musings on women's health

We mortals seem to be good at assumptions; they are shortcuts that allow us to function without the requirement of constantly checking the validity of beliefs or items in our environment. Part of it is trust; part of it is process, and yet I don’t want to get into a semantic discussion of the manifold vagaries of the word, nor a tedious list of definitions. I just want to concentrate on that very human characteristic of taking something for granted without the need for proof.

But of course that supposes –okay, assumes– that whatever we are considering has been vetted in a way that we are used to. A way that has the common consent of experts in the field, say, or at least something that accords with our experience. It would be acceptable, for example, to assume that if someone is talking about a bus, that they do not need to define it. They will not likely mean a train or a motorcycle…unless, that is, we include metaphors and their ilk -so let’s not.

I want to keep this simple for now. Some assumptions lead to others and so, like the weak link of a chain, conclusions based solely on a trail of assumptions can be a house of cards. At some stage, it would likely be prudent to search for verifiable sources if the issue is important.

I suspect that the trust with which we clothe assumptions is multi-fashioned. Sometimes it is the source, and sometimes it is the subject. Or the wording. Suppose, as an example, we are reading an article purporting to discuss discrepant sex ratios in a country and there is mention of the ‘sex ratio at birth’. (I have covered sex ratios and their definitions in a previous essay by the way: https://musingsonwomenshealth.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/pregnancy-stress/ ) Would we not be forgiven for the assumption that the definitions used would be the commonly understood ones in this context? And that when the ‘natural sex ratio at birth’ is mentioned in the same breath –or in this case, line- as the World Health Organization, couldn’t we relax. A little?

Well, I have to say I was initially seduced by this notion in an article in the BBC News, and then, intriguingly, disavowed of my naïveté. The article was titled ‘Why does Sweden have more boys than girls?’  http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35444173  My first thought, of course, was so what? The normal secondary sex ratio for humans would seem to average out around 5 extra boys, for every 100 girls that are born. Various reasons have been proposed to explain this, and I assumed (there we go again) that the article was reporting a new one –or at least new proof.

And then, when that didn’t prove to be the case in the first paragraph or two, I wondered if there were some hitherto unknown problems with northern sunlight, or perhaps residual effects from Chernobyl…

But I quickly became aware that they were using the term not as sex ratio at birth (the secondary sex ratio), but rather the sex ratio at ages 16 to 17 years of age (which would be closer to the tertiary sex ratio). I hadn’t expected this, and so now I had to again switch assumptions.

First of all, they gave a little background: ‘official statistics show that in 2014, there were 108 boys for every 100 girls among Sweden’s 16 and 17-year-olds.’ Okay, 108 boys per 100 girls is not so far off the 105 boys expected. I almost shrugged and moved on to another article until I read the next sentence: ‘But the country now has 123 boys for every 100 girls in this age group’. Whoa, that woke me up. So, not only do they talk in terms of a specific age group, they also report that in one year it has changed remarkably.

Time to examine my assumptions again, I realized. It turns out that the discrepancy is largely explained by immigration –or more accurately, refugees. But am I also to assume that it would be dominated by males -boys, actually? This requires another assumption: that more young men are able to make their ways through the turmoil and suffering of their native lands than their female counterparts. If the family is in dire need, and has little chance of making it out intact, perhaps it sends out the strongest, in hopes he (or sometimes she) will find refuge and then send for them. But is the male preponderance merely related to societal expectations and socially determined male roles?

The article purports to to explain the preponderance of males over females in that age range:  “If you’re underage, first of all, you get housing, you get more financial resources. You also have a lot of staff around you helping you with different issues,” says Hanif Bali, a member of the opposition Moderate Party in the Swedish parliament – which is on the centre right of the political spectrum. “If you need food, clothing, everything, you can go to the municipality and demand this money.” Presumably a young a young girl could do the same if the family had delegated her as the one to leave -but if you were the matriarch or patriarch of that family, would you send your daughter? Or would fear of the probable fate of a young, unaccompanied girl on a dangerous journey with unscrupulous smugglers likely convince you to send your son?

Of course that survivability benefits the young male asylum seeker all right, but what about the family? Were my assumptions about the strength of family ties naïve? Thankfully not. Fascinatingly not: ‘[…] there is another even bigger benefit, which Bali believes is significant. “You have the right to family reunification. So you can bring all of your family to Sweden, if you are underage.” Under 18, that is… And actually make it to Sweden.

So there are huge incentives for getting to Sweden before you turn 18.’

The article turned out to be thought provoking for me on several levels. One I have to attribute to age-naïveté: how does news of this kind of stuff leak out to people in a war-zone, fleeing for their lives? And secondly, how effectively the refugees have been able to use the Swedish social system to allow something on a scale for which it was likely not intended. But it also speaks volumes about assumptions and where they can lead us. You can almost hear the Hamlet-like defence of those 16-17 years olds when confronted with their manipulation of the system: ‘Why, man, they did make love to this employment, They are not near my conscience.’