The following is the CICFEM23 statement: Women's rights in health.

​

Prepared at the proposal of CICFEM22 by FORO EMAKUMEAK MEDIKUNTZAN (Women in Medicine).

​

Women and men have the same health rights and should receive adequate health care that takes into account the effect of sex and gender factors in the approach to disease. Conventional medicine, and related health areas, have as a reference an androcentric model that does not sufficiently consider the effect of these factors in the incidence, symptomatology, evolution, diagnosis and treatment of women's diseases, which seriously harms their health. This means that the health problems of women, girls and vulnerable groups, especially those with different characteristics in women and men, are not adequately addressed, focusing all interest on the sexual and reproductive organs.

​

Women's diseases have to be adequately treated taking into account how the same disease can have different incidence, symptomatology, evolution, diagnosis and treatment in men and women. The therapeutic effort has to be equivalent to that made in the case of men and consider the testimony of women, the reported symptoms and pain as a reflection of a disease and not as a psychosomatic or social problem.

 

Women have the right to have scientific knowledge generated about their biological processes and diseases by being included as objects of study in clinical trials and research projects and taken into account as scientists and creators of this knowledge. The data obtained should be disaggregated by sex in order to reach adequate conclusions that represent the reality of women. This knowledge should be included in the curricula of the areas of Health Sciences in order to train professionals with the capacity to adequately address women's diseases and not develop their professional practice guided by stereotypes and ignorance of the differences. 
​​​

Women have the right to be named as such and to be made visible as patients and health professionals through the use of inclusive language and non-sexist and stereotype-free images both in written texts and in audiovisual media frequently used for health campaigns.

Sex and gender blindness in teaching, research and clinical practice produces the following effects:
 

• Overgeneralization of women's experiences based on men's experiences and therefore misrepresentation of the symptomatology and evolution of diseases in women if they deviate from the male model. This leads to underdiagnosis of diseases such as, for example, COVID-19 where the symptomatology in women is frequently gastrointestinal or myocardial infarction that usually presents with a different referred pain and accompanied by a variety of symptoms more typical in women.

​

• Invisibilization of the reality of women and girls. Women are not subjects of study nor are we represented as scientists or professionals in clinical practice.  Violence against women is also hidden, as is the case of physical and/or verbal violence in health and obstetric care

​

• Turning stages of women's and girls' lives into illnesses such as the menstrual cycle, menopause or pregnancy.

​

• Explanation of differences based on stereotypes. Cataloging the symptoms of women's diseases as psychosocial problems and not as diseases and that the medicine applied to women is a “bikini medicine” focused only on the sexual and reproductive organs.  

​

• Misrepresentation of scientific evidence to justify differences such as viruses respecting women when, for example, AIDS is the leading cause of death in young women worldwide and persistent VOCID affects women more than men. 

​

In conclusion, it is necessary to incorporate both biological differences (anatomical, physiological, genetic, immune response, etc.) and gender-related differences (roles and activities, access to and control of resources, patterns and expectations and subjective identity) into all health-related processes in the firm belief, as already considered in the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, in the dignity and value of the human person and the equal rights of men and women and that without them, social progress and sustainable development of humanity will not be possible. ​

​

​