hierarchies in Health Care: -- Patients, Professionals, and Gender -- Hierarchies of Heath Care Providers -- Nurses: Doctor's Handmaidens or Partners? -- Gender and Physicians' Practice Styles -- Are Women Doctors Better for -- Women Patients? -- Can Women Doctors Change Health Care? -- Summary -- CHAPTER 4 -- Gender and Disability: -- Contradictions and Status Dilemmas -- Gender Contradictions in Disability -- Gendered Caregiving -- Gender and Altruism -- A Man but Not a Man, -- a Woman but Not a Woman -- Toward a Continuum of Bodiedness -- Summary -- CHAPTER 5 -- If a Situation Is Defined as Real: -- Premenstrual Syndrome and Menopause -- Medicalized Menstruation -- Cultural Constructions of Menstruation -- Ritual Menstruation -- Emotional Menstruation -- PMS: Hormonal Hurricane or -- High Energy State? -- Menopause: The End of Womanhood or -- the Beginning of a Valued Status? -- Politics of PMS and Menopause -- Transforming Diagnoses Back -- into Women's Troubles -- Summary -- CHAPTER 6 -- Genital Surgeries: Gendering Bodies -- Female Ritual Genital Surgery -- Male Ritual and Medical Genital Surgery -- Genital Surgery on Intersexuals -- Politics of Genital Surgery -- Summary -- CHAPTER 7 -- A Modern Plague: Gender and AIDS -- AIDS by the Numbers -- Social Paths of Transmission -- Safer Sex -- The Gender Politics of Risk and Prevention -- Mother-to-Child Transmission -- Living with AIDS -- "AIDS Is Everyone's Trojan Horse" -- Summary -- CHAPTER 8 -- Healing Social Bodies in Social -- Worlds: Feminist Health Care -- Social Contingencies of Health Care Delivery -- Women's and Men's Health Movements -- Participatory Medical Encounters -- Being a Patient -- Making Changes -- Summary.