Marie Claire | Feminist health, the new battle?

Veronica, who eventually managed to enter the Italian hospital and practice as a traumatologist without that initial “filter”. Today with 20 years of experience, claims to have met patients who recognized this operating with men gave them more security. And remember the cases in which the person to be operated on asked “Where’s the doctor?” without even thinking it could be a woman.

An old asymmetry

According to the publication “Gender in the health sector”, of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Traumatology It is one of the specialties with the highest participation of men. Like another very masculinized, such as urology, surgery and orthopedics, have higher gains than more “feminized” specializations, such as obstetrics and dermatology.

The UNDP publication is strong. He points out that in medicine, “Men hold most hierarchical positions” and that nursing homes (necessary to become a specialist and advance in their careers) usually coincide with the reproductive stage of women, which produces stress for reconcile work and home.

The outcome? While currently in Medicine several women graduate what men, they are the ones specializes to a lesser extent. But it’s not just doctors who suffer from sexist violence; also suffers from patients.

Gender inequalities create health inequalities in many other ways. According to the World Health Organization, women pay between 19 and 40% more for health care, live longer, have more unmet health needs, and do more unpaid care than men (such as caring for children, children, and older adults).

Silenced violence

In Argentina, 13% of births come from teenage mothers and it is estimated that 7 out of 10 pregnancies at this stage of life are not desired. There is a key point there. In maternity women we risk our lives.

Not only because of clandestine abortions, which we can now finally leave once and for all, but because when we decide to be mothers, we also play in the delivery room.n integrity and dignity. yes cel obstetric violence can knock out and leave many more psychic marks deep and indelible Than a cesarean scar.

But violence is a disabled aspect of medical practice. Actually, there are no official figures. According to a survey conducted by the Gender Violence Observatory, a 7 out of 10 women which had deliveries between 2015 and 2018 they artificially tore their bag despite the fact that this is a maneuver that has not been shown to have any benefits and risks.

More 74% of respondents reported that he suffered verbal abuse and / or physical part of the medical team.

“Hang up. If you don’t stop shouting, I’ll put you to sleep. ” “If it hurts so much, you’d think about it before.”. “The feet go up here and leave them motionless, otherwise we will tie your hands” are some of the insults and denigrations that feminist health book, published in 2019 by Editorial Tinta Limón.

Juliet Saul, the author of a chapter and the founder of the group Casildas emphasizes that obstetric violence is much more than a matter of dramatic rates of ‘reductions’ (a large number of episiotomies), excessive drug use (for medical births) and unjustified interventions (such as unnecessary vaginal examinations).

“It’s not a medical or scientific issue, it’s about it a cultural and political issue. What happens during regular obstetric care (contraception, pregnancy, abortion, birth / cesarean and postpartum) is nothing but the reflection of a reality to which women are exposed daily, but with the maximum limited volume “, he writes.

According to a report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), although more women graduate from medicine than men, they are the ones who hold most senior positions.

According to Saulo, we are not born out of context and “the violence we suffer in these processes is closely linked to the rest of the acts of sexist violence to which women are exposed daily and systematically ”.

Malena Correa, a public health physician and researcher at the Institute for Clinical Efficiency and Health (IECS) is conducting a study to find out frequency of abuse during childbirth in maternity hospitals.

He believes that “Western medicine is patriarchal by definition”. He assures that obstetric violence is “a patriarchal practice for pregnant women” and stresses that there is especially vulnerable populations, such as people with disabilities, who are sometimes sterilized without the necessary consent.

Morality, sex education and mental health

The patriarchy is exposed in certain “details” of sexual health. In public hospitals, for example, male prophylaxis is provided free of charge, but without female condoms, which exist (although they are less known and more expensive).

Psychologist and program director Guests Foundation, Mar Lucas, thinks that care in sexual intercourse (and what happens to them for women’s health) happens today because the woman negotiates the use of the male condom. And if she decides not to wear it, the woman stays in one weakness.

Sexist morality creeps in gynecological offices.

“I think it is much more difficult for a woman (than for a man) to confess to sexual practices outside of a stable partner. It is more difficult for a woman to tell her doctor that she has anal sex or have threesome sex because moral weight, stereotypes and prejudices they are much stronger in them. In the face of these situations, women are seen as ´atorrantas´, but it is installed that the more sex men have, the better ”, says Lucas.

While social stereotypes make the mouth of all mouths (and especially those who wear red) in Argentina, there are 5,800 new HIV cases each year, a figure that adds to the 139 thousand people living with this condition, according to the latest Bulletin of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases of the Ministry of Health of the Nation.

But it seems that patriarchy does not demand a return only in gynecology. From his perspective mental health, psychiatrist Marcelo Cetkovich, director of INECO Foundation, says: “One of the prices that patriarchal culture pays is the higher incidence of depression in women.”

The specialist confesses that he perceives that some of his colleagues take the suicide attempt more seriously men than women and explains that the “selective” view is not just of health professionals, but that it permeates the whole of society.

“In the popular imagination, women have more problems and are weaker than men, when we all know it isn’t. Women, therefore, feel harder to hear and receive proper care”He assures, while emphasizing that it is more complex for men to seek psychiatric help, because it is difficult for them to recognize their vulnerability.

Tell the heart

A study conducted by Ministry of Health of the Nation revealed that Argentine women care more for his family’s health than his own. This means that, for example, a mother who is in charge of setting up an appointment for her children to visit the pediatrician postpones her own checks.

We wonder if this concern for the family is a “Argentine evil” or cultural suffering without borders.

“If you don’t stop shouting, I’ll put you to sleep.” “If it hurts so much, you’d think about it before.” “The legs go up here and leave them motionless, otherwise we will tie your hands” are some of the explanations for patients that the book Feminist Health collects.

A video made a few years ago by American Society of Cardiology It showed a woman who, despite feeling the first symptoms of a heart attack, continued to prepare breakfast for her children.

Dra.Veronica Volberg, head of the cardiology outpatient clinic at the Clinic Hospital and coordinator of Heart and Woman Group of the Argentine Society of Cardiology, He does not see in that video a connection with patriarchy, but ignorance of health:

“Women have incorporated what we need to do annual breast and uterine examinations, but not that we should do studies to see what happens to the heart, when the leading cause of death in women is cardiovascular.

smoking it is precisely one of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Marita Pizzarro, coordinator of the InterAmerican Heart Foundation (FIC) and director of the entity’s tobacco area, says global cigarette consumption is on the rise among women and warns that Argentina’s tobacco industry is directing your marketing strategies to the youngest, with the damage this entails for their health.

Describe Pizarro macho and objectifying strategies of brands such as hiring beautiful, bright and sexy promoters to give cigarettes and drinks at massive music festivals.
I said the medical field can be as macho as a football field. We might add that until the patriarchy falls, it will hardly fall don’t “spread” and sprinkling machismo on doctors and patients.

Mariana Comolli