She/He/They/Me

by Robyn Ryle

  There are also gender differences in how doctors react to reports of pain. If, as a woman, you tell your doctor that you’re experiencing pain, your symptoms are more likely to be dismissed as emotional or psychogenic. In other words, doctors are more likely to assume that your pain isn’t real. Not surprisingly, then, doctors don’t treat your pain symptoms as aggressively as they would if you were a man. Or they might treat you for a mental health condition that you don’t actually have. Even if your doctor takes your pain seriously, she or he might be more likely to attribute it to gynecological problems. This is especially true of abdominal pain, which often gets dismissed as connected to menstrual symptoms or other routine issues.

  GO TO 148.

  150

  As a woman in some times and places, your health may be put at risk by ideological and political debates about your body and reproduction. Your body and your health will be a battleground where these larger debates play out. Your access to medical technologies that allow you to have control over your own reproduction may be limited, depending on where you are. And depending on how your gender intersects with factors like race and social class, people in power might intervene further to control your ability to make decisions about your reproductive health.

  You’re a woman who has been a victim of attempts to limit your fertility. GO TO 114.

  You’re a woman who has faced barriers to obtaining access to birth control. GO TO 115.

  151

  You work in an occupation with high levels of gender segregation. You might be an engineer (12 percent women) or a social worker (82 percent women) or a librarian (84 percent women). Regardless of whether your occupation is mostly men or mostly women, you’ll probably make less than the men who are doing the same job. As a social worker, you’ll make 85 cents for every dollar that a man makes in the same occupation. As an engineer, you’ll make 84 cents and as a librarian, 92 cents.

  What’s going on here? you might ask yourself. Why is it that high rates of gender segregation, even in cases where the job is occupied mostly by women, also mean that there’s a gender pay gap?

  Part of the explanation has to do with how women and men are segregated within occupational categories. Say you’re a librarian. Most of the people you work with are women. When white men enter into female-dominated occupations, they’re likely to experience something called the glass escalator. That means that they get pushed up into positions with higher authority and power, as well as larger salaries. Being one of the few men among women benefits men in a way that being one of the few women among men does not. As one of a few male librarians, both men and women in your occupation will expect you to be in charge. They’ll pressure you to move up into administrative positions, and the men who already occupy positions of power will help you up. In fact, there might even be some stigma attached to you if you’re a man who doesn’t want to move up. So even if most librarians are women, the few men in that occupation will make more money because of the glass escalator.

  Levels of gender segregation are connected to income inequality, because the segregation makes it easier to justify paying women less. It’s hard to argue that a woman should be paid less than a man for doing the exact same job. It’s not surprising, then, that women and men very rarely do the exact same job.

  As a woman, you’ll probably be paid less, and you’re also likely to be expected to do different sorts of things in your job.

  GO TO 145.

  152

  You might find yourself in one of the occupations in the United States with relatively low levels of gender segregation. Maybe you’re a pharmacist (60 percent women) or a veterinarian (63 percent women) or a bartender (56 percent women). These occupations come pretty close to being filled equally by women and men. But within these occupational categories, you’ll probably still find that you make less compared to the men in that same occupation. As a woman pharmacist, you’ll make on average 88 cents for every dollar made by a man in the same occupation. Veterinarians will make 78 cents and bartenders 71 cents.

  What is happening here? you might ask yourself, as a woman working as a pharmacist, a vet, or a bartender. Why am I making less in the same occupation? Part of the answer has to do with gender segregation that only becomes apparent at a more detailed level of analysis.

  The figures given above are based on census data that uses occupational categories. Census data is our best source of information about occupational segregation because it already exists—the government collects the data every year. But occupational categories are kind of general in nature, and they miss a lot of detail. Take the bartender example. You might be employed as a bartender in a dive bar in a small town in Indiana. Someone else might work as a bartender in a private country club in Manhattan. Both of you fit into the occupational category of bartender, but your jobs are very different. Not surprisingly, so are your incomes. Getting down to this level of detail is called job-level gender segregation, and this reveals even higher levels of gender segregation.

  Now you can start to see why there might still be a gender pay gap in the occupation of bartending. Yes, there are about equal numbers of women and men working as bartenders, but men are more likely to get the high-paying jobs. They’re more likely to work in upscale clubs, resorts, and restaurants, where they get paid more and also receive much better tips.

  As a woman, you’ll probably be paid less, and you’re also likely to be expected to do different sorts of things in your job.

  GO TO 145.

  153

  If you’re a woman and you have a body that’s qualified to compete in the Olympics, you might be surprised to discover something new about your gender. Since the 1960s, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has conducted gender testing on certain athletes. This practice began due to suspicions that certain countries were cheating by entering men to compete in women’s sports.

