Re:Women Die More from Heart Attacks Than Men Unless ER Doc ...
by geofft on Monday August 06, 2018 @05:11PM
(#17701819)
> But given the opprobrium currently attached to labeling someone "SEXIST" in our society, personally I'd like to see a bit more evidence, and some alternate explanations explored and ruled out, before we start wheeling that one out and tarring people with it.
There's opprobrium attached to being uniquely sexist / otherwise bigoted, but I think there is relatively little opprobrium in saying that most men, statistically, behave in the following way because of social conditioning since childhood, and no man in the relevant population is specifically intending to be sexist. That's where the whole idea of "unconscious bias" comes from. (Arguably, the entire idea of "unconscious bias" training is to provide a way for companies to address these types of issues precisely without having to label their employees sexist and bring out the tar.)
Also, even if it did require tar, I think we would need to have a hard discussion about where the tradeoff between "more patients die, but doctors have good reputations" and "fewer patients die, but people think doctors are sexist" is. It does not seem obvious to me that we should choose the former.
> because there's just no way you're going to go to doctors and make them precisely 10% less sexist than they are now.
I don't see how this follows.
For instance, you can imagine pretty direct ways to work around both potential explanations: if it's social conditioning on the part of the doctor, have patients report pain on an objective scale (i.e., not "1-10", I believe there are studies that women statistically report lower scores than men; instead assign specific comparisons like "stubbing your toe" or "unable to focus on work" or whatever), and ask doctors to respond in standard ways based on the response. Again - assuming that this isn't doctors consciously choosing to ignore women's concerns - we should probably assume doctors are actually interested in giving their patients meaningful care. If the social conditioning is on the side of patients not reporting pain, make sure there are enough women medical professionals around and have a practice of women reporting their symptoms to a woman. (Since nurses are something like 90+% women this shouldn't be too difficult; it would just require asking male doctors to calibrate their responses to nurses' notes instead of asking questions de novo.)
Also, historically, we have seen examples of people becoming less sexist and less bigoted. The idea that women just do not have the mental capabilities to vote, for instance, has become an extreme minority position. It may take generations of change, but it's still a change that we can effect.
Also, even if we're talking about populations, it's not really the case that every person is equally sexist. If you want to make doctors precisely 10% less sexist, measure them for sexism and reject the ones that exhibit abnormally high levels of sexism.
There's opprobrium attached to being uniquely sexist / otherwise bigoted, but I think there is relatively little opprobrium in saying that most men, statistically, behave in the following way because of social conditioning since childhood, and no man in the relevant population is specifically intending to be sexist. That's where the whole idea of "unconscious bias" comes from. (Arguably, the entire idea of "unconscious bias" training is to provide a way for companies to address these types of issues precisely without having to label their employees sexist and bring out the tar.)
Also, even if it did require tar, I think we would need to have a hard discussion about where the tradeoff between "more patients die, but doctors have good reputations" and "fewer patients die, but people think doctors are sexist" is. It does not seem obvious to me that we should choose the former.
> because there's just no way you're going to go to doctors and make them precisely 10% less sexist than they are now.
I don't see how this follows.
For instance, you can imagine pretty direct ways to work around both potential explanations: if it's social conditioning on the part of the doctor, have patients report pain on an objective scale (i.e., not "1-10", I believe there are studies that women statistically report lower scores than men; instead assign specific comparisons like "stubbing your toe" or "unable to focus on work" or whatever), and ask doctors to respond in standard ways based on the response. Again - assuming that this isn't doctors consciously choosing to ignore women's concerns - we should probably assume doctors are actually interested in giving their patients meaningful care. If the social conditioning is on the side of patients not reporting pain, make sure there are enough women medical professionals around and have a practice of women reporting their symptoms to a woman. (Since nurses are something like 90+% women this shouldn't be too difficult; it would just require asking male doctors to calibrate their responses to nurses' notes instead of asking questions de novo.)
Also, historically, we have seen examples of people becoming less sexist and less bigoted. The idea that women just do not have the mental capabilities to vote, for instance, has become an extreme minority position. It may take generations of change, but it's still a change that we can effect.
Also, even if we're talking about populations, it's not really the case that every person is equally sexist. If you want to make doctors precisely 10% less sexist, measure them for sexism and reject the ones that exhibit abnormally high levels of sexism.