Editing Traditional Chinese medicine (section)

=== Yin yang and gender ===
Yin and yang were critical to the understanding of women's bodies, but understood only in conjunction with male bodies.<ref name="uHbrTu">{{cite journal |last1=Farquhar |first1=Judith |title=Objects, Processes, and Female Infertility in Chinese Medicine |journal=Medical Anthropology Quarterly |date=1991 |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=370–399 |doi=10.1525/maq.1991.5.4.02a00040 |jstor=649292 }}</ref> Yin and yang ruled the body, the body being a microcosm of the universe and the earth. In addition, gender in the body was understood as homologous, the two genders operating in synchronization.<ref name="yzdrXFB" /> Gender was presumed to influence the movement of energy and a well-trained physician would be expected to read the pulse and be able to identify two dozen or more energy flows.<ref name="GFgKi">{{Cite book|title=Canon of the Pulse (Maijing)}}</ref> Yin and yang concepts were applied to the feminine and masculine aspects of all bodies, implying that the differences between men and women begin at the level of this energy flow. According to ''Bequeathed Writings of Master Chu'' the male's yang pulse movement follows an ascending path in "compliance [with cosmic direction] so that the cycle of circulation in the body and the Vital Gate are felt...The female's yin pulse movement follows a defending path against the direction of cosmic influences, so that the nadir and the Gate of Life are felt at the inch position of the left hand".<ref name="Z7q7v">{{Cite book|title=Bequeathed Writings of Master Chu}}</ref> In sum, classical medicine marked yin and yang as high and low on bodies which in turn would be labeled normal or abnormal and gendered either male or female.<ref name="54E8O5" />

Bodily functions could be categorized through systems, not organs. In many drawings and diagrams, the twelve channels and their visceral systems were organized by yin and yang, an organization that was identical in female and male bodies. Female and male bodies were no different on the plane of yin and yang. Their gendered differences were not acknowledged in diagrams of the human body. Medical texts such as the ''[[Yuzuan yizong jinjian]]'' were filled with illustrations of male bodies or androgynous bodies that did not display gendered characteristics.<ref name="dsK5E">Wu, Yi-Li, and {{lang|zh|吳一立}}. "The Gendered Medical Iconography of the Golden Mirror, Yuzuan Yizong Jinjian {{lang|zh|御纂醫宗金鑑}}, 1742." In ''Imagining Chinese Medicine'', edited by Lo Vivienne, {{lang|zh|羅維前}}, Barrett Penelope, Dear David, Di Lu, {{lang|zh|蘆笛}}, Reynolds Lois, Yang Dolly, and {{lang|zh|楊德秀}}, 111–32. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018. {{JSTOR|10.1163/j.ctvbqs6ph.12}}.</ref>

As in other cultures, fertility and menstruation dominate female health concerns.<ref name="yzdrXFB" />  Since male and female bodies were governed by the same forces, traditional Chinese medicine did not recognize the womb as the place of reproduction. The abdominal cavity presented pathologies that were similar in both men and women, which included tumors, growths, hernias, and swellings of the genitals. The "master system", as Charlotte Furth calls it, is the kidney visceral system, which governed reproductive functions. Therefore, it was not the anatomical structures that allowed for pregnancy, but the difference in processes that allowed for the condition of pregnancy to occur.<ref name="yzdrXFB" />