Male cold – is it dangerous?

Definition

For a few years now, the concept of the so-called male cold as a discriminatory phenomenon has persisted in the vernacular, causing amusement here and there, but also a lot of displeasure elsewhere. In general, every person, whether man or woman, always experiences an illness like a cold or similar subjectively. So everyone has a different feeling of illness, which should always be acknowledged unconditionally.

The term men’s cold implies that men suffer from a cold more than women. But where is the basis of the comparison? Do women deal with colds or disease states differently than men? Is men, as the allegedly stronger sex, assumed to have to symbolize strength also in illness? Can feelings of illness be objectified?

Why do men suffer more from colds than women?

In order to get to the bottom of this question, there should be a form of general objectification of the individual feeling of illness. Since this, according to the author’s opinion, is not possible and also no qualitatively high-quality studies in the scientific world are made or published in addition, simply no comparison between a so-called man’s cold and a “woman’s cold” is possible. The so-called suffering from a disease should in no way become condemnable.

In our enlightened, humanistic world, man and woman should be seen as equal, whether in job, family or illness. Thus, this question is simply impossible to answer and simply wrong in its approach. Evaluations of sick leave by the Kaufmännische Krankenkasse (KKH) from the beginning of 2017 show figures that could even suggest the opposite.

If one were to engage in a comparison, since figures show that from December 2015 to March 2016 many more women than men needed to take sick leave due to a cold. At the same time, numerous organizations are fighting for the health consciousness of men. Because the image of the man, as the “allegedly” stronger sex, is still regarded as the prototype of the non-suffering and non-doctor-going-to-doctor, which continues to drive disease patterns such as testicular cancer to worse prognoses that could actually be kept within limits, especially with early treatment and therapy of the health-conscious man.