Gender Roles In Health Care

Not only are women deliberately kept out of joining medical schools and medical practices in general, their bodies are also not typically studied in medical science and research, because instead, male bodies are more often used. This makes the male body seem dominantly normative and generalizes an idea that women’s bodies must be similar to men’s, and dangerously disregards women’s particular differences. This causes medical professionals to make decisions based on this research that may not be particularly appropriate for women, such as the fact that aspirin reduces the rate of heart attacks for men but not for women, much to many doctors’ surprise. Gender stereotypes also exist within the medical field that may prevent women from receiving the care and attention they need, as many doctors often assume women are emotional, and thus, exaggerating their symptoms, versus men who are believed to be more rational. This also affects the amount of care they receive, which sometimes is too much or too little because some procedures like cesarean sections and hysterectomies are performed too often when other options would be just as adequate, but unfortunately, women’s reproductive systems are more emphasized than other just as important aspects of their health. In other instances, they do not receive as much diagnosis or are not taken as seriously as men are, by their doctors. According to our earlier readings, men are more often to interrupt women, so men physicians can often

Gender also determines how the individuals treatment is seen and how their illness is advanced, this means that most of the time men’s treatment is more intense because they leave the issue to progress compared to women. Another thing is that women tend to live longer than men and this is proven by statistical graphs, these show that women live a longer life then men.

In the healthcare sector, gender equality is based on providing equal opportunities for men and women in all areas or settings. Gender can be defined as those characteristics of men and women that are socially constricted and determined while sex is associated with characteristics that are biologically determined. There is a lack of demand and support for advanced research on women health and diseases, specifically decision makers, support staff, or even researchers and authors. Many young women and adolescents have found it difficult to access, utilize, or even make their own decisions in context to reproductive health, specifically abortions, unsafe pregnancies, and pacing. Women and men from low-income, culturally background, and poor socio-economic conditions are deprived of basic healthcare facilities. In the past decade, gender inequality in the healthcare sector has been associated with age, poverty, socioeconomic condition, and ethnic diversity of men and women. Gender inequality is not only restricted to healthcare access and utilization but also affects men and women who seek employment opportunities. In most cases, only men are dominant in working for specific healthcare positions. Contribution from women healthcare workers or staff is lower compared to the male workforce that is huge in many areas of the healthcare system. There is a lack of services and products for women and men coming from culturally minority or low-income groups.

Over time, there has been trends seen in particular fields of medicine with regards to gender. According to Lyndra Vassar’s article, there are fields that are made up of majority of women including OB/GYN, family medicine, psychiatry, and pediatrics. This was seen in a fairly recent study in 2013-2014 from the Association of American Medical Colleges (1). However, over a decade ago, according to a New York Times article, the OB/GYN field was not always dominated by women. The 2001 article mentions how 64 percent of doctors in the field were male, but most of the doctors in training were women (2). This field, along with most other medical ones, were mainly dominated by males, as history proves. Historically, males were seen as dominant in our society, however, with time, that view is changing and women and men are starting to be seen as equal. More women are joining the medical community and going into fields such as OB/GYN.

At my current job most of the population we serve and services we provide are focused towards heterosexual women. Although women make up the vast majority of our population in Alameda County Family Drug Court, we often have a small number of men involved in the program. Even though the enrollment numbers are small, having men in family drug court is not uncommon. Unfortunately the amount of resources in the county to support fathers recovering from chemical dependency is truly an anomaly. Three gender norms I’ve observe in my current job are 1) gender based chemical dependency treatment programs. 2) all of the resources in the county support women because caring for children has been social normalized to be primarily done by women in

Today one major gender inequality that is constantly seen in books, lawsuits and news articles is from the fact that more women want to be doctors. In the last 30-40 years the number of women in the physicians and surgeon medical fields has more than tripled. “Gender comparisons in professional orientations should suggest ways that the recent increase in the proportion of women in medical school might affect the practice and profession of medicine” (Leserman 142). There are many situations in American hospitals everywhere that do not want women as doctors, simply because they prefer men to play that traditional role. The stereotypes that people believe are that women should stay home and raise a family, or

In general, when you think of a Doctor, are they male or female? It’s more likely that most people would say male. This is due to the stereotype that doctors are usually males, not females. This stereotype evolved from the idea that women do not excel in STEM ( Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) courses compared to men. However, this is not the case men and women excel equally. Although at a young age, most girls are not encouraged to pursue an education in these fields. These ideologies cause many women to feel less confident in pursuing these fields or even being successful on tests such as math. This stereotype and many others create a feeling of insecurity in people.

