Women are seeing red over the latest program from the American Heart
Association, dubbed the "Go Red for Women" campaign.
The American Heart Association
website currently
features actress Daryl Hannah posing in a skimpy outfit that she
probably found in Janet Jackson's wardrobe. Hannah wants us to sign up
to receive information about the risks of heart disease in women.
Why would women ever be perturbed about that? Because this one-sided
campaign overlooks the fact that men have hearts, too.
Wondering if the feminist campaign for gender equality had somehow
gotten side-tracked, I contacted the AHA for an explanation. Here's what
spokeswoman Toiya Honore had to say: "When many people think of heart
disease or heart attack, the image that comes to mind is the middle-aged
white male clutching his chest."
Ms. Honore's comment may be true, but misses the key point. That
"middle-aged white male" also happens to be married, with a wife and
kids.
When that husband and father suddenly dies, he leaves behind a
devastated family. Mom is now saddled with the additional burdens of
becoming the primary breadwinner and household repairman. She has also
lost her confidante, lover, and soul-mate.
That's not all. When his widow reaches her Golden Years, she will be
four times more likely to be warehoused in a nursing home (according to
a study by Lois Verbrugge), compared to a married woman of the same age.
In contrast to that "middle-aged white male," women who die of heart
disease are typically in their 50s and 60s. Usually they are not the
primary breadwinner of a struggling family, and their children have
already grown up.
Ms. Honore offers a second justification for the Heart Association's
campaign that again is technically correct, but
misses the bigger picture. Honore notes, "overall, more women die from
cardiovascular disease than men." It is true that of all persons who die
of heart disease, 52% are female and 48% are male.
But even a first-year public health student can spot the flaw in that
logic. Go to the nursing home in your community, and you will see that
most of the residents are female. And heart disease is a condition of
older people. So of course women hold a numerical edge in the heart
disease tallies. That's a no-brainer.
But crude numbers are notoriously inadequate in guiding program
priorities. For example, the number of Blacks who die of heart disease
is far fewer than the number of Whites. If we only relied on raw
numbers, we would start shutting down programs for Blacks and other
minorities.
And knowing that more men die of cancer than women, is the Heart
Association also calling for a halt in breast cancer research? I
certainly hope not.
The only accurate gauge of need is a person's risk. The risk of dying of
heart disease is 228 per 100,000 for white males, and only 134 among
white females. In other words, men face a 70% higher risk of dying from
this dread disease. The American Heart Association knows these facts are
true -- they report them on page 10 of their own
2004
Statistical Update.
American men die an average of five and a half years before women. If it
wasn't for the unequal gender toll of heart disease, men would be living
almost as long as women. And far fewer women would be spending their
last years alone, gazing blankly at the cinderblock walls of a nursing
home.
Forty years ago the American Heart Association sponsored a conference on
"Hearts and Husbands." This conference, which taught women how to keep
their husbands healthy and alive, was attended by 10,000 wives and
wives-to-be.
Those women had far greater compassion and common sense than the radical
feminists who are now calling the shots at the American Heart
Association.
