Womenʼs Health and Complexity Science

Conceptual frameworks in science have shifted from reductionism and its focus on ever-smaller parts to complexity, an outgrowth of chaos theory that views those parts in relation to one another, to the larger entity they form and to the environment in which that entity exists. Examples of this conceptual shift are occurring in many areas of science, but nowhere is it more germane than in the medical sciences that serve women. After a historical focus on reproduction and the development of obstetrics-gynecology, medicine has now gained a broader view of the woman using sex- and gender-based science, and a new field called "women's health" is evolving. Complexity science does not invalidate or eliminate the need for reductionist science, it simply makes a wider array of phenomena understandable. Its method allows going beyond the metaphor of the body as a machine and challenges the user to re-examine how health and illness are understood. This article explores how these changes in science must inform the development of an academic discipline in women's health. The conceptual framework of complexity science also advances the discussions about women's health from reproduction to a totally new and exciting exploration of the interactions between reproduction and all other organ functioning that occurs in women in the contexts of their lives.