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You are probably familiar with the mental burden associated with the (often unequal) sharing of household chores that weighs on women. But do you know the one related specifically to health, known as “medical burden”? Again, it mainly concerns women.
At home, it’s always the same: it was you who made the appointment with the pediatrician at 10 a.m. sharp on Thursday, you who went to the pharmacy to buy an anti-gen self-test kit for whole family and you who sent the papers to Social Security to make sure you were reimbursed.
If you are a woman, you live in a heterosexual couple and you are a mother, it is very likely that you recognized yourself in this description. This mental load that weighs on you when it comes to managing all the tasks related to the health of the home has a name: “the medical load”.
A term used by the French teleconsultation platform Qare to describe “the burden borne by women in terms of medical logistical weight, the time spent taking care of their health and/or that of their household, the financial expenses and the injunction to have to think about daily health tasks“.
According to a recent survey conducted by the platform, almost 50% of women feel stressed by medical tasks in their daily lives (compared to 30% of men) and 67% of them believe that they are the main parent who takes care of all children’s medical tasks. Also according to the survey, 21% of women say they regularly inquire about health issues (compared to 15% of men). A quarter of men admit never performing this task (compared to 9% of women).
Deconstruct gender stereotypes
This concept of “medical burden” is added to the long list of mental burdens that weigh mainly on women. Starting with that related to household chores, popularized by the French comic book author Emma in the book “Fallait demande” (2017, Massot editions). We also know the contraceptive and sexual charges, which designate respectively the fact of taking full management of the contraceptive and of sexuality within a heterosexual couple.
The medical burden is therefore one more. To remedy this, the key undoubtedly lies in the deconstruction of gender stereotypes specifically linked to health, believes Dr. Julie Salomon, medical director of Qare.
“For the papillomavirus, for example, vaccination has been recommended for girls because they are the ones in whom the virus causes a large number of serious complications, such as cancer of the cervix. However, it is a sexually transmitted disease, therefore also involving boys and which can just as well cause them complications, less frequent but just as serious.“, she said in a press release.
Optimistic, however, Dr. Salomon adds: “Things are changing since since last year, vaccination is now also offered to boys in France.“.