Since the women's health movement blossomed in the

1970s, there has been an ever-increasing trend toward examining all

aspects of human health for evidence of sex differences. But some of the

movement's major achievements - such as a federal mandate to collect and

analyze data by sex in all health research - may paradoxically turn out to

be obstacles for understanding health differences between and within

sex/gender groups. Building on her earlier work in Brain Storm: The

Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences and using examples from both

physical and mental health research, this 2011 Silver Science lecture

by Rebecca Jordan-Young reviews some basic questions about

measurement in "sex-specific" medicine that could revolutionize the

field and yield research and clinical practice that is actually far more

specific and scientific than the current approach. What kind of variable

is "sex," and can it be measured separately from "gender"? When we have

information on specific biological mechanisms underlying health

differences, what does the variable "sex" add to our analyses? Introduced by

BCRW Acting Director Elizabeth Castelli, Rebecca Jordan-Young delivered this

lecture on October 11, 2011.