Gender perspectives and quality of care in underdeveloped countries: disease, gender and contextuality

There is indisputable evidence that health indices for women are far worse than those for men, yet women have limited access to health resources. Numerous reasons have been cited for the poor health of women, and include legal constraints to owning property, the lack of participation in the planning process, preferential treatment for boys, and social values, norms and customs. Most of the research on women while adequately documenting these facts, fails to contextualize them in a social, economic and political setting which is often responsible for the problems in the first place. This serious shortcoming negates the efficacy of the well-intentioned and well-meaning solutions in redressing the gender balance. Unless one examines the structural factors which actually cause disease, both in men and women in underdeveloped countries, solutions will be ineffective. The paper also highlights the important fact that there are many more similarities between men and women of the same social class than is appreciated, similarities which are possibly greater than those between the same gender across different social classes.