Lupus

Recognition of gender and ethnicity from the health aspect has become increasingly imperative for medical practitioners. They are realizing the importance of evaluating health risk factors for both male and female, majority and minority groups, and young and old citizens. As diverse as the patients are, so are the groups who diagnose them. They are responsible for perceiving, evaluating, coping with health issues from their own and from the patient's cultural perspectives in order to effectively prevent diseases from spreading. Due to our dependence on gender, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation to understand the health issues, it is critical that we are not bias against any particular group of individuals. However, the reverse has been observed in both the medical field as well as outside it. Women more than men and minority groups more than the majority are more vulnerable to depression, eating disorders, sexual diseases as well as the minority group.

[...] Its ongoing nature demands that lupus patients be treated as soon as they are diagnosed. The fact that they are deprived of such proper medical attention only show that social construct does allow for abnormal conditions. Society as Davis writes of is always in search of perfection. Wherever there is imperfection, they tend to rectify it by segregation, discrimination or simply by eradicating them from the society. This is the reason why, one observe that lupus patients are discriminated against based on their conditions, and even more if they belong to the female gender or the minority groups. [...]

[...] Other studies reveal that increasing estrogen might result in heart disease and even flare up the lupus risk level (Petri 2002). There is no clear way for curing lupus but every attempt is being made to "cure" lupus (as we know it is incurable) because the society cannot tolerate individuals who seems normal but do not work, operate and lead lives like they do. Furthermore, social construct dictate that women carry out their social and sex roles therefore they are not entitled to have lupus symptoms (Eisler and Hersen 231). [...]

[...] Like the Hmong in The Spirit That Catches You and You Fall Down (Fadiman 1999), lupus patients are treated with differentiation. With this differentiation they are expected to carry out their social roles, for females they have to carry out their sex roles while for the minority groups they have to play the role of the oppressed. They are time and again deprived of medical, economic and social rights because they display certain "disability". Quinn (1994) suggests that "women with disabling conditions are at a particular disadvantage because they have to overcome societal views regarding individuals who are different, and also navigate the experience with limited role-models to assist the process." (qt. [...]