How “Manliness” Can Compromise Your Health

A new study shows that men often ignore their own health to their detriment.

When my normally adorable cat Biscuit bit my ankle in a playful stalking exercise gone wrong I washed it with soap and some rubbing alcohol, slapped on a band-aid, and went about my day.

The next morning, when it was swollen, I told myself it was probably just a hematoma and went about my day.

The next day, when the swelling had increased and red lines started creeping up my leg, I called my doctor. Long story short, I ended up hospitalized for intravenous antibiotics.

This is all to say that, yes, I’m sort of an idiot, but also to introduce the idea that maybe I minimized my very obvious lymphangitis because I am a man.

This week — empirical evidence that men downplay their medical symptoms — and that manlier men downplay them even more.

I’m going to talk to you about a study that links manliness, or scientifically speaking “male gender expressivity” to medical diagnoses that are based on hard evidence and medical diagnoses that are based on self-report. I think you see where this is going but I want to walk you through the methods here because it’s fairly interesting.