Bupa health assessment

[BelleCurve]

Bupa offer two types of corporate health assessment

Essential Health Assessment or
Female Health Assessment

so either you are "essential" or "female"?

Jesus.

On their web page, BUPA offer six health assessments; advanced, complete, essential, mature, fitness and female. The first five are for both genders. The sixth, obviously, is female only;

www.bupa.co.uk/individuals/health-assessments/compare-health-assessments

So there are five checks available to men, and six available to women. Women have their own, specialised assessment on top of everything else. How very disingenuous of you.

Funny how you immediately jump to 'disingenuous' Curwen. Perhaps Bellecurve made a mistake or even more probably is talking about Corporate rather than individual as you are?

Anyway, why do women need their own 'specialised' assessment? Or perhaps more pertinently why don't men?

Both the OP and Poofus made the same mistake then. Still, reading the link, I cannot see how as the female assessment is smack in the middle of a list. And I'd have checked before posting such an inference on here, just so as not to mislead.

Are you seriously asking why women need specialised medical assessments? This one includes a pelvic examination, cervical smear and breast examination. I can see a value in that. As to why there isn't a specific one for men - good question. I doubt that that is a concern within feminist circles though - and I don't mean that snippily.

It's not about the number of assessments available to each gender. It's about men as default and women as other. I have been reading this morning that there have been recommendations to researchers to cover effects of medication on female animals and women as up until now most research has been done on men to avoid women's pesky menstrual cycle messing up their results - so women taking medicines only tested for men deal with all sorts of dosing problems and side effects because they are 'other'.

The concern is that it is again men as the default and women, well women have those other bits. You those those things that are complicated, liable to go wrong and so need a bit of extra help with those. Of course if women were the default it would be men needing the extra assessment because they differed from men.

X-post with Flocci (great name btw)

differed from women, obviously.

I do love the word disingenuous. It's like telling someone you think they're lying, but without having the guts to say it

Just for info Curwen, the 'mature' option would involve having a finger up your bum to check your prostate anyway, because that's the norm for health checks for older men. Unless you're suggesting that Bupa is practicing that much fabled 'misandry'? With 11 members of the board of directors and only 3 of them women, I highly doubt that, don't you?

I don't believe that. I see BUPA as a business. I see that they think they can make money from these things, so they do. If they thought that a male-only assessment would fly, they would run it.

I do not believe that they are discriminating though. I do not believe that they think of women as somehow less than men, as underserving of medical attention. I think they will take anyone's money. I believe that that was the OP's intention, and I believe it is bollox. I said disingenuous because she or he was not lying, rather only presenting us with part of a story, continuing the narrative on here that women are 'other' and less valued. If that was not the case, I apologise.

Still, passive aggressive comments seem to be popular on here, so I'll leave you to decide what the OP's intention was. She or he may even want to inform us themselves. HTH.

disingenuously back

These are the options provided to corporate employees

Just so I am clear on your meaning, your employer/corporation offers only Essential assessments to men and only Female assessments to women - is that correct? Because the BUPA corporation obviously offer them all.

I'm not aware I made any mistake?? I read the OP, sighed, and wrote "Jesus".

What was your problem with the OP, Poofus?

And in any case, now that I have looked more closely at the Bupa site, they clearly include breast checks in the normal health assessment when it's taken by a woman. Why then do women need a special, different category of "women's assessment"?

My problem with the OP was that people appear to be divided into two categories - essential and women. Implying the norm is to be a man, and it's other or different to be a woman. Isn't that everyone's problem with the OP? Still

Do you have an overarching issue with medical checks aimed only at women? How do you feel about the NHS (I am assuming you are British, sorry if not) offering cervical and breast checks. Does this imply othering of women? 'Essential' is for women and men. I really don't see how it is discriminatory. If anything, it's positive.

Not everything sexist is directly discriminatory Curwen. The language that is used is important and reinforces the sexist culture that leads to discrimination.

In this case there is an 'essential' health check that both men and women can have, why is there an extra one just for women? Why can't both men and women go for a health check and be treated as appropriate? Why the emphasis on women's bodies being different to the norm? Women make up more than half of the population, why doesn't the 'essential' check cover everything we need, with a separate one for men and their minority shaped bodies?

It would be trite of me to suggest that however BUPA presented this, you would shoot them down. However, I'm going to do it anyway.

I have seen many, many discussions on here over healthcare, and I have never seen additional screening for women to be an issue before. I am a bit bewildered if I am honest. I'd still like to understand the prevailing stance on NHS checks for breast screening and cervical checks. Are they inherently wrong?

I read on here a while back that equality did not necessarily mean 'the same for both sexes', and that healthcare was one of this areas where women needed different types of services. Has feminist thinking moved on from this viewpoint (what with you being the Borg and all....)?

I have no problem with the NHS offering breast screening and cervical checks. The NHS aren't in the business of advertising health checks as 'essential' and 'female'. They offer asthma clinics, flu jabs, cervical checks, thalassemia clinics, etc. They offer all sorts for individual people.

Again, this isn't about discrimination. Yes, men and women need different care and should receive it. But describing it as 'essential' and 'female' highlights the fact that in our society men are the norm and women are different.

Your quote here:

"I read on here a while back that equality did not necessarily mean 'the same for both sexes', and that healthcare was one of this areas where women needed different types of services. "

Is another subtle version of the same thing - 'women [need] different types of services.' Different to what? Women need different types of services to horses? Guinea pigs? You didn't say men, because of course there is the standard service that people (men) get, and then there is the 'different' service that women need. Although, given the difficulty you seem to be having grasping our problem with 'essential' versus 'female', I imagine the subtlety may be too much for you.

Healthcare in the UK, i.e. the NHS, is only used by humans. I did not feel it necessary to exclude horses and guinea pigs because they have to use different facilities. I may be being a bit UK-centric here - or you might be taking the piss. Where you live, does the healthcare industry look after both humans and animals?

Oh, and it isn't essential vs female, it is essential for both male and female, and female only on top. Is that plain enough?

Yeah, I didn't think you'd get it.

But there are certain screening services which are only offered to men, because only men have prostates. Only women have cervices, so only women need cervical smears. Both men and women should check their breasts, as both get breast cancer. Only men need to check their testicles. There are disparities in the numbers of fatalities between male and female cancers as well, women die of uterine, ovarian, breast and cervical cancers, men die of testicular cancer and they tend to die with prostate cancer, not of it iyswim?

So, if what you're saying is that you don't see it, why not offer essential, women's and men's health assessments. Then the default would be human, with add-ons for women and others for men, surely? As it stands now, it rather looks like you have the default human and women's care as separate.

However, this is a bit of a side issue when taken in the context of men always being the default in healthcare, even at the testing stage, although I'll agree that that might be worth a whole thread on it's own.

Can women choose the Essential Health Assessment if they wish to?