معرفی
Thea Cacchioni is an Associate Professor and Undergraduate Advisor in the Department of Gender Studies at the University of Victoria's Faculty of Humanities, where she has been a core faculty member since 2011. Her work critically examines the intersections of medical authority, gender, and sexuality within contemporary healthcare systems.
Her research program centers on the medicalization of sex, gender, and sexuality, with specific focus on diagnoses like Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). She investigates how medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies construct norms of 'normalcy' and 'deviance' across gender, race, and class lines, documenting both the pathologization of certain sexual identities and the 'healthicization' of others. As a pharmaceutical regulation activist, she has testified twice at the US FDA against ineffective female sexual desire drugs marketed as 'pink Viagra,' an experience detailed in her 2015 book Big Pharma, Women, and the Labour of Love.
Her publication history from 2007-2015 reveals consistent engagement with medicalization theory across sociology, gender studies, and health disciplines. Key trends include critical analysis of pharmaceutical industry influence on sexual health, intersectional examinations of gendered medical diagnoses, and feminist critiques of therapeutic interventions. Her work appears in interdisciplinary venues including The Journal of Sex Research, Sociology of Health and Illness, and feminist psychology publications.
Dr. Cacchioni serves as Undergraduate Advisor and currently cannot accept new SDH (Sexuality, Diversity, and Health) student supervisees. She leads a UVic Faculty of Humanities-funded study on Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome experiences and is affiliated with The New View Campaign, which challenges the medicalization of sex through advocacy and public education initiatives.
