Women's health in Israel: a feminist perspective

This paper draws on feminist health scholarship to provide critically needed tools for conceptualizing women's health care and health status in Israel. It explores the links between inequities in gender roles and the health experiences of women, as patients and caregivers. The critique points to the consequences of defining women's health in relation to men. In an attempt to chart directions for fundamental change in the approach to women's health in Israel, the author underscores the relevance of sociocultural environments in accounting for female well-being and for women's illnesses. Women professionals, particularly in the social health sciences, are identified as a key to adapting health care to women's unique needs within a woman-centered and egalitarian delivery system.