Why Women’s Health
Women are different from men. Their social experience of that difference, expressed as ‘gender’, impacts on every area of their lives.
- The average earnings of employed women are still substantially lower that those of men
- Most one parent families are headed by single mothers
- Even when employed, women are still largely responsible for looking after their homes and families
- 20% of Victorian women speak a language other than English and close to one in five women living in Victoria is an immigrant.
- Women constitute a large segment of the older population
There is growing evidence of the relationship between gender and health and understanding of gender as an important determinant of health and wellbeing. Although the difference is not news to most of us, it is still being discovered in many areas of health. Often, health has been dispensed as a ‘one size fits all’ model. However women need healthcare tailored to their own needs and experiences.
There are some conditions that affect more women than men, such as arthritis, osteoporosis and eating disorders. There are some conditions that affect women differently than they affect men. Heart attacks and HIV/AIDS are two of the more serious conditions that doctors sometimes overlook in women, because the signs and symptoms look different than they do in men. And there are some conditions that only affect women, such as pregnancy, childbirth and menopause. Too often, reproductive health is what ‘women’s health’ is seen to be. But women’s health is much more than this. It is also about looking at the social and cultural impacts on women and separating them from the experiences of men.
An investment in women’s health is an investment in the health of all the community.
