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• Women usually stay closer to the
village, and so are more available
when needed.
• Women often are more exploited
and abused than men. Therefore
their sympathies are more likely
to lie with those who have less
power and greater need. A
health program in India states:
“Women and children are the
more vulnerable groups in the
rural area, therefore a woman is
best able to motivate and bring
about change.’
Women health workers in Bangladesh ride bicycles,
which only the men used to do. This is helping
women gain more equal rights.
• “With women there is less fear of misuse or malpractice,” states the same
program from India. In many areas, women tend to be more responsible, and
they drink less. They may also be more willing to work for the people, not the
money.
Reasons often given for selecting men as health workers:
• Men often can move about more safely and freely than
women. They can go alone or at night to a distant house or
village to attend an emergency.
• Much of the work to improve health involves farming, water
systems, latrine building, and other activities for which the help
of men is needed. Men can perhaps be better led by a male leader.
• Where part of the health worker’s job is to work toward social change, men
are more likely to take action and to organize the people than, are women.
(This is not necessarily true. It is interesting to note, however, that in some
countries where human rights are often violated, government-run
health programs train mostly women health workers. In those same
countries, community-based programs working for land rights and
social change often train mostly men health workers.)
•
Some programs happen to train mostly men, others mostly women. Usually this
is not because they feel one sex makes better health workers. In some places
there are difficulties in recruiting either men or women. Men (especially young
men) may be too ‘proud’ to consider training for ‘nursing’ work—especially if on a
volunteer basis. In some areas, unmarried women may not be permitted to leave
home to attend a training program. And married women may be unable to leave
their children and their work, or their husbands may not let them.
Experience shows that both women and men can make good health workers.
Often men are able to relate better to the health needs of men, and women to the
needs of women and children. Some health programs resolve this difference by
training both a man and a woman {sometimes a married couple) from each village.
*From Moving Closer to the Rural Poor, by the Mobile Orientation and Training Team, Indian Social
Institute, New Delhi.