I have a proposal for Western women – the American variety in particular. Given that you have a “wealth of life” relative to men in your societies and to women in less-developed countries, perhaps you should redistribute some of that longevity. Cut a couple years off of your lives so that a woman in Sierra Leone or Bhutan can live a few more.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a study showing that women around the world are in need of health care. Numerous articles and blog posts have been written decrying the shameful state of women’s health. This is a problem because women tend to live longer than men in regular conditions; a reversal of that trend is cause for action. Granted, many female deaths are the result of male aggression towards women; steps should be made to prevent these atrocities. Regardless, the WHO and feminists seek to shore up medical care differences despite seemingly gynocentric health coverage. My recommendation seeks to minimize the gap strictly between health care opportunities in developed and under-developed countries.
Interestingly enough (and luckily for of international women), women in America should expect to live 5 years longer than their men. According to Warren Farrell’s seminal work The Myth of Male Power, the life expectancy for an American woman in 1920 was 54.6 years and 53.6 years for men. Today it is 82 and 77 respectively. American women have some cushion to spare.
Assuming those underdeveloped nations have increasing marginal returns to health care expenditures vis a vis Western society (an extra dollar spent on health care for women of underdeveloped nations creates more “health” and adds more benefit than an extra dollar spent on healthier Western women), wouldn’t it make sense – from an egalitarian and utilitarian viewpoint – to redistribute health care overseas? I mean, its only right.
So I say unto you, Western women, stop hoarding all of the breast exams, PAP smears, disease treatments, birth control devices, and tampons. After all, you only came by those luxuries by luck or by birth. Let’s start a drive. Next year, instead of getting your annual breast exam, donate the money to the Red Cross or some other international health organization with the designation that it pay for a breast exam for a less fortunate woman in another country. Encourage American doctors’ offices to send their sonogram machines to remote parts of Africa telling its patients that, despite the danger created for their child, African mothers and children will have better access to health care.
Of course, leftists believe that the solution to this problem would be for “the government” to pay for superior health care for all women, but then, where does “the government” get its money? From “the people”. So women’s health is merely another socialistic endeavor whose financial backing will dry up when everything else comes crashing down. As a society, if we are concerned with the dismal state of women’s health in developing countries, we should follow the usual strategy for shoring up these glaring disparities; re-allocation of resources. Rather than printing money to pay for those new machines and health care infrastructure, just unplug machines that are currently running over here and ship them overseas. This follows the same principle we apply when re-allocating tax dollars from the wealthy to the poor in this country. Don’t be stingy ladies.
