Emily Wentzell

Biography

I am a medical anthropologist who draws on gender and science and technology studies to explore the gendered social consequences of aging, illness, sexual health problems and related medical treatments. Broadly, I am interested in the relationships between gender (especially masculinities), new medical technologies/areas of medicalization, and people’s sex lives and senses of self in contexts of globalization.  My research has focused on Mexico, where gender norms and links between ethnicity, biology and sexuality are widely discussed and hotly contested.  In a new study of emerging "men's health" medicine, I am widening my scope to examine how local ideas of gender and sexuality are shaping the emergence of a new medical field - and its effects on patients' lives and bodies - in comparative global context.