News media are constantly reporting
ways that everyday activities can damage our health. But perhaps the most
far-reaching yet neglected global health risk stems from gender norms.
Despite overwhelming evidence that
gender-based stereotypes and expectations can adversely impact health,
gender-related health issues are largely ignored or misunderstood, with
international health organsations often limiting gender-specific efforts to women
or, even more narrowly, to mothers.
And yet, according to the World Health
Organisation, in all but three countries worldwide, women can expect to outlive
men, by up to seven years in Japan or by as little as a year in the poorer
countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
Women’s longer life expectancy has
long been linked to differences in “biological pre-disposition”, with theories
ranging from the protection afforded by women’s lower iron levels to the
absence of “extra” genes on men’s Y chromosome.
But the most obvious factors
shortening men’s lives are to be found in a more pedestrian, yet politically
sensitive, area: the differences in the “appropriate” behaviour of men and
women, as dictated by society and reinforced by the market.
Data published in The Lancet last year
show that the top 10 most burdensome global diseases are more common in men
than women, and often by a large margin. For example, men die from lung cancer
at more than twice the rate of women.
Likewise, road injuries and
alcohol-related deaths and disability are responsible for the loss of three
times as many years of healthy life in men than in women.
These disparities can be explained
largely by the fact that men are exposed to more risks than women.
While there may be a biological component
to men’s propensity for risk-taking (especially among young men), gender norms
reinforce risky or unhealthy behaviours by associating them with masculinity.
Understanding and exploiting gender
norms offers commercial benefits. Given that social norms in much of the world
discourage women from smoking, drinking alcohol, and, in some cases, driving
cars and motorcycles, advertisers in these industries target men.
Differences in health outcomes are
exacerbated further by women’s tendency to use healthcare services more than
men. Some of this additional use is due to women’s needs for family-planning or
prenatal services.
Although gender norms are clearly
undermining men’s health worldwide, key international organisations continue to
disregard the problem or address only those issues that are specific to girls
and women when devising strategies to improve global health.
To be sure, girls and women are less
powerful, less privileged, and have fewer opportunities than men worldwide. But
that does not justify disregarding the evidence.
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