  Gender testing officially began to be used by the Olympic committee in the 1960s, and at first, it involved stripping women naked in order to examine their genitalia and other markers of biological gender. This came to be called the “nude parade,” with women athletes lined up naked for examination. In other instances, women athletes were forced to lie on their backs with their knees raised for more detailed inspections. Obviously, this was a humiliating experience for female athletes. Partly due to complaints about these practices, the IOC shifted to a chromosome test in the late 1960s, which determined whether athletes had XX (female) or XY (male) chromosomes. Officials claimed that this would serve as a definitive test of athletes’ underlying biological gender.

  In some cases, this chromosome test revealed an underlying intersex condition of which athletes were previously unaware. A surprising number of women athletes were revealed to have chromosomes that didn’t match either XX or XY, even though they had lived their whole lives as normal women. The IOC banned these women from competing, arguing that their intersex status gave them an unfair advantage due to increased levels of testosterone, which they suggested improves athletic ability. They maintained this position even though many of these women’s intersex conditions meant that they were testosterone-resistant, meaning that they could not absorb testosterone even if there were high levels of the hormone present in their bodies.

  Recently, women athletes have begun to challenge the practices of the IOC and other athletic governing bodies, like the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which governs track-and-field athletes. The IAAF revised its policy in 2011 to focus on “hyperandrogenism” instead of gender testing. Under this new policy, women whose testosterone levels were within the “male range” would be banned from competing as women. Exceptions would be made for women who were testosterone-resistant and women who reduced their testosterone levels below the “male range.”

  In the wake of this new policy, sports officials referred several women with higher testosterone levels to a clinic in France. There the women were advised to undergo surgery to have their inte
rnal testes removed, even though the organs posed no health threat to the young women. The surgeons also recommended removing their clitoris to make their external genitalia appear more “normal.” The women, who were between the ages of 18 and 21, agreed to the surgeries; it’s unclear whether anyone told them that the clitoral surgery would permanently reduce their sexual sensation.

  A 2015 legal case ruled that the IAAF’s testosterone-based policy is invalid, given the lack of scientific research demonstrating that testosterone provides any athletic advantage. The ruling gave the IAAF two years in which to gather evidence that testosterone does confer some advantage. As recently as March of 2018, the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) gave the IAAF an additional six months to provide additional scientific evidence to support its testosterone-based policy.

  You can imagine the trauma that you might experience as an Olympic-level female athlete suddenly being told that you’re not really a woman and that you can’t compete for an event you’ve trained for your whole life. You might also point out that all of this testing is directed only at women’s athletics. It’s assumed that there would be no advantage to a woman pretending to be a man, so men (including transgender men) aren’t subjected to any of these tests. Transgender women who wish to compete in the Olympics must demonstrate that their testosterone levels have been below a certain cutoff point for at least a year prior to competition before they’re allowed to participate.

  GO TO 147.

  154

  In the United States, the battle over women’s access to birth control and other means of controlling their own reproductive lives has a long and contentious history. The struggle to give women access to birth control is ongoing and, in some ways, may be getting worse rather than better. This is true across a wide range of reproductive technologies.

  Abortion is certainly the most controversial method of birth control in the United States. Although, technically, abortion has been legal in the United States since 1973, increasing numbers of restrictions on access to abortion have made it more difficult for women to make use of this often life-saving procedure. The number of abortion providers fell from a high in 1982 of 2,918 to 788 in 2014. These declines are due in large part to the organized campaign of violence against abortion providers. Eleven doctors and healthcare workers have been murdered by antiabortion activists, and seventeen have been the victims of attempted murders. This doesn’t include bomb threats and other scare tactics used to terrorize abortion providers and the women who use these services.

  Five states have only one abortion clinic serving the entire state population. That clinic may be hundreds of miles away from where you live and may only perform abortions one day a week. Many states have also instituted a mandatory waiting period. This means that you’ll need to drive all the way to the clinic one day and then either rent a hotel room for the waiting period or drive back several days later. These logistics make abortion as good as impossible for women in many places across the United States.

  You might find it difficult to access less controversial methods of birth control as well. Many insurance companies don’t cover the cost of birth control. You may find yourself going to a drug store where the pharmacist refuses to fill birth control prescriptions based on their religious beliefs. If you’re under the age of eighteen, you’ll need parental permission to get access to most birth control. In general, getting access to Viagra, a drug to treat male impotence, will be much easier than getting birth control.

  GO TO 148.

