Healthy, wealthy and perplexed
"If the health system is being run by males, and death rates are an important measure of health outcomes, then surely males would be expected to have better (that is, lower) death rates than females", claimed Richard Fletcher, a lecturer in health studies at the University of Newcastle, at a national conference on health and physical education recently.
According to a report entitled "Why men are the second sex" in the August 19 edition of the Melbourne Age, Fletcher has drawn attention to a remarkable paradox: "Health and education in Australia are male-dominated systems that fail to look after the interests of males."
He has compiled statistics which show that Australian men are more prone than women to diseases of the heart, liver stomach and lungs and to cancer, strokes and stress-related diseases. They are more likely to be substance abusers and to be violent. They die younger, are more likely to suicide or to be involved car accidents. As boys they are more often hyperactive and emotionally disturbed, they fall off swings and bikes, break their arms or necks, drown or get run over. "Men", concludes the Age, "lead lives that are nasty, brutish and often shorter than women's".
But is there any paradox? Why would anyone expect that the men who dominate the health and education systems in this country (and there can be no doubt that the powerful elite in these hierarchies are predominantly men) run their empires in the interests of all men, any more than politicians, captains of industry or military commanders run governments, corporations or armed forces for the benefit of all men?
Don't misunderstand. I'm not suggesting that these outfits are run for the benefit of women, and I hardly need quote statistics to prove that they are not. But neither do they serve or protect the interests of all men.
Statistics comparing the mental and physical health of men and women are interesting, but they are only part of the picture. More revealing are figures which compare health levels by income and occupation, as well as by gender. What do we find? Surprise, surpise! The wealthy, male and female, enjoy better health than the poor.
The relatively recent advent of women's health services and entry of women into the elite health professions have brought previously neglected aspects of women's health to light. Feminism has also, as Fletcher acknowledges, highlighted shortcomings in the education of boys on matters related to health, such as food preparation, parenting and personal care. But if it were possible, which it is not, to excise sexism from our society and leave it otherwise unchanged, the rich would continue to be healthier than the poor.
By Karen Fredericks