There are certain problems women suffer from more often then men. Or that only women suffer from. Like:
poverty, certain health problems, menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth, finding a good partner (beyond their fiftieth birthday), having to care for an ill or handicapped family member, partner or parent.
To get good medical help (quickly) you have to be a man who has a job, or someone who is parenting young children. When you are an older woman (full-time job or not), almost no doctor will make a big effort to really cure or help you.
Some examples: diagnosis ‘hernia’; a younger male college: operation within six months after the diagnosis. His older female college, same diagnosis, her doctor: if it has not gotten better in two years, you can come back. Her pain got worse and worse, she was not allowed to stay home from work and had to do her normal tasks, including heavy lifting. She could get painkillers from her family doctor, which did not help.
Does this mean that an older woman, who is not having anymore baby’s is so useless for society that no one has to care about her and her suffering?And what does it mean: “no longer useful for society”? This woman still takes care of her autistic son, her brother who has Aspergers, and she spends a lot of time taking care of her 86 year old mother who has Alzheimers and is rapidly getting worse. All these hours will have to be filled by professional helpers when this woman could not do this anymore, which would cost a lot of money.
Now tell me, why are all these women who dedicate themselves to taking care of others so thoroughly ignored and invisible in our society?
A society that seems to just be focused on the people who make a lot of money and the people that are having (a lot of) young children (even in very over populated countries).
But if you are a woman earning a living for and taking care of your older (handicapped) child or children and yourself, all by yourself, you still won’t be taken as seriously in your career as your male college. Even if he has a wife who brings home a full income as well, every chance and or promotion will automatically be offered to him first.
The chance that your (net) wages will be quite a bit less than his is very big.
And she is probably doing more work than him too.
Women: I wish you good luck and a lot of strength!
