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.