Gender and Health of Human Life

Gen­der refers to the social­ly as well as cul­tur­al­ly defined roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties of men and women. The gen­der roles are learnt through social­iza­tion in dif­fer­ent social insti­tu­tions. Gen­der inequal­i­ty is the dis­crim­i­na­tion based on the per­sons sex in terms of oppor­tu­ni­ties in the allo­ca­tion of resources ben­e­fits or access to the ser­vices. Gen­der equal­i­ty means the absence of dis­crim­i­na­tion based on a per­son­’s in oppor­tu­ni­ties in a loca­tion of resources or ben­e­fits or an access to ser­vices. Gen­der equi­ty means fair­ness and Jus­tice in the dis­crim­i­na­tion of the ben­e­fits and respon­si­bil­i­ties between women and men and often requires women spe­cif­ic projects and pro­gram to and exist­ing in equi­ties. In many soci­eties women sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly fail to achieve or fail to use some basic Human Rights accord­ing to men. Most of the time wom­en’s health sta­tus and prob­lems relat­ed to affect the mor­tal­i­ty ‚mor­bid­i­ty and dis­abil­i­ty rates. 

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Gen­der and Health of Human Life

Exam­ples

Wom­en’s sub­or­di­nate sta­tus in soci­ety means that they are often in vio­lent rela­tion­ship that are both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly abu­sive these effects their men­tal health. Women are twice as like­ly as men to suf­fer from depres­sion large­ly because of poor self esteem. Indi­an women are prone to be ane­mic than their male coun­ter­parts this is main­ly because of their poor eat­ing habits and less access to nutri­tious bal­anced diet. 

There are spe­cif­ic gen­der bar­ri­ers that women face while access­ing ade­quate health­care ser­vices they are:- 

  • Lim­it­ed con­trol over sex­u­al repro­duc­tion in India tra­di­tion­al­ly women do not have the right to decide when to get mar­ried how many chil­dren to have spac­ing between chil­dren etc
  • In these sit­u­a­tions women par­tic­i­pa­tions in deci­sion-mak­ing are almost absent which con­se­quent­ly have tremen­dous impact on wom­an’s body and mind. 
  • Time con­straints:- in the social cul­tur­al con­text of Indi­an soci­ety is most often woman Accord less time to their child health and well-being main­te­nance as house­hold work and child is hear­ing get the main pri­or­i­ty both for work­ing or non work­ing women. 
  • Does diet per­son­al exer­cise med­i­ta­tion or tak­ing care of women health are most­ly the least impor­tant aspects of wom­an’s life. 
  • Sim­i­lar­ly seek­ing Health­care ser­vices like Con­sult­ing a doc­tor will be post­poned as far as pos­si­ble till the symp­toms become intractable. 
  • Hence ear­ly detec­tion chances of var­i­ous dis­ease are poor among women. 
  • Lack of sup­port from Health­care work­ers:- Health Care work­ers lack of under­stand­ing about gen­der dis­par­i­ties and roles and replace in health and lots that do not allowed women to their repro­duc­tive and sex­u­al rights these gen­der insen­si­tive approach­es dis­cour­age mean­ing women from seek­ing spe­cif­ic treatments. 

Gender inequality in relation to health 

For Indi­an women the low­er sta­tus social val­ue in the house­hold affect their health out­come. Cul­tur­al fac­tors such as lack of female health providers in the com­mu­ni­ty and health facil­i­ties hin­der their phys­i­cal access to hos­pi­tals and nurs­ing homes. Low lit­er­a­cy rates and reduced access to infor­ma­tion makes the sit­u­a­tion was for women. Social divi­sion of labour con­sid­ers women as infor­mal care provider at home has it takes toll on her phys­i­cal and men­tal health. Issues like vio­lence alco­holism smok­ing and Lifestyle relat­ed prob­lems are hav­ing Pub­lic Health impli­ca­tions and this makes the gen­der based health inequal­i­ty very com­pli­cat­ed in Indi­an context. 

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