The idea of “women and children first” in a rescue scenario has always bothered me a little.
When I was a boy, I always thought it would be a good idea for my mom to be saved in an emergency, of course. But I didn’t want my dad to die either, and I couldn’t help but think of my eventual doom, when I would cross into manhood and be considered a very low priority in a disaster. Since then I’ve just always tried to avoid disasters.
But a lot of people think we have a disaster going on now, and women and children have been rescued first.
That’s why this month Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) introduced companion bills in the Senate and House to establish an Office of Men’s Health in the Department of Health and Human Services to help focus research and to educate men on how to stay alive and even thrive physically.
Vigorously applauding that is Dr. Jean Bonhomme, founder of the National Black Men’s Health Network and a director of the Men’s Health Network, both of them educational organizations that try to get people to pay attention long enough to save some lives.
“I believe we have seven federal offices of women’s health but without an office of men’s health,” Bonhomme said. “A question we need to be asking is, since life expectancy increased over the 20th Century, why did it fail to increase as much for men as for women?”
More Top Picks Best Tablets For Nonverbal Autism Communication
In 1920, life expectancy in this country was about the same, in the mid-50s, for both sexes. By the end of the century, women were living five years longer than men, about 80 and 75 respectively.
Of all the statistics that tell the tale of male frailty, maybe this one is the most black and white: Of people who reach the century mark, there will be eight women to every one man, according to the Men’s Health Network. That means most of us will drop well before then.
Do you guys really want your widow’s new boyfriend wearing your clothes, fishing with your gear, driving your car and . . . and . . . pawing, well, it’s too much to think about.
Yet Bonhomme pointed out that women shouldn’t necessarily expect party time once the old man kicks off, because statistics show that widows often do poorly financially and physically once their husbands die. He cited figures showing that 40 percent of widowed women fall into poverty within five years after their husbands die. On top of that, widows’ death rates double in the first month.
And children’s well-being suffers severely if their fathers are in poor health, he added.
So even if people somehow can’t handle the thought of promoting male health for the sake of men, there is enough of a domino effect on women and children for the idea to make sense for everyone.
Awareness of men’s health issues is so bad, Bonhomme explained, that when he has been involved in providing prostate screenings, women have shown up to take the test for a gland they don’t have.
“How often do you hear people say `prostrate’?” he asked “They don’t even know how to pronounce it.
“A big problem is the way men are raised,” he added. “We’re taught in this culture to be unresponsive to our own pain. When a boy skins his knee at 8 years old, what do we tell him? `Big boys don’t cry.’ So when he’s 50 years old and having chest pain, what does he say? `It’s indigestion.’ It’s a logical extension of our gender expectations.”
Ultimately, Bonhomme concluded, it comes to this: “Sick women are no triumph for men, and sick men are no triumph for women.”
Gee, maybe I’m being rescued at last.
———-
Send e-mail for Ross Werland to [email protected]