[ This is women-only community. If you do not identify as a woman, please do not comment. Thank you. ]
It absolutely upsets me is that when I bring up women's issues, I often get met with "Men experience that, too!", and that takes away from the attention an issue needs.
This is not me playing to win the "victim olympics", I'm just saying that men really need to listen and realize how exactly women are being treated in these scenarios and why they feel it needs to be brought to attention.
Example: medical discrimination / not having your health being taken seriously as a woman. Do men experience it? Sure! But men absolutely DO NOT experience this in the same way/volume that women do.
Did you know that many clinics will not allow you to get a hysterectomy or your tubed tied without the permission of your spouse? If you are single, they may refuse altogether because "what if your partner wants kids someday?" A HYPOTHETICAL MAN HAS MORE POWER OVER YOUR BODY THAN YOU DO!!!!
Pain being dismissed as "hysterics". Being constantly told that any medical symptoms you are experiencing are a result of """anxiety""". Dismissive of painful menstruation and/or pregnancy, because "woman have been doing this for thousands of years!" Refusing autism diagnosis because "it's not typically a girl thing".. I could go on.
This is not limited to experiences within the medical field. It's.... loooots of things.
Like, fuck.. it's okay to not understand the experience of others. It's like when I hear folks say "Everyone is a little bit OCD! Everyone experiences that sometimes!" like...... no??? Absolutely fucking not, you have no idea what OCD is like, and you're being an insensitive idiot by saying "eVeRyOnEs A lITtLe BiT—" NO THEY'RE FUCKING NOT!
Men face their own issues. Sometimes men's & women's issues overlap. Sometimes there's a little overlap, but women face a much greater degree of fuckery over the issue than men do, and vice versa. That's okay. Just don't invalidate that it may be a larger issue for women than it may be for men.
That's all.
Both men & women have valid complaints to their respective issues.
With health, though, the needs of a women hold much more urgency, as they are the ones accommodating a pregnancy!
If pregnancy is not something a woman wants to go through, it is imperative to understand that a women's reproductive organs have a chance of permanently cripping or killing them.
Polyps / scar tissue can migrate from a uterus to the surrounding organs. Periods can be downright debilitating. Hormones can fuck you right you. And pregnancy?? That alone can kill a woman.
That's why I'm saying this:
It's not that women's issues are "more important" than men's issue — it's that the consequences of ignoring women's issue, very much so their health issues, can often lead to a much more grim outcome.