I sincerely believe and have experienced first hand with my husband, that men seem to feel worse when sick than women do when afflicted with the same aliment.
My husband moans, takes an inordinate amount of medicines, and is a general slug butt. This is so severe to the extent he can only muster enough energy to drag his near death form to the couch and play video games all day as I single handedly take care of kids and home without even a grunt from his direction to help.
Meanwhile I could have bubonic plague and still be expected to soldier on.
What’s up with that?
It might be that men are taught to be strong and in control…and a nasty cold knocks the props right out from that belief. It’s scary to have control yanked away from you suddenly, with no recourse at all.
At the risk of perpetuating gender stereotypes, and I will point out that not all men do this, I personally know men who you would never guess had a cold when they have one, they just soldier on, but… I personally am the whinyest whiner that ever whined when I have a cold. I am insufferable. Totally. It’s a wonder no one has slapped me for it.
My WAG? Because we’re allowed to whine and be babied when we’re sick. There aren’t many times in a man’s life where showing weakness and helplessness is 100% acceptable.
I’ve known guys who, when laid up in the hospital, still put on the “no guys, it’s cool” front. But a cold? Chicken soup, a blanket, and the TV.
YMMW in regards to societal norms, gender stereotypes, etc. Just some armchair anthropology there.
Grin! Total agreement with your first observation, and bummer on your second.
(Me, I retreat. I go to bed and close the door and just don’t talk to anybody. I probably would be a whiny-butt, but I don’t let the opportunity arise.)
Following up on Johnny Bravo’s line of thought, there are two things I see going on.
men sometimes act like giant wusses when they’re sick, but often are socialized to remain stoic and ‘manly’ for other injuries or for regular life.
women sometimes suck it up while they’re sick, but are socialized to be allowed to be tired or emotionally upset by other circumstances like sudden injury, fright, or startlement.
Here’s my thought. Men get tired of being manly all the damn time, so they take their chance (perhaps subconsciously) to get a little R&R and nurturing in during the one time they"re socially allowed to do so.
On the other hand, women feel like if they leave their children/jobs to languish by taking time off and ‘relaxing’ while sick, that they’ll be punished for it, either through having to take care of everything they slacked off on while sick, or because their job or homelife expects them to always be on top of things.
So, when men go all wussy, women get extra pissed because they feel they don’t get any slack at all regardless of their health status, so why should men get to be babied?
My personal solution was to tell my husband that however he acted when he was sick, I was going to act when I was sick, and he’s been really good about stepping up. He only asked me to do the litter once while I was out sick, and he said the ice-glare of death I gave him froze his soul.
He also suggested that women learn to deal with pain and discomfort better because we have periods (and sometimes babies), while with guys, pain generally is associated with having done something stupid to themselves, rather than their body deciding to hurt with no input from them.
That is one thing he doesn’t do. I am always the ditz leaving the lid up and dropping things in it by accident. He always remembers to put it down, lid and all
Totally. When he tore his ACL a few years ago I thought he was freaking Wolverine with how quickly he seemed to heal and how well he handled the pain before and after surgery. But when he gets a head cold or even bad gas cramps he is incapacitated to the point I consider calling for Last Rights
It’s the opposite in our house. When my wife has a cold, she turns into a character from “La Boheme”. When I have a cold I can generally still put one foot in front of the other.
If you’ve followed the Ebola story, you’ll “get it”.
Early in the fall, a thread like this on another website conjured up in my mind a possible future scene at the Brantly or Sacra residence, and Mrs. Brantly or Mrs. Sacra (who, incidentally, are both RNs) telling their hubbies, “Yes, I know you’re sick, but you don’t have Ebola. Get off the couch and help me (insert name of common household chore)”, and then Dr. Sacra did indeed get some garden-variety illness shortly after he was discharged from the isolation unit, and was readmitted for a couple days until they realized he didn’t need to be there.
(I can’t think of an appropriate smiley for this, so I won’t post one.)
Never been married or lived with a man, but my dad didn’t act sick unless he really, truly was, and that wasn’t very often. OTOH, whenever my mother was sick, she would rearrange the living room furniture to illustrate that moms don’t get sick days. :smack: One day, I came home from school to find the furniture rearranged, and asked her if she was sick, and she never pulled that stunt again. :dubious:
Eh, I’m female and can get pretty babyish about it. I don’t whine too much, but I sleep a lot and take tons of medication. I’m a fragile hothouse flower, but I’m smashing a gender stereotype, dagnabit.
