Deconstructing gender health equity: Exploring complexities and intersections from within
25 September 2025
In the September edition of our 12-part Decolonising Global Health series, MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership student Maju Brunette returns to share her recent journey becoming the Gender & Health section editor of the Oxford University Press (OUP) Oxford Intersections Gender & Justice Project, where she is working to design a global community of practice (CoP) with members from within and outside the boundaries of academia. Our Decolonising Global Health blog series features monthly contributions and perspectives from scholars and practitioners committed to decolonising global health research and practice.
About the author
Maju Brunette is a MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership student at the University of Oxford and Associate Professor in Global Health Equity at The Ohio State University. Maju is passionate about reimagining global health through a decolonial lens. Drawing on her skills as an engineer and systems thinker, she is engaged and committed to fighting structural inequalities to promote health equity locally and globally. Maju also currently serves as the Gender & Health section editor of the OUP Oxford Intersections Gender & Justice Project.
Mientras que los conocimientos se apropian de la realidad, los saberes (y las formas de saber) encarnan la realidad
English translation: While knowledge appropriates reality, knowledge (and the ways of knowing) embodies reality
- Boaventura de Sousa Santos
The importance of listening to and sharing stories (‘oir el murmullo’)
A lot has happened in the past five years that has kept the global health community awake. For a while, we have been told that the current challenges in global health exist around ‘the 3Cs’: Covid, Climate and Conflict. However, what we don’t discuss enough is the common thread within these challenges; the power imbalances and the often detrimental social, economic and political aftermath.
For avid readers of this series, you may recall when I mentioned the word ‘Nkali’ (meaning power) back in the January blog and invited you to reflect on how stories are framed by those in power, and who decides how and when to tell those stories. Puerto Rican scholar Angela Ginorio reminds us of the importance of listening to and sharing stories - ‘oir el murmullo’ - where the importance of being present and using our senses to ‘receive’ the spoken word matters.
Earlier this year I accepted an invitation from Oxford University Press Editors and Professor Madelyn Detloff to co-design and convene a group of scholars as part of the Oxford Intersections project, which addresses challenges in our culture from a multi-faceted perspective. You may wonder how it all started and how it links with Decolonising Global Health.
It all began with a walk. Yes, my simple daily walk from Green Templeton College in the beautiful Jericho neighbourhood of Oxford to the Saïd Business School, where I attend classes as part of the MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership programme. During my time on the programme, I often wondered if I could write and publish stories on how to decolonise global health in practice.
Every time I would walk to my classes, I would walk past the magnificent Oxford University Press (OUP) building. It would remind me that I should reach out and connect with the OUP editors who might be willing to listen to a scholar of colour, from the Global South, about a non-traditional academic publication proposal. I eventually decided to reach out, and while my initial idea of a decolonising global health book did not work for this, another opportunity emerged: to explore the complex topic of gender health equity and its intersectional and interlocked inequalities.
I feel honoured and excited to be serving as the Gender, Health, Mental Health and Care Section Editor at OUP for their Oxford Intersections Gender & Justice Project. In this role, I’m working to design a global community of practice (CoP). There are four pillars that act as anchors of our systemic examination of how gender intersects within our complex and interconnected health system (see the image below). I decided early on to identify contributing authors (members from inside and outside academia) that would be willing to ‘contar la historia desde adentro’ (‘tell the story from within’).
Gender and Health Pillars within the Gender and Health Community of Practice
Over the past few months, I’ve had the honour of talking with courageous community-based and social justice scholars. Speaking our common language of solidarity, has been a real gift, and for that I am most grateful to each of them. We are in this journey of unlearning, reframing, and growing together, and I can’t wait to see where the process takes us.
Professor Detloff joined me in a rigorous co-creation process. She was always kind, humble and ready to listen to my ‘systems’ perspectives and my focus on the central question: What does a just health system look like? In the end, a just health system must serve everyone, and we need to understand both its purpose and its parts, and how those parts are interconnected.
Our gender and health equity writing project begins with how health is experienced, managed and cared for in diverse global communities. It then addresses the critical issues of how we respond to a growing demand for health professionals and the need to transform biased academic and professional training systems. It also recognises the shortcomings of the current academic decolonisation discourse, dominance of Global North academic leadership, lack of disciplinary inclusivity, superficial and scattered scholarship, absence from curricula and failure to ask the right questions.
Finally, we will examine two themes (Care and Leadership), specifically looking at the role of women as caretakers and caregivers and healthcare leadership. These themes not only highlight the inequalities and intergenerational realities from both the Global South and Global North but also offer us forward-thinking perspectives on leading and co-creating impactful solutions from within.
In our attempt to deconstruct the meaning of Gender Health Equity by focusing on its multiple intersectional inequalities, we are trying to share complex and powerful stories of how gender among other social factors such as race, class, geographical location and national belonging (or unbelonging), sexuality and (dis)ability, impacts health outcomes and approaches to wellness, as well as how trauma and violence inform and disrupt care, all from an interdisciplinary framework. Stay tuned for the launch of OUP’s new Oxford Intersections section next summer.
Let’s return to my question from before: what does this have to do with decolonising global health? It’s been said that decolonisation is an actual practice, ‘not a metaphor’ as described by Tuck and Wayne Yang. After several weeks of engaging in dialogues, we came up with a set of questions to explore within our four-pillars, presented below.
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Cluster 1: Gender and Population Health
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Cluster 2: Gender, Systems and Power
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Cluster 3: Identity, Health and Equitable Healthcare for Trans and LGBTQ
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Cluster 4: Medicine, Knowledge Creation and Justice
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The power of images
I feel it is important to share a selection of images that greatly influenced writing this piece and continue to inspire me in my role as section editor for Gender, Health, Mental Health and Care. I took each of these photos personally, and they help shape my story, allowing us to break up the construct of Gender Health Equity into parts, examining them individually and collectively, and then putting them together again in a different way. All images relate to the four pillars presented previously.
Gender, Population Health, Intersectionality and Epistemic Justice
Gender, Systems, Power and Leadership
I leave you now with one ask: Recognising your own privilege and the existing power hierarchies around you, observe how they work and most importantly, consider what opportunities we must create to achieve a world where healthy and prosperous communities are the norm for everyone.
With thanks to the OUP Oxford Intersections Senior Associate Editor, Sam Bailey and Madelyn Detloff Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies, to our outstanding community-driven and social justice scholars and contributing authors, and to the many women whose hard work and courageous voices I am privileged to listen to and continue to inspire me. Muchas gracias!
What to read next
Introducing the 'Decolonising Global Health' 12-part blog series: Rejecting the single story
31 January 2025
MSc in Global Healthcare Leadership student Maju Brunette introduces our new 12-part blog series titled, 'Decolonising Global Health'. This series explores critical perspectives on power, equity, and transformation in global health. The first blog, 'Rejecting the single story', reflects on the impact of narratives in shaping global health and the urgent need to move beyond incomplete and inaccurate models.