From: nadel@attatash.aero.org (Miriam Nadel)
Subject: Re: Living in a State of Siege
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organization
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 21:09:48 GMT

In article <726215788@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.181737.1401@speedy.aero.org> 
>nadel@attatash.aero.org (Miriam Nadel) writes:
>>In article <726043390@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel) writes:
>
>>Except that the studies of occupational stress have shown that women
>>suffer from more work-related stress than men.  
>
>How do you measure "stress"?
>Is it some hard data like death rates, or soft data of "how it feels"?
>
It is a mixture of both.  Most of what I've seen about occupational stress
depends on questionairres.  But you might also note that many stress-related
conditions are as common among women as among men, including ulcers and
high blood pressure.  If you were to use death rates, you confuse the issue
as it may be possible for some individuals to be under more stress but
react better to it.

>>Stress is primarily tied to lack of control over your job.  
>>In most offices, the employee under the highest stress is the secretary.  
>
>I think that lack of control over what important to you is what
>really causes stress.  Quite a few secretaries take their work
>quite easy, you know.
>
That's not a contradiction.  Fortunately, there are also quite a few
secretaries who take their work seriously and do a good job at it.  Having
once had a secretary who was lazy and unmotivated, I'm all the more
appreciative of my current secretary who has to juggle work requests
from 10 of us, all of whom have emergencies at the same time :-)

The issue of control also shows up in occupational stress without bringing
up gender issues.  This is pretty well established.  

>>Not to mention the stress of juggling family and career.
>
>Men, of course, have no such pressures...
>
I didn't say that.  But I have observed that most men don't feel the
same pressures, probably because there are fewer expectations.  When one
of the guys in my department takes a couple of hours off to take his son
to the doctor, he gets treated as a hero.  When a woman does this, she
gets accused of not taking her job seriously enough.  And if she doesn't
and her husband goes instead, she gets told she isn't a good mother.

I'm talking generalities and not specific cases here.  Obviously, a single
father taking a business trip and needing to arrange for child care is
suffering a lot of stress from juggling family and career.  Obviously the
guy I work with who had to go overseas for 2 months and not see his 4 year
old was suffering a lot of stress from juggling family and career.  But
the situation of having to make these types of choices more often falls
to women.

>>Women in male dominated fields don't show any increase in heart disease.
>
>Can you give a reference?
I've read several articles on this.  Mostly in the Wall Street Journal.  I
don't save everything I read since I have neither time nor inclination.

>>>3) Men are under pressure to take more risky works.
>
>>This would affect work-related injuries, not longevity disease.  Nobody
>>questions that there is a higher death rate due to occupational accident
>>against men and nobody attributes this to biology.
>
>Some work-related illnesses just shorten your life.  E.g.: some 
>chemicals, coal dust, extended exposer to sun light and radiation 
>can cause cancer.  Using your body to move too heavy things on a
>regular basis is also not that healthy.
>
>Are you sure that you have never heard about all of that?

But nobody attributes these to biology.  Nobody says that women exposed to
chemicals, coal dust, radiation, etc. don't get these diseases.  You're
still mixing issues.

As for moving heavy things on a regular basis, it probably is healthy if
you do it correctly.  Exercise is good for preventing heart disease.  
The primary risk is injury and this is not an issue.
>
>>>4) Older women have more money than older men and therefore they
>>>   have access to better medical care.
>
>>Older women in general have less money than older men.  
>
>Older widows have the largest concentration of wealth...
>
Of the 100 richest people in the U.S. exactly 2 are women.
Of elderly people living under the poverty line over 80% are women.
Only 13% of all elderly women receive pensions; about 70% of men do.

>>>5) There is more public assistance to women than men, and therefore
>>>   poor women get better medical care.
>
>>AFDC has nothing to do with medical care.  Poor women often don't get any
>>medical care.
>
>I claim that women get more public help in their health care.
>Do you claim that it is not true?

The only area in which women get more public help in health care is a 
handful of maternity programs.  The only impact of this on longevity is
that our maternal mortality rate is not as bad as that of third world
countries.  This has nothing to do with the causes of death we've been
discussing.

Miriam Nadel
Newsgroups: soc.men,alt.feminism