Does gender bias play a role in healthcare? an Analysis
Oct 7, 2021
Gender bias has become more apparent in healthcare over the past few years. Research shows that it is detrimental to the quality of care, even though it has always been common in many places. Is that true? Almost all ask the same questions,
"What is gender bias? "
And
"Is gender related to healthcare? "
Come, Let's look into this together.
Gender bias!!! What does this mean?
Bias based on gender tends to favour one gender over another and is typically referred to as Gender bias. The truth is that everyone is biased in some way. They may not even be aware of it. The main reason for this preference is based on false beliefs and generalizations that make one gender appear better or worse than the other.
Gender bias is a common problem among patients, doctors, researchers, and administrators. Even so, many patients and providers face discrimination, marginalization, and abuse in their interactions. This will negatively affect the healthcare system. To overcome the difficulties in providing high-quality healthcare, we need to demonstrate how gender bias impacts the healthcare system.
Gender bias in Health care: The impact
Positive interaction between patients and providers characterized by mutual respect, openness, and balance between their decision-making roles, leads to high-quality's care.
Medical treatment is made more dangerous by gender bias. In cases where both genders aren't offered equal quality treatment and care for the same medical complaints, or when different manifestations of diseases are ignored based on gender, we can expect poor outcomes for patients. In addition to delays in diagnosis, a misdiagnosis can also result in death.
Approaches to mental health
Increasingly, gender bias is evident in mental health treatment. A recent study shows doctors' attitudes towards chronic pain and found that they often considered men to be brave and women to be emotional. In other words, doctors are more likely to treat women's pain because of their mental state than as a physical complaint. Thus, most health care professionals believe that women exaggerate their pain rather than their actual condition. Isn't it amazing what we're witnessing in this modern world? Absolutely! This is happening in our modern age.
Segregation of employment
Gender segregation is widespread and profound in every workplace. However, it is particularly prevalent in the healthcare sector.
In general, lower-level positions (e.g., nurses) are largely filled by women, while higher-level positions (e.g., doctors) of influence and power tend to be filled by men globally.
This is because the majority has a false belief that nursing is reserved for women, while surgery is for men only (horizontal segregation). Also, there is a strong male dominance (vertical segregation) in terms of seniority, status, and income, working condition, etc. Gender norms in society reinforce this trend. It leads to a gender pay gap and hinders talent development (for example, few men entered nursing).
Discrimination, harassment, and bullying in the workplace
As a qualitative study explained, female community level workers complained of hierarchical management and power abuse, disrespect and sexual harassment from male colleagues, hostile community attitudes, and lack of sensitivity to women's gender-based cultures, all by which we can conclude that health care institutions reflect and maintain harmful and discriminatory social norms and values.
Female employees may experience discrimination and frustrations that negatively affect their interactions with patients and violence and harassment that causes attrition, low morale, and ill health for female staff members. As a result, female workers will lose mental stability, and service quality will also degrade.
Healthcare underpayments and non-payments for women
Women contribute approximately 5% of global gross domestic product (GDP), but half of these contributions remain unrecognized or unpaid. The gender pay gap appears to be even more pronounced in the health and social care sector. There is almost universal pay disparity in men's favour, and the cause is largely unknown. Consequently, it contributes to old-age poverty for women.
Depression
Psychiatric epidemiology consistently shows that depression is more common in women than men. The reason may be that women deal with this situation differently than men. The probability of female patients being diagnosed as depressed is twice as high as that of male patients. In several studies, gender-based differences in diagnosis indicate underdiagnosis of male depression since men are generally less likely to seek primary healthcare.
In addition, there has been some evidence that female patients are more likely to initiate and raise their concerns about depression with their providers. Providers can diagnose their issues correctly by asking their problems clearly, so that female patients with depression are more likely to be correctly diagnosed than men.
Workplace violence and sexual harassment
The most dangerous thing that is taking place across the globe is violence and sexual harassment against women. It is widespread across every field, especially in the workplace.
In most health care settings, female workers experience sexual harassment from peers, patients, and members of the community. The number of cases of sexual assault is not documented, and women may feel stigmatized and fear retaliation for reporting it. Victims may continue to target them in the future if they report it. Thus, they will be forced to live with these circumstances.
How can address Gender bias in health care?
It is a big step to address some of the harm caused by gender bias in healthcare simply to acknowledge and research it. Gender bias exists in all areas. Let's make a few steps to bring the backward genders forward. At work, all workers should be treated equally and receive equal pay, and they should be protected from workplace struggles. Having good working conditions can ensure that workers are happy and stable in their job. That will lead to better service.
Keywords: Gender Bias, Gender bias psychology, Gender bias meaning, Gender bias definition, what is gender bias, Gender segregation
