Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 1 Understanding Gender & Health Wk 3: 2

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 2 How Does Gender Perceives Fitness, Body Weight, Height (Body Mass Index ) What is to men & women fitness mean? How do you see your own body weight, height? What types of clothing would women & men choose for casual, special events: dinners, weddings ---Funerals? How do see your diet and lifestyle? Are they connected? Health Diet Being Poor? Lifestyle

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 3 Sex & Gender Relations – health status Interaction with social class, race, ethnicity, age sexual orientation to shape health status & physician-patient relationship & treatment by health care system Health as to WHO (1960) is multidimensional.” a complete state of physical, mental, & social well-being.”

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 4 Gender & Mortality Do women live longer than men on average? What is live expectancy of females & males in Canada? What does statistics say? For Malaysia, women live longer than men

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 5 Life Expectancy at Birth by Sex for Selected Countries Country Female Life Expectancy (in years Male Life Expectancy (in years) Japan France Switzerland Sweden Spain Canada Australia Italy Norway

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 6 Life Expectancy at Birth by Sex for Selected Countries Country Female Life Expectancy (in years Male Life Expectancy (in years) Netherlands Greece Austria Germany Belgium England & Wales Israel Singapore USA

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 7 Life Expectancy at Birth by Sex for Selected Countries Country Female Life Expectancy (in years Male Life Expectancy (in years) Finland New Zealand Puerto Rico Portugal Northern Island Ireland Denmark Source: National Center for Health Statistics, in Renzetti & Curan. Most data from 1995

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer 07 8 Which countries have a bigger sex differentials in life expectancy? Would race matter in terms of significant sex difference in life expectancy? Theories supporting the differentials: 1. Biological – genetics partly Chromosomes: 23 pairs in human. One determines sex. Male: XY; Female: XX XX according to science carries more genetic info than Y including some defects. But, XX has a genetic advantage over YY.

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer defective X Chromosomes for most genetically linked disorders One healthy Chromosome overrides the abnormal one. For male, if X is defective, he has the genetically linked disease. Higher number of miscarriages of male fetuses 2. Hormonal Differences bet the sexes. Female sex hormones, the estrogens appear to give women some protection against heart disease, the number cause death in the USA (Waldron, 95)

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer Mortality Rate: the number of deaths in proportion to a given population. Heart diseases: causes. Smoking, personality traits: types A, B & D Cancer Occupational Hazards to Male & Female Workers AIDS Women, Men & Morbidity Rates Women’s morbidity rates higher than men: higher rates of illness from acute conditions & non-fatal conditions. Women are slightly more likely to report their health as fair to poor.

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer Sexism in Health care

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer Marital Status at least for men Research found men bet 45-65, lived alone or with someone other than a spouse were 2 times likely to die within 10 years of men of the same age but lived with spouse For women more of low income than by lack of spouse. Studies showed that rely almost totally on their spouses for social support. Married men express a higher level of well-being tah their non-married peers. Women: married and non-married - no difference in their level of contentment.

Health & Gender wk 3:2 Summer When a woman’s husband dies, se typically retains the social support of relatives & friends (Helgeson, 95) When spouses become seriously ill, wives re more likely than husbands to nurture their spouses through illness, whereas men are significantly more likely than women to divorce seriously ill spouses (M.S. James, 2001) Do you see a relationship between life expectancy and conformity to traditional gender stereotypes? Examine male & female mortality rates for particular causes.