Does Military Gender Bias Lead to Higher Health Risks?

Here's an important story by Terry Gildea for NPR, called "Combat Vet Says Gender Bias Led to Untreated PTSD." In the story, women veterans talk about their post-combat lives.

An interesting question is whether those running psychological support services are too quick to assume that women are not exposed to combat as much as men, or at all. Another question, only implied in the story but floating around many other pieces of coverage on this issue, is whether women may suffer higher health risks simply because they either are assumed not to face the same physical stress as men, or because they fear that frequent check-ups may make them appear less able to handle the war environment. And this doesn't even approach the topics about maternity and how management should treat the circumstance of pregnancy in the war zone.

As I wrote in my previous post on PTSD, "Can We All Stop Overusing the Term PTSD?" I think the psychological community is partly responsible for a lot of misconceptions about the experience of trauma, stress from working in war zones, and post-traumatic stress disorder.  As reader Brandy Bauer wrote in response, "the ridiculousness of the broad umbrella of the DSM-IV" leaves many people -- including people responsible for working on stress issues or carrying out research on stress -- misinterpreting the issues.

The only reason a military officer or service provider would assume that a woman is less likely to have stress-related physical or psychological issues is if they are assuming the services are only provided for those participating in hand-to-hand combat and killing. Even so, there are still likely women exposed to this if their patrol is ambushed or if they are the duty medical officer for a moving unit.

Aside from being blown away or seriously injured by violence, and the very specific trauma of being forced to choose whether to kill to save others or save at the price of others' lives, there are numerous other kinds of war zone stress injuries and associations from repeated experiences of bomb-threat tension, or even injuring oneself trying to carry gear quickly through an inhospitable environment.

Back to the subject of potential gender bias. What can the military do to improve service provision to ensure that it is equal for women and men? I wouldn't propose more commissions from my end. I would propose that management should instead mainstream into their management systems a daily or weekly "get-your-heads-out-of-your-asses" on this issue exercise for all decision makers.

Photo credit: U.S. Army