Women's Illnesses - A Social Stigma

[Phteven]

I'm not sure that it's such a male/female issue.
It might be more about what people consider private/public.
There is also a lot of silence around prostate and testicular cancer and many people are a bit funny about bowel cancer.
I think that if it's illness related to our sexual and/or reproductive organs that it is often more taboo. Same with anything to do bodily waste and the associated areas like piles or bowel cancer or UTIs.

I've noticed the same thing with mental illness. When one of my freinds was hospitalised because of bipolar disorder people didn't bring her flowers yet if it had been her kidney that was sick not her brain I'm sure she would have had a ward full of flowere.

[paradise lost]

I agree with Dach, i have spoken to many male friends who were shunned/ignored after a miscarriage or after prostate or testicular or fertility issues. I think part of it with miscarriage is people don't know how you feel so they don't know what to say. I have had everything from "i'm so sorry" to "It must be a relief" in response to my miscarriages, because my pregnancies were unplanned. I know some women who WERE relieved to lose an unplanned pregnancy they hadn't decided to keep yet anyway. And some women are gutted by a 5 week loss, whereas others don't feel the same connection until the 2nd tri. It's very personal and people don't want to get into it.

When my mum died work sent me flowers and when i returned my boss took me out within an hour of my arrival to let me talk out what had happened and how i was going with it all, but after that i was treated completely normally. TBH i was grateful that a blind eye was turned to my random tears for the first few weeks. I didn't want to have to keep saying what was wrong.

Same with mental disorders. It is as if there are some things which aren't in the realm of normal daily discourse and when the problem lies with those things, well, people don't know how to approach it. I know one man who was dismissed by other men on an AC board because he had RE (retarded ejaculation) and so they had to have IVF, with a needle aspiration to get his swimmers. The view among the other men was that there was nothing "really" wrong (they had various other types of issue from varicocele to azoospermia) and he just didn't fancy his wife enough or something! Even having a medical problem themselves didn't give them compassion for his problem - they could all ejaculate and saw the problem he had as "his fault" or something. Ridiculous!

So no, i don't think it's a "woman's" thing, but a "suitable for conversation" thing. If you never talk about cervixes, the first time being about a cancerous one is going to be hard.

Bx

[Aimz]

I don't pretend to know everything - especially on a subject as broad as this one. Perhaps my opinions were generalised to some extent but I was only going off my observations over the past few days.

I completely agree with both of you about the men's issues (prostate, testicular, infertility etc) as well as mental issues (my friend is bipolar). These issues, along with those mentioned are all to some extent "shunned" by society and are left to be discussed behind closed doors.

I just found it very interesting to observe what people were comfortable talking about and what they weren't comfortable talking about - even people who I am relatively close to.

[Aimz]

Sometimes even my own DH screws his face up when things like heavy periods, thrush, UTI's and sore nipples are brought up. That is not to say that he won't talk about it with me, but it's not his favourite topic. I think that is because I am his wife, his friend and his lover and things like the above mentioned "get in the way" of me being sexual. That is my opinion, not necessarily his.

[Bathsheba]

I missed this the first time it was posted Amy... very interesting... *mulling for a while*

[Footsteps]

amy,
its sooo true, my own dp goes quiet when i talk about womens prob atm the gynae has told me im gna need a hystorectomy and he wont really say much...female probs are a taboo i think huni iv noticed that with alot of things y i dont know y... men dont talk about their probs either.
you av brought up a very good point huni.
xxx

[Aimz]

Wow I haven't seen this post for months! I'm not sure if I quite agree anymore with some of the points I raised but certainly some of them are valid. I'm interested in what you have to say Bath.