Gender And Health Essay

Within this essay, I will be focusing on making a reference to an appropriate sociological or social theory discuss the relationship of gender and health. This is an important field of sociology of health because for many years women did not have health rights and their rights were made by their husbands or doctors. Women have come a long way to have the right they have now, but certain issues are still a problem. I believe this is an important facet of sociology of health, because society has help shaped the view of health towards women. As young woman and women of colour I have to understand the history of gender and health and what efforts it took for me to have the rights I have now. This essay will allow me to understand the feminist social

Wade, Bourgeault, and Neiterman (2016) acknowledge sex and gender differences in health are between biological and socially constructed between men and women. The power relations are evident in gender and health, the relationship of men and women in a system of patriarchy, and gender-based inequality cause an imbalance of power. Wade et al., (2016) suggest that everyone is “doing gender”, creating difference between how men and women interact in social setting. The ideas of masculinity and femininity are socially constructed and as individuals we have be constructed into those roles. Gender is seen as a powerful social construction that shapes our behaviours, but also the social condition that we live and experience every day. Wade et al., (2016) discusses the gender differences in morbidity and mortality. Wade et al., (2016) explains the historically, women had shorter life expectancy than men because of maternal death, poor nutrition and low status of women in society. Overtime, the overall life expectancy has increase because the improvements of public health and such. Though, women live longer than men, they are getting more chronic illness and disability than men, especially depression. In terms of death, the leading cause for both men and women is cancer and heart disease; men are more likely to pass away from accidents and unintentional injuries because of risk taking and more physical

Wade et al., (2016) suggest that women hospitalization rates are higher than men, alothougm the hospitalization is due to pregnancy and childbirth. Wade et al., (2016) acknowledges that removing pregnancy and childbirth from the analysis, actually shows that women are lower in hospitalization than men. Men are more likely to be hospitalized because of circulatory and respiratory disease, also for injury and poisoning, well women are hospitalization because of cancer, mental disorder and musculoskeletal diseases. Wade et al., (2016) discuss the contribution of feminist theories that explored the impact of sec and gender in health and illness, it shown n both macro and micro theories. Wade et al., (2016) acknowledges that some feminist explained using the macro theories to look at gender as a social construction; other took the micro theories and look at how gender impacts our everyday lives. The common theme in both macro and micro theories when discussing sex and gender in health is the understanding that gender is a social construct and it creates difference in morbidity, mortality, access to health care serviced and experiences in the healthcare