Ericka Johnson (2017) Gendering Drugs. Feminists Studies of Pharmaceuticals. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract

This book wants to analyse the intersection between drugs and gender. On the one hand, drugs can be gendered and tailored to focus on either men or women. On the other hand, they articulate gendered subjectivities for us, so they can engender us. This work has taken its theoretical perspective from feminist techno-science studies. From a posthuman approach, analysis extends to nonhumans as active agents. A feminist critique is included with the concern for masculinities, non-binary sex/gender understandings and the intersection with race, class, sexuality and global inequalities.

The book has used a wide fieldwork, as drug pharmaceutical advertisements, medical guidelines and the experience of some of the people directly affected by the side effects of some of tools for health. It is a relevant contribution for it is an approach to gender construction from nonhumans, which highlight the subjective processes in science. It throws some light on the construction of bodies and subjects in relation to pharmaceuticals, and the multiplicity of such material-discursive entanglement from a critical perspective of the biomedical power.