Women face host of disadvantages in cancer prevention and care, report finds
“The truth is in many ways and many places, women have very little choice to obtain care, even if care is available, even if poverty isn’t the primary issue, because…
Patriarchy isn’t a word that Ophira Ginsburg expected to be at the center of her work as a cancer researcher but, like an infection, it was invading her everyday work as a medical oncologist. There were times when she saw people treat women’s lives and health with cruel indifference. There were times when she saw women who struggled to access care because of violence or social obligations or stigma. There were the women missing from academic departments, funding committees, and medical leadership and there was the missing knowledge of women’s health and cancer.
All of these things are part of what Ginsburg, a senior adviser at the National Cancer Institute Center for Global Health, calls the nexus of women, power, and cancer. Ginsburg and colleagues worldwide joined together to form a Lancet commission on women and cancer to study this nexus a few years ago. On Tuesday, the commission published a lengthy, wide-ranging report dissecting many of the ways that gender inequality affects cancer care for women around the globe.
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