Men's Unhealthy Fears

	posted by Nightmist on Thursday August 02, @12:02PM from the men's-health dept.
	This story on Australia's news.com.au focuses on why fewer men than women go to the doctor. This issue has drawn considerable attention recently, especially after the study recently reported about on this Web site. Unfortunately, the main reason people seem to believe men do not go to the doctor as often is because of the old male stereotypes: men are afraid they'll be seen as "weak."

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Oh, go "Macho" yourself! (Score:1) by Hawth on Thursday August 02, @03:27PM EST (#1) (User #197 Info) As I said before in response to the previous article about men and going to the doctor - it probably has less to do with any "macho attitude" than it has to do with lack of male awareness of our health vulnerabilities. We live in a culture that preoccupies itself with female health problems and fragilities and thus leads men to believe that we should never have to visit the doctor until we're older. In addition, men do have an unhealthy mindset pertaining to our masculine role, but it's not about showboating; it's about not valuing our bodies and our lives as much (I guess thousands of years of being cannon-fodder will do that to you) and accepting the contingency of death with a more "when it happens, it happens" attitude. Myself, I could horrify a doctor if I admitted to him or her all of the various physical pains and abnormalities I've casually ignored over the years. And I'm as non-macho as can be! This is a pointless, irrelevant article that shows itself to have no intent other than to denigrate men, since it tellingly breaks no new ground in terms of illustrating men's health concerns in-depth, and it offers no solutions. Instead, the running theme of the article is: "Why do men do this?" Because they're macho. "Why don't men do that?" Because they're macho. "Why this? Why that?" Because they're macho. This is an article for women, not men. Probably it's intent is to placate women who may be getting their consciousness raised by the chain-rattling of the men's movement in regards to health inequalities, in addition to validating the negative behavior of some women. "But what happens to the men who don't have someone to nag them?" Maybe the reason they don't know is because it's mainly the men with nagging wives who end up at the doctor's.

Re:Oh, go "Macho" yourself! (Score:2) by frank h on Friday August 03, @06:52AM EST (#2) (User #141 Info) Did it ever occur to anyone that men don't go to the doctor as often because they don't have time? How many doctors have office hours OUTSIDE the normal work day? Every employer I ever had discouraged time off for such things, even when they advertised benefits to support it. Not that I blame the employers, but if a man is faithful to his job in the name of being faithful to his family's needs, then how does he find the time to go to a doctor?

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