Health science has only recently begun to acknowledge how little it understands about women’s bodies. While it’s accepted that womanhood extends beyond biological sex, even practices broadly labeled “women’s health care” maintain hyper-focus on tending reproductive capacity or function. Such narrow practice of women’s health care undermines full expression of respect for women’s rights, dignity, and humanity over women’s lifespans, and marginalizes women-identifying patients who do not have female reproductive capabilities. Women’s historical exclusion from clinical trials has also compromised the evidence base for diagnosis and intervention; women still suffer adverse drug consequences at twice the rate of men. This theme issue applies a feminist lens to the persistence of patriarchal assumptions about health policy and clinical practice norms that reify physiological difference in ways that undermine women-identifying patients’ agency and autonomy, gender equity, and patient-centered practice.
Manuscripts submitted for peer review consideration and inclusion in this February 2027 issue must follow Instructions for Authors and be submitted by 30 March 2026.
The AMA Journal of Ethics® invites original, English-language contributions for peer review consideration on the upcoming themes.