Gender and Health Flashcards
How does gender effect life expectancy and health?
Women (biological) liver longer than biological males
Males and females have different common cause of death.
Males - heart disease, dementia, lung cancer
Females - dementia, heart disease, stroke
Suicide rates tend to be higher in males, males tend to use violent methods (hanging) compared to women (poisoning)
What are the key differences between gender and sex?
Sex = biological characteristics
Gender = personal and social characteristics.
What is sexuality?
Who you are attracted to
What are the different ways of determining sex?
Anatomy - primary (gonadal) and secondary (physical) sexual characteristics
Physiology - sex hormones
Genetics - sex chromosomes.
What is 5alpha-reductase deficiency?
Intersex individual
XY chromosomes
Naturally elevated testosterone, but unable to convert testosterone to more potent form dihydrotestosterone due to 5 alpha reductase deficiency
Therefore fail to develop male external genitalia.
How prevalent is transgender?
1% of the UK population
What is biological determinism of gender?
Or biological characteristics such as genes and hormones determine our behaviour, hence how we express and identify as our gender.
Society has no influence on our gender roles and behaviour
Therefore our sex (biological chromosomes) is directly related and causative of our gender.
This is clearly oversimplified and has been used historically to support sexism ‘women are innately weaker than men’
What is the social construct perspective on gender?
One is not born a certain gender, no inherent truth to gender.
Social/cultural normalities and discrimination around how a certain gender behaves influence how we identify and express our gender way.
Influenced by peers, parents and cultural norms - unconsciously and consciously taught to become gender rather than our biology causing us to act in a certain way.
This explain why gender norms and the idea of gender can change over time.
What is the performative theory of gender?
Gender is what we do
Certain activities and behaviours are considered feminine and other masculine
The gender that actions are associated with is determined by society and is constantly changing.
But people can actively shape and challenge their socially determined norms by changing their behaviour.
This means gender may have different ideas in different countries/regions where behavioural expectation are different for genders.
Gender is only real to the extent that we behave/express in that way. We have no gender until we perform a certain way.
What is hegemonic masculinity
The culturally idealised form of masculinity nd how ‘real men’ should behave and act, that all men should aspire to be. Then gives over version of masculine then feminine as lower ranks.
People who are higher up the rank are rewarded by society, have better access to power/society.
People who do not conform to these norms face discrimination and stigma.
This reinforces the idea that males are dominant over females due to the behaviour we adopt.
The idea od hegemonic masculinity can be subjective across different cultures.
What are the different rankings in hegemonic masculinity?
Hegemonic masculinity
Complicit masculinity
Subordinate masculinity (gay man)
Emphasised femininity
Subordinate femininities
How does gender directly influence the clinical environment?
Preference over doctor gender, particularly in examinations.
Doctor interpretation of patient presentation and importance of managing symptoms - e.g anaesthesia levels (women less likely), threshold for prescription/diagnostic tests.
Clinical trials tend to be based on males
What is an intersex individual?
People who have genitals, chromosomes or reproductive organs that don’t fit into a male/female sex binary.
What are the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity?
Dominance and power
Emotional restrains
Heterosexulity
Physicality and aggression
Breadwinner role
