Mind the Gender Health Gap
Back in March, before these unprecedented circumstances unfolded, we made a commitment to investigate the state of healthcare for women and people with female reproductive organs across the country. While the pandemic is quite rightly at the forefront of everyone's minds right now, we still believe it is important that we are all informed about the signs, symptoms and treatment we experience, and will continue to report on these matters.
In the same way that gender discrimination affects our offices, pay packets and relationships, it may also be affecting our health. Research shows that women are more likely than men to die in situations where CPR is needed. We’re more likely to wait longer for certain cancer diagnoses. Black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth and the post-partum period than white women. Over 15% of trans women have been subjected to inappropriate curiosity when accessing healthcare, which can stop them wanting to go back to the doctor. And 74% of Cosmopolitan readers say that they have been made to feel they were overreacting by a medical professional.
Unconscious bias exists within us all, and if we don’t commit to calling ourselves up on it, it runs riot - a problem that in healthcare results in unnecessary and preventable deaths.
In this series, Cosmopolitan investigates the effects of the gender health gap on medicine in the UK. We examine how unconscious bias also affects society’s most vulnerable on a daily basis, from pregnant Black women to the LBT community. And we explore what changes need to be made, what progress needs to be taken, to make healthcare fairer for all.
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