and transport.
longish piece on the 'london reconnections' blog recently here (i've not read it in detail yet)
Interesting talk about women's symptom are recorded/taught as 'atypical' because the average human = average male.Caroline Criado Perez exposes the gender biases in medical and scientific research. She argues that women have often been excluded from the data which has had a huge impact on the efficacy of the pills prescribed, and the treatment offered.
They were talking to the author about this on bbc Radio 4 this morning.
Medical controversies
Start the Week
Andrew Marr discusses scientific breakthroughs and missteps with Joshua Mezrich, Angela Saini, Caroline Criado Perez and Richard Ashcroft.
BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Medical controversies
Interesting talk about women's symptom are recorded/taught as 'atypical' because the average human = average male.
The problem with feminism is that it’s just too familiar. The attention of a jaded public and neophiliac media may have been aroused by #MeToo, with its connotations of youth, sex and celebrity, but for the most part it has drifted recently towards other forms of prejudice, such as transphobia. Unfortunately for women, though, the hoary old problems of discrimination, violence and unpaid labour are still very much with us. We mistake our fatigue about feminism for the exhaustion of patriarchy. A recent large survey revealed that more than two thirds of men in Britain believe that women now enjoy equal opportunities.
link on the OP tooI was going to post this up.
She also said drug trials used the "typical male". So often treatments are if not dangerous not geared to women's bodies.
I looked up Caroline Criado Perez. The book is "invisible women". About how data is making assumptions based on the supposedly typical male.
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez – a world designed for men
she raised questions about the data on chemo, statins and even aspirin.Women in Britain are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack: heart failure trials generally use male participants.
I was alarmed about the female heart attacks being undiagnosed as women typically present with symptoms like indigestion and not with chest pain - but these symptoms are described in text books as 'atypical' as they are not typical for men
she raised questions about the data on chemo, statins and even aspirin.
I was staggered that a scientific discipline like medicine could not produce textbooks that described how heart attack symptoms in women are different.
Just proves how normalised it is that the world is set up around the male body.
? I can't see how this is about social research, explain please.So return to straightforward social research is in order.
Not that there is not a place for theory.
so was the author - that is the point of her book. Its all so 'normal' its invisble - that she had to dig around in data to find this stuff. That science reproduces the gender bias is what most of us would not expect.
? I can't see how this is about social research, explain please.
Most staggering example of this for me is pregnancy and childbirth. Remarkably little proper science and research, and so the fault is don’t. ‘Can I take x medicine while pregnant? No one has ever bothered to check, so don’t.’ The stuff they quote at you on risks around childbirth etc is mostly based on small, out dated studies... I could go on. Leaves the whole think subject to myth and ‘woo’ science.They were talking to the author about this on bbc Radio 4 this morning.
Medical controversies
Start the Week
Andrew Marr discusses scientific breakthroughs and missteps with Joshua Mezrich, Angela Saini, Caroline Criado Perez and Richard Ashcroft.
BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Medical controversies
Interesting talk about women's symptom are recorded/taught as 'atypical' because the average human = average male.
well, this is in part the basis of some of the bias in medical trials, isn't it? women who have a possibility of becoming pregnant are excluded in case of unforseen effects on a hypothetical foetus. i don't know whether they bother to look for celebate/post-menopausal/lesbian women or just recruit "men only". which edges into the current abortion debate where the rights of the unborn are increasingly held above those of the already born...And someone will be along soon to say ‘oh, well it’s really hard to do studies where a baby is involved....’ like that’s a limit to human ingenuity we should just accept
perhaps the people who employ the designers are in so many cases men? and who pays the piper...This is going to sound like a really stupid question but why are things still this way? Women have been active in science, design, medicine, academia for many years now, so why is our environment still designed for men?
i read this as half-charged, which also worksBecause we live with half-changed minds in a half-changed world.
Yes agree. My hearing loss was dismissed in four separate appointments, it took three appointments to get some sort of care for the mess they had made of my pelvic floor, my morning noon and night sickness was making my life a misery, but was dismissed as a laundry issue... I could go on.I would actually go even further and suggest that the headache/sciatica/hayfever/whatever of a pregnant woman is not even considered to be a problem. After all, it doesn't affect the baby. Not even that the rights of the baby are held above the mother's, but that the mother's struggles are entirely invisible.
Sorry but as a menopausal woman I am getting a bit fed up of 'this is entirely normal'.
I think this is where the pay gap, lack of women in senior roles etc makes a difference. Leadership in business, industry, science etc etc is predominantly male. The people who run the journals and universities and research institutes and so on. Where there are a few women, they are not in sufficient numbers, power or at seniority to reshape the world. It takes a certain bravery to sit in a meeting and say ‘well, actually, have we looked at this from a specifically female perspective’. You get looked at with incredulity, dismissed as emotional or angry or single issue.... and that’s from ‘neutral’ men who don’t understand that there is an issue- there are actively hostile men too. But even neutral men- if you ask a question in a meeting from an explicitly female perspective they may well not have the data, it’s going to delay anything, they assume it’s in the mix somewhere etc. You don’t want to be that woman who delays everything and causes problems and everyone misses a financial target, because you are pushing something that you thing is right but is seen as an outlier or ‘not strictly relevant’. It’s a miserable place to be (I’ve done it. After a year and a half of every meeting feeling like a fight, and ending up so stressed I was in the loo sobbing after meetings- women, so emotional, eh?- I resigned)This is going to sound like a really stupid question but why are things still this way? Women have been active in science, design, medicine, academia for many years now, so why is our environment still designed for men?
I’ve not reached menopause yet, but I can completely see it will be the same. You just have to look at how many women say periods, skin, moods etc have gone mad after childbirth and that’s not even medically a ‘thing’
Oh, I’ve so many things like this. And even the discussion about menopause being that it’s the end of something- end of sexuality or desirability or something. A friend calls it becoming an elder- which feels a completely different positive takeMy sister went to see a Dr when she started getting hot flushes, really heavy periods every 3 weeks, insane mood swings that she's never had with her periods but was told that it couldn't possibly be the menopause as she was too young. When clearly, that's exactly what it was. She knows her body, has had periods all her adult life and there had been a massive change. But no, too young for that to be happening.
Oh, I’ve so many things like this. And even the discussion about menopause being that it’s the end of something- end of sexuality or desirability or something. A friend calls it becoming an elder- which feels a completely different positive take
kid1 went to see the leonardo drawings at the museum the other day and was amused at how bad his understanding of female anatomy was. he'd only seen dissected male human bodies and female animals, and came up with a pretty poor fantasy mash-up of the two. depressing to realise how little we've actually moved on since...