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It seems natural to think that men and women have the same basic health concerns and that a treatment or drug will work the same no matter who receives it. Contrary to what women’s lib would have us believe, when it comes to our physical bodies, men and women are not the same. But even doctors don’t always recognize how true this statement is.
Historically and even in present-day medical schools, medical students are surrounded with information about the bodies of men. Text books show anatomy drawings of basically male bodies, even if the sex organs are missing. These drawings and even the language used to describe a generic "patient" imply that men and women are essentially the same – women just tend to be a bit smaller than men. In reality, on-going research by doctors specializing in gender-specific medicine shows that men and women are different in virtually every organ and system in the body. Research also shows that men and women react to treatments differently and need different care to maintain their health.
The use of generic or neutral language has become so much a habit in medical science that some researchers who study gender-specific medicine believe most doctors, no matter where they were trained, are experiencing "gender-blindness". Gender-blindness is described as a "failure to identify or acknowledge difference on the basis of gender where it is significant." This means that doctors, researchers, students, and even patients may be unaware that basic differences between men and women can affect their health and the way they should be treated. Because gender-blindness is considered the norm for medical training and research, many doctors will never consider that there should be distinctions made between male and female, both in research and in treating specific conditions.
As a patient, gender-blindness in your doctor may mean your health or treatment options are being limited. For example, doctors in general are much more likely to warn men than women about the risks of heart disease, and are more likely to recognize the threat of a heart attack in a male patient than in a female.
Gender-blindness also affects the health and potential healing of women by restricting how research has been conducted. For many years, research studies only used men as subjects. Scientists reasoned that women were really just smaller men, and it is less expensive to perform studies on men because they did not have to worry that the monthly hormone fluctuations women experience were messing with the study results. Others reasoned that women needed to be protected from possible harm during their childbearing years, and that unborn babies would be at too much risk if their mothers were involved in research studies.
The unfortunate result of these decisions is that most medical research applies to men, but may not be accurate when applied to women. Gender-blindness works like a filter that is biased to favor men over women. If you are a woman and you suspect your doctor is not taking your symptoms or concerns as seriously as he or she should, gender-blindness may be to blame. As patients, whether men or women, we all have the responsibility to talk to our health care providers and ask questions to make sure we each receive the best possible care available.
Sources:
Monash University: Gender-blindness
Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University
Legato, Marianne J., M.D. Eve’s Rib New York: Harmony Books, 2002. Print.
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