UC Berkeley

Androcentric beliefs perpetuate a worldview that men are the representative prototype of the species, to which women compare as deviant and faulty (Hibbs 2014). In the context of medicine, androcentrism persists in the examination of feminine and intersex anatomy as a physiological variant of the male sex, the usage of metaphors loaded with sexist symbols, and the historical justification of women as subordinate to men (Miqueo 1999). The historical consequences of androcentrism in 20th-century North American cardiac research were life-threatening and one-sided with impacts that ripple to the present. Unfortunately, medical research often turns a convenient blind eye to the basic standard of survival as the rationale for equity in research and practice. While significant work is underway to identify the parameters and solutions to androcentrism in clinical practice, millions of women experience the downsides of a historically accumulated dearth of clinical data for many cardiovascular conditions. This paper identifies the historical arguments and sociocultural biases of cardiovascular clinical trials and case studies in 20th century United States.