Listening to a debate about the rights/wrongs of keeping very premature babies alive, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment. One contributor spoke about how the health system threw all their resources at keeping babies alive only for there to be scarce money available later when these babies grow up and need a more 'caring' type of healthcare, physiotherapy for instance. It immediately struck me that keeping a child alive in an instant seemed like a macho, punch the air type of thing to do (although I absolutely concede that woman doctors could as easily do it) and that the more nuturing care could be described as a female type of activity (although again this could be administered by a man). It is the activity rather than the person who carries it out that I think could possibly be given the 'label' iyswim. I wonder whether because we value these macho acts of life-saving more than the female acts of life-enhancing that the latter attracts less funding.