Official: Forget 'man flu' - it's women who really milk it when it comes to being ill

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-12-18 12:13

Article here. Excerpt:

'Here's a tale to make any man who has been ribbed for having 'man flu' suddenly feel a whole lot better - it's WOMEN who are worse at complaining of colds and flu, according to new research out today.
...
It is assumed that sufferers of man flu are exaggerating their symptoms to extract maximum sympathy from a few sniffles and force their partners to run after them with tissues, hot water bottles and painkillers.

But now a poll has found that most women admit exaggerating their symptoms to gain attention or to get a day off work.

Men, on the other hand, are revealed as more stoic and less likely to create a fuss or demand attention when ill.'

I think we all knew that anyway...

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"Gladeana McMahon, a consultant psychotherapist, and Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, said she believed women could be using illness as 'pay-back time' for attention denied them in everyday life. "

Since when are women denied attention?!?!?! Sweet jeebus, I've never encountered such a self-indulgent and vain bunch of attention-hogs. Maybe that's it...they just 'feel' as if they never get enough attention because they want so damned much of it.

Holy fuck, sometimes I just shake my head. Every time there is an article that portrays women as something less than perfect, they have to stick in some kind of lame platitude to keep the lowest common denominator from revolting.

Aside from that, am I supposed to be surprised that women whine more than men? Well, I surprised they admitted it.

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Submitted by Scottie on Thu, 2008-12-18 20:55

"Men, on the other hand, are revealed as more stoic and less likely to create a fuss or demand attention when ill.'"

"Get tough or die!"

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Submitted by MR on Thu, 2008-12-18 22:03

My ex would tell me she was terrible at caring, and if I ever got sick she'd leave me to it. Fine with me. Even when I had my appendix out she would just stay downstairs and leave me to it.

On the other hand when SHE was ill, she'd cry like a baby, literally. She'd wail and you had to sit and hold her hand and call the doc. Nine times out of ten, he'd huff and puff and say something like it was just a cold - so she wasn't in real pain.

As with everything else, women just assume that men are worse than them, and have no ability to feel empathy for us - if we're complaining then we're whiners, whereas when they cry it's because they are REALLY sick.

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Submitted by GaryB on Fri, 2008-12-19 02:10

Dude. You're being polite with:

"Sweet jeebus, I've never encountered such a self-indulgent and vain bunch of attention-hogs."

Allow me to say what I think what you really wanted to say:

"Sweet jumpin' Jeezus on a crutch, I've never encountered such a self-indulgent and vain bunch of attention-whores."

Let's speak the truth here, eh?

We both know that women love to milk it when they are the slightest bit ill. But guys like us stick it out.

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Submitted by Belgorod on Fri, 2008-12-19 03:05

There's a few things though that don't seem right:

"Men are more likely to head straight to the doctor for advice at the first sign of a sniffle - 74 per cent as opposed to 70 per cent."

I always thought women were the ones that had far higher report rates. I agree though that women take more sick leave and such.

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Submitted by Mr VanHuizen on Fri, 2008-12-19 03:52

Good point, Mr.VH. Actually, I don't know ANYBODY who goes to the doctor at the first sign of a sniffle, let alone 70-75%

Doing a bit of 'research' on this woman, nothing turns up in PubMed (so she's never made it into serious health sciences), but she's made it into several woman-rags (SHE magazine e.g.).

Yeah, we all know women whine more about everything, but I'm not too quick to take this Gladeana McMahon woman too seriously. Sometimes I think its 'in vogue' for women to spurt out some negative yet benign 'study' about their ilk. A token gesture to make them appear to be something other than bigots.

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Submitted by Scottie on Fri, 2008-12-19 04:21