Challenging perspectives: Women, complementary and alternative medicine, and social change

This article presents an analytical review of literature that examines women’s practice and use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). To interrogate this body of literature, I draw on new social movement scholarship and a feminist understanding of the notion of ‘the personal is political’. Although women’s prominence in CAM is consistently noted, our understanding of the relationship between CAM and gender remains underdeveloped and our knowledge about the role of CAM in social change processes is limited. My focus is therefore on the interplay between women’s practice and use of CAM, personal transformation and social change. This exploration demonstrates that women’s practice and use of CAM presents an opportunity to fulfill and confront traditional gender roles and dominant discourses of femininity. Furthermore, I illustrate that women’s practice and use of CAM contributes towards promoting and achieving social change through the changing of the customary social practices of biomedicine, the development of new epistemic paradigms, the shaping of new working practices, and the creation of alternative communities. In conclusion, I suggest that when gender constitutes an integral part of analysis and theorising, combined with a broader understanding of ‘the political’, new insights and perspectives on women and CAM emerge. These also further our understanding of health social movements.