Challenging the gender binary in occupation-based research: A feminist critical discourse analysis of sex differences

Gender is a constitutive element of an oppressive system based on sexual differentiation. Making difference between the female and male sexes is an accepted practice that is particularly widespread in scientific research. Yet, this research practice can contribute to the construction of gender as an oppressive system with consequences for people’s occupations and health. The aim of the present study is to address the potential contribution of occupation-based scientific articles in the construction of a gendered social order through the taken-for-granted use of sex categories. A literature review resulted in the selection of 22 articles published in occupational therapy and occupational science journals that differentiate individuals based on female/male sex characteristics. A feminist critical discourse analysis was used to make visible how these texts contribute to the construction of gender and their occupational and health consequences. Three specific mechanisms were identified in the analysis: naturalization, banalization, and sacralization. Together, they show the specific process of naturalization of care work as ‘women’s work’ and how it further constitutes a basis towards indifference and banalization of women’s health and occupational issues. Sacralization illustrates how full authority is conferred to numbers within science to justify research based on sex categories and how this contributes to reproducing one gendered reality over another. In conclusion, this study aligns with feminist and critical occupational science theories and contributes to epistemological disruption of the scientific construction of binary sexes within occupation-based scholarship.