Who’s scandal is it anyway?
Posted by Maman Poulet on 25 Jan 2008 at 01:34 am | Tagged as: Equality, eejit..
I’m sick and tired of men. I’ve had enough of their whining and this does not apply to John Waters. (But I bet he gets in on the act too!)
Why when responding to the announcement of a campaign to encourage people (of all genders) to campaign for women’s health care and in particular access to better breast care services do some of the lads pop up with the oh so funny
‘So….. www.twoballsandavote.com, anyone? or how about www.oneballandtheremovalofvotingrights.com ?’
Maybe because nobody has yet got off his hairy arse to do it. (I don’t have much experience of men’s arses to know if they are hairy or not…forgive me…)
Or perhaps if it were prostrate cancer screenings that were being misread, delayed, mismanaged and ignored then we would see more immediate action. Or infact those screenings aren’t mismanaged and indeed most of men’s health issues are managed well because those at the highest levels of medical management in this country are wait for it …. men. (I do try not to believe that last point – but it’s very difficult to be dissuaded when you experience the health service on a regular basis!) By the way the blood test for prostrate cancer has been available for years…the one for some forms of breast cancer is only now being developed.
Someone else posted a comment elsewhere about men’s fatality from cancer being higher – if this is true then yes we should all be doing something about it – like making sure men go to the doctor and do something proactive about their health. Women trying to be proactive about their health are getting fucked over in this country – that’s a scandal. (Other scandals involving women’s health in recent memory, Hepatitis C, Neary in Drogheda.)
But actually lads you don’t seem to see the fact that by campaigning for better cancer services for women that everybody would benefit by making sure that the roll out of the National Cancer Strategy was properly done.
And of course not all men are like the fine specimens I mention above – Squid gets it, as does Conor, Cian, Damien, Rick, etc.
Get your mouses clicking, sign the petition, send emails to your friends, facebook it, tell your mothers, fathers, brothers, best friends. Tell the Government and the HSE to stop stuffing it up for everybody.
Are you saying that I am not a fine specimen
Squid – You are not a specimen – You are the finest representation of the genus (She says struggling with her science!)
So you’re not really sick and tired of men.
You’re sick and tired of eejits.
You have hit on a central theme through your annoyance at some of the boys! The joke in some blog commentary about needing two balls.com highlights how men avoid any show of vulnerability about health issues. If this scandal involved men’s health, the Minister would be long gone. The idea of improving women’s health services leading to improving men’s health services (as you rightly suggest) actually seems to be part of the vulnerability issue for some men. Thar’s something to wreck your head with, eh?
like making sure men go to the doctor and do something proactive about their health
You hit the nail on the head here Maman Poulet! The men in my life would have to be on their last leg before going to a doctor. The husband had a horrible cough for over six months before he finally went in. All kinds of specialists, awful diagnosis, everyone kept telling him if he’d come in when it started there would never have been a problem.
Same with my Dad, history of bowel cancer in the family, blood in his stool, does he go to the doctor? No.
If the statistics are as that commenter says I wander if mens lack of care (or perhaps maybe it’s inherent fear at the possible outcome) about their health is directly proportionate to greater risk of death.
Having said all that, I think women can be a bit of the same. It’s human nature to try and pretend the problem isn’t there and to hope it will go away. I waited almost a month before seeing someone about the bleeding. I feel bad about that, but I honestly thought for awhile there it would go away. Turns out I still would be getting seen about now. Horrible.
But I digress. Great posts as usuals – excellent points!
You got it all wrong. I made the comment on Rick’s post as I believe there is not enough made of men’s health issues. I started off my comment by saying the campaign was a worthy cause, I don’t feel the need to state that I “get” the idea of the campaign.
Given the ballsy (excuse the pun) name of the campaign “two tits and vote”, just because a guy comes back and says “two balls and a vote” doesn’t require psychoanalysis of the male condition. Some of the previous comments on this post are quite patronising towards men.
Yes, I’ll sign the campaign – I’m as concerned about the state of the health services in this country as anyone else. I’m also not “neanderthal man” so beloved of media and marketing folk, and understand that health service improvements for one gender means improvements for all.
I really want to launch into a tirade about a population that voted this government back into power but I won’t…
Alan, there isn’t enough made of men’s health issues, you’re right there. The HSE is generally useless towards everyone. But on Rick’s blog you specifically asked:
“It’s a worthy cause but where’s the same focus on men’s issues. We have two balls and a vote as well.”
I can’t answer that question. I can tell you that the focus on this woman’s health issue came from discussions with a few friends, a lot of planning at my kitchen table, the bottom of my microscopic bank balance, 40 hours of building and coding, and 24 hours of virtually non-stop media relations.
In other words, it came from my own initiative. I’m not a political lobby organisation or a funded women’s action group. I’m just an individual who got tired of what I was seeing and reading and elected to DO SOMETHING.
So where’s the parallel men’s campaign? No idea. Look on your kitchen table and maybe you’ll find it there. I’ll be happy to buy your first postcard!
Thanks Sabrina, but you don’t need to buy me a postcard. I applaud you whole heartedly for your initiative and in no way do I wish my comment to take away from that. It was just a response to what I see and hear in the media, radio and tv ads etc, that’s all.
Maybe I will do something about this, like I have done on various issues before. It has mostly involved making contact with local td’s etc. by way of phone calls, letters or emails. That’s the only way I know how.
We all do things in different ways, and I really don’t appreciate being told to look at my kitchen table to find the next men’s campaign. Maybe I’ve already expressed my concerns to elected representatives. Maybe I tried to encourage people to elect an alternative government last time round. Maybe, maybe.
So, again – well done on the beginning of this campaign and I hope you get the volunteers and resources you need to get a dedicated team together to push forward with your goals for 2008. I’ll even Paypal you a donation later on as well.
All the best
Alan
This is fascinating discussion MP, as it does highlight the crux of the issue about gender and health.
The issue of men’s health comes back to feeling vulnerable [not about health but vulnerable in relation to other men]. Men don’t want to go to a GP about the pain in their balls (or whatever issue) because of the fear of approprium from other men or that they will be (taking James Connolly’s phrase from 1916) “unmanned”. Connolly’s point stands today: men particularly fear the risk of a caesura in their lives if illness/ disease robs them of their identity as a worker, father, lover, etc. This ‘fear’ (if we label it) is quite complex. In my own case, my relationship with my body has been quite challenged through illness. I recall seeing another man in hospital (who’d just had a heart attack) continuing his business meetings over the mobile phone and postponing meetings for a ‘couple of days’). At the time, I remember raving to a consultant how I had to get back to college and teaching work… why? Because I had heavily invested in that ‘identity’ and somehow the world might end if I didn’t make the tutorials. It is crucial to undo this conditioning, as the South East Men’s Network advocates.
While some men retreat into jokes about health/ balls, etc., how and when men *do* got to the doctor, however, is more complex than either most men realise and – most certainly – most health professionals allow for in their pronouncements about men’s health. The utter mistake that health professionals/promotional strategies make (speaking as a sociologist and former marketing consultant [thar's hegemonic masculinity for yah!]) is that men’s health is made into ‘manly tasks’ (concern with balls, prostates, penis] rather than concern with ‘care of the self’. It seems to me (from what little I know) Sabrina is advocating the latter approach, and demanding medical services that would allow people to be care-ful.
Especially for Alan (and for Sean R to deconstruct!)
A UK Campaign.
http://www.checkemlads.com