How machismo in medicine costs women health

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Machista violence is also a public health problem.This is recognized by international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), which states that a third of women around the world have suffered physical or sexual violence at some time in their lives.

That means that more than 730 million women survivors of aggressions live with their consequences - 40% suffered injuries following this violence.In addition, they have twice as probabilities to have depression and other mental health disorders.

This, those that have survived.In 2020, 87,000 did not do it and died victims of feminicide.It is a comparable figure, without going any further, with the million women who die annually by HIV, according to UN figures.

However, the consequences on the life and health of women for aggressions are not the only face of sexist violence in the medical field.There is another, perhaps more invisible, which also weighs on the well -being of half of the population: gender biases in science.

The male look predominates in health

"On the one hand, the subject who is investigated is mainly to man, but he is also who is investigating. In all scientific research, and especially in the field of health and medicine, the people who have done researchThey have been men, "says Patrícia Canut, a member of 'Les Luciferas', a feminist and social scientific dissemination association.

Which means that there is much less knowledge about the body of women and of different gender identities.A clear example is cardiovascular diseases, the main cause of death worldwide for both men and women, but, however, it was still considered a male disease until recently.

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"When a woman has symptoms of cardiovascular disease, they are not the same as those who have a man. It happens many times that women have these symptoms, go to health centers and do not diagnose well. Many times, they end up in serious diseasesor even in death, "says Canut.

In addition to the well -known symptom of acute chest pain and left arm of a heart attack, it is possible that in women the ailment is presented as unusual fatigue, nausea, dizziness or pains in other areas of the torso.Without knowing these differences, there are many that will not arrive in time to receive help.

Endometriosis, an invisible disease

Another example of the invisibility of women in medicine is endometriosis, a disease that affects one in ten women in the world, but that has come to the surface only in recent years."I was associated with menstrual pains, but in reality it is not, it is a disease," says Canut.

Endometriosis is that the endometrium, the tissue that covers the walls of the uterus inside, grows outside the organ.It can become very painful and cause infertility in a third of women who suffer from it.Even so, the diagnosis is usually achieved seven years after the first symptoms, an average that reveals the little attention it receives.

For the scientific disseminator, the solution is clear: "It is necessary that many more identities to investigate in science. If the whole population has the opportunity to put their perspective in how science is done, it will be more diverse, it will have more looks."

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