The Importance Of Health Inequality

Gender, sexuality, race and class are important social structures that play a large role in modern society. These structures act upon individuals and reinforce the standards that individuals must follow. However, with respect to healthcare and specifically health inequality, it is not just one structure that pertains to an individual but also, many. These structures can influence individuals to act a certain way and can even hide underlying issues behind other social structures. In order to prevent this and properly evaluate the health of individuals, an intersectional approach towards health must be used in order to simultaneously evaluate the overlapping systems that perpetuate the current health inequality. This will allow more discussion

These ideas, reinforced by popular psychoanalytic thinkers such as Freud, Chodorow and Dinnerstein, were the original basis of linking male health with the male psyche. Differences in cultures were also determining factors of sex-typed behavior, which were also prevalent in the 20th century (Oliffe 2010)

Social Constructionism later emerged and was used to conceptualize gender, essentially connecting culture, social class and history together in order to reveal the underlying hegemonic masculinity. Key ideology arose from this form of hegemony such as the subordination of femininities and other forms of condemnation towards non-masculine behaviors. Olliffee (2010) refers to the example of binge drinking as following masculine ideals, which is known to have adverse health effects on the human body.

These masculine ideals arise from individual who are situated in communities that participate in these social practices. As Olliffee (2010) states, in reference to Bourdieu in 1977, “the gradual acquisition of habitus is shaped by way of situated learning”. Basically, the social practices become molded due to the previous norms already in place. The framework of male behavior essentially lies in communities of practice, where behavior is permitted and indirectly

Hankivsky (2012) proposes an intersectional approach in order to examine the factors simultaneously. He argues that the association of different factors is a must, in order to examine the larger systemic inequalities. Hankivsky (2012) states, “Human experiences cannot be accurately understood by prioritizing any one single factor or constellation of factors”. In order to promote proper discussion different dimensions must be considered together. Hankivsky (2012) criticizes the overlapping of gender categories, which ultimately prioritizes certain dimensions over others, which in turn fails to fulfill the criteria for intersectionality, of simultaneous overlapping systems of