Feminist thought also takes seriously the existence and effects of power relationships of all kinds, not just those that operate most obviously in the medical context. This means that feminist methods also have the cognitive habit of attending to the disclosure and examination of social structures and practices that are oppressive and disadvantageous to women, extending the examination of such power relations beyond the clinic and even the healthcare system, to take account of social and global economic arrangements that maintain entrenched patterns of social and political domination.