  155

  On a global level, women’s access to birth control varies a great deal. In the United States, access to all forms of birth control are becoming increasingly restricted. Not all insurance programs cover birth control (like pills, patches, shots, vaginal rings, and intrauterine devices), and a recent ruling by the Trump administration made it easier for employers to deny insurance coverage for birth control based on religious grounds. Low- and reduced-cost birth control is available through organizations like Planned Parenthood, but their government funding is continually being cut.

  Compare this to places like the United Kingdom, where birth control is covered under the national healthcare program, making it affordable and accessible. Though getting an abortion in the United States is a cumbersome process, abortions in China are readily available and commonly used. On the other end of the spectrum, in countries like Ireland, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador, abortion is illegal under most circumstances.

  Ironically, if you’re in a developing country experiencing rapid population growth and diminishing resources (which are global issues), you might be pressured to limit your fertility by using birth control. In fact, women’s ability to choose whether or not to have children has often been connected to larger historical forces. Historically, when nationalism swells, it often coincides with attempts to curb women’s access to birth control. Nationalism is a sense of membership in a state and pride in that membership that’s often expressed by symbols and ideologies. In its extreme forms, nationalism becomes very much focused on racial and ethnic purity, as in Nazi Germany. In these situations, women of “pure” racial and ethnic backgrounds are encouraged to have more children in order to strengthen the nation; thus, their ability to use birth control to limit the number of children they have is restricted. In Nazi Germany, Hitler awarded prizes to women who had many children.

  NATIONALISM

  n. /ˈnash-nə-ˌli-zəm/

  Intense loyalty and devotion to one’s nation.

  In these and other ways, women’s bodies and their ability to reproduce become tools used in the service of larger political gains.

  GO TO 148.

  156

  As a woman, you’ll probably have less leisure time than men do, and the free time that you do have is less likely to be completely free. If you’re a woman who is in a partnership, has children, and is working full time, you’re likely to find yourself working what’s known in feminist theory as “the second shift.” The second shift consists of the added duties of housework and childcare that become part of many working women’s daily lives.

  Because of the second shift, you’ll find that your leisure is often contaminated, so to speak, by other activities. You’re likely to find yourself watching television while folding the laundry or taking the baby and stroller along on your exercise run. Your free time will be combined with chores that are much less fun. Pure leisure, time spent truly doing nothing else but relaxing and having fun, will be harder to come by. This is true regardless of whether you work inside the home, outside the home, or both.

  Even though many men have begun to contribute more to the work of running a household, men still have more leisure time than women, regardless of whether it’s pure or not. For those without children at home, the leisure gap is about three hours—meaning that men have on average three more hours of leisure per week than women. But when you compare men and women with children younger than eighteen in the home, the gap widens to an average of five more hours of leisure time for men.

  You spend part of your leisure time playing sports. GO TO 146.

  You don’t spend time playing sports. GO TO 147.

  157

  If you live in the United States as a man, you’re likely to spend considerably more time doing paid work than men in many other parts of the world (a fact that is true for women in the United States, as well). American men have been working longer hours for less pay since the 1950s. You’re also less likely to take advantage of the paid vacation and leave that your employer makes available to you.

  When you do spend time doing something besides working, you’re more likely than women to experience pure leisure. You really can sit down on the couch and do nothing but watch TV. You might go golfing and feel no need to take the kids along or run errands on the way. If you’re married, you probably enjoy an average of three to five more hours of leisure a week than your wife does, depending on whether or not you have children.

  You spend part
of your leisure time playing sports. GO TO 146.

  You don’t spend time playing sports. GO TO 147.

  158

  In most countries, you’re not likely, as a man, to live as long as you would if you were a woman. In the United States, it’s only a gap of seven years, but in Russia, it’s twelve. If you live in a developing country, the gap between your life expectancy and that of a woman will be smaller. But at all ages, you’re likely to die earlier than your female counterparts. Why?

  Much of the explanation for these differences lies in the way that masculinity is constructed. Like other men, you’re more likely to engage in risky, dangerous behaviors. Maybe you drive faster than you should or pursue more high-risk hobbies like mountain climbing or skydiving. You might smoke cigarettes; it’s only been in the latter part of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century that women’s rates of smoking have caught up to those of men. Although men and women attempt suicide at the same rate, as a man, your suicide attempt is more likely to be successful, meaning that men are more likely to die as a result of their suicide attempt. This difference is mostly due to the methods used by women and men to attempt suicide. Women are more likely to use nonviolent methods such as drug overdose, while men shoot or hang themselves.

  Because you feel like you have to be tough and self-sufficient as a man, you might be less likely to go to the doctor when something’s wrong. That means that otherwise treatable illnesses will get caught later, when they’ve become more life-threatening.