The importance of teaching gender theory in undergraduate Public Health education: a necessary intersection

Abstract

The objective of this study is to reflect, based on our experience as teachers of the undergraduate course in Public Health of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, on the teaching of gender issues for students under professional training in the health field. By accepting the challenge proposed in this dossier, we sought to analyze how this bachelor’s degree—interdisciplinary by nature— has been explored daily and in a practical manner by social sciences, particularly by theories that approach the genre as an analytical category and an important conceptual tool for a critical and political understanding of social reality. We believe that such learning is essential for a more engaged action with social inequalities (class, race/ethnicity, gender) as future sanitarians or health researchers, in order to awaken students’ interest and sensibility to the subject. Based on the connection between their own daily experiences as young people, women and men, with distinct ethnic and racial backgrounds, class affiliation and religious inclusion, we have witnessed a process of personal and professional maturity in our students, which proves us the fecundity of teaching in this manner.