This chapter, the authors point to the increasing pressures on adolescent girls to conform to female gender role prescriptions. The influence of gender intensifies as both internal and external demands. Processes of sociocultural gendering will influence the formation of self-esteem, self-competency, and perceptions of the physical, sexual, and social self. These gendered expectations may foster increased stress, leading to lowered self-regard and efforts to reconstruct the self as well as to resistance and resilience. Resistance to cultural messages for conformity to restrictive gender roles include a strong ethnic identity and verbal assertiveness as well as athletics, strong female role models, feminist beliefs, and nontraditional attitudes.

Although never a major part, male nurses have been involved in the nursing occupation since the start. In the beginning, men provided treatment to the sick and dying as early as 400BC and 500BC. The actions that led to the profession of nursing also led to the prevention of male nurses from entering the profession. In the 1800’s Florence Nightingale believed women had a natural ability to care for the sick and dying. She established nursing schools that did not mix male and female students together. By doing this, men were barred from attending these types of nursing schools. However, men were able to work in mental hospitals where their physical strength was used to restrain patients. These types of hospitals provided men training in

Females are more inclined to share information with another female that can relate to their perspective than to blurt out information to a male doctor that only understands the medical side of their situation. In an article I once read, “The physician who cares for you should be someone who will listen to your problems and concerns, as well as have the experience to help you through difficult times”. As a female doctor I can relate the anatomy of another female, as well as their feeling of exposure, the sensitive areas on their body, and the knowledge of someone who can relate to their pain. Male doctors only have a basic knowledge of a woman’s feelings and their sensitive areas of the body, not to mention the emotional and mental struggles of childbirth. Pursuing my dream as an obstetrician will benefit me as a person as I enjoy caring for others and being able to experience the new creation God has blessed the Earth with, as well as benefit the females of the world that face the beauty and pain of

The differences between men and women in the unit that I work in is more by age than by grouped by sex. The older generation of nurses seems to work more independently then be younger generations. The older nurses are more solitary and do not embrace team nursing. The younger generation nurses tend to work as team members and have a group belonging mentality. They patients are the unit’s patients and everyone has to work together. The older nurses own their patients, and no one should touch them.

Gender, in general can have a great impact to the overall health care sector. Several health issues can be noticeable into a specific sex. Male on the one hand, are known for having a lot bad habits to name a few, smoking, excessive drinking and the rest. All these can result to multiple diseases like cancer both liver and lung, cerebral vascular accident (stroke) that may lead to paralysis and many more. As a result, more male gender needed an appropriate health intervention.

Women in the United States correctional system do not receive proper health care on a regular basis. Because of the inadequate care offered to them they are frequently at an increased risk of undetected breast or ovarian cancers that a simple screening may have spotted (“Women’s Health Care”, 2014). Currently women represent a small percentage of the imprisoned population so health care initiatives don’t seem to be economical to lawmakers, but their numbers are rising due to longer sentencing for non-violent crimes (Cardaci, pg. 41). Health programs that do exists are just slightly reformatted from men’s healthcare programs and do not take into consideration any of the female specific health requirements (Hotelling, 2008). So care for pregnant

With you being in healthcare, I know that female patients would prefer you over me, especially being that more women go to the doctor than men. The reason being, first they would assume that I have a lower grade position, such as a janitor as opposed to being a medical staff; or they would prefer you over me because they may feel as though I am less intelligent, or hyper aggressive due to stereotypes. Also, in the workplace, females have a flexibility, when it comes to child care, such as having to take off of work due to a sickly child. Verses when a man has child care issues, most time people ask the whereabouts of the mother of the child.

In certain situations male patients would feel more comfortable with a male nurse performing a certain task, rather than a female nurse, as it would feel more comfortable for the male patient to have a nurse of the same gender. With more male nurses this would be a lot easier in many different hospitals allowing patients of both genders to have a better sense of comfort. However, in order for there to be more male nurses, there needs to be a better recruitment of males into the field of nursing. Many men feel as if there are many barriers separating males and females in nursing. “The profession would benefit greatly by making recruitment of men a priority” (O’Lynn 230). With more men being recruited into the profession, it would give males a good career with a steady income. Along with the great demand for male nurses, comes higher pay along with more specialties open to men. With more men entering the nursing field, male patients can avoid the embracement of certain things that they have to go through when in a hospital and being cared for by a female