Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women (http://www.cdc.gov/Women/lcod.htm). Do these people really not care about that?

Another thing that bothers me about this is that it implicitly suggests that contraceptives and contraceptive counselling are solely the responsibility of women. That and the rates of STIs in males are also pretty high and can cause long-term problems.

WTF?

It's really disgusting to see acts of medical sexual assault against women still being promoted as 'health care' in 2010. I take it that their 'health promotion seminar' involves trying to convince women that they should be willing to sacrifice their mental and emotional health to a medical rapist in exchange for a small statistical chance of detecting (not preventing -- only natural medicine can do that) a rare disease or two? WTF?

It looks to me like this is only a small section of a large page describing many kinds of medical care that are available. Since men do tend to be interested in health problems such as heart disease and women do tend to be interested in these kinds of genital related issues the labels "men's health" and "women's health" seem reasonable. I suspect they'd be willing to give their heart disease exam to women as well as men, they just didn't think it was of particular interest to women.

We know that in reality men and women both suffer from heart disease and VDs, but the use of these terms is consistent with the usage on the website. I think you could however justify criticizing the popular usage of the terms outside this particular example, which is only following an established social convention.

Lots of stuff being left out/not addressed here.

1. The men's test has an additional charge as well. Most of the other tests included on the linked page also include charges.

2. Women probably can get screened for other diseases during the course of their regular visits. This is addressed in, you know, the rest of that page.

3. These two sections only address the treatments that are specific to one sex. The men's screening includes "Diseases specific to males at various stages of life are also considered." This part was actually included in the screenshot, which is nice. These tests would not be very useful to biological females. Nor would gynecological exams be very helpful to a male.

4. In response to the STI comment above, there's a gender-neutral section on STI's farther down the linked page.

I had a wonderful experience as an undergraduate at NCSU, and I must say that there too this is how we were treated. I had to visit Student Health from time to time for say, strep throat or a sinus infection. One thing that always irritated me was that these things of course have as one of their symptoms "fatigue." The second that a woman answers in an affirmative way that yes, she is experiencing fatigue, no matter the reason for her visit, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will be giving her a pregnancy test. It did not matter that I was not sexually active - they did not ask. My money, other peoples' money, and some time, then were all wasted because they simply assume that the most likely cause for fatigue in women is that we're knocked up in I'm certainly not only NCSU but in other universities as well. This has got to stop. It's wasteful as well as insulting.

OK, but I'm hypothetically there with a sore throat. I'm not there because I'm bleeding from my nose and ears or have very alarming symptoms like on House, MD. Were that the case, then I would be at an ER and I may be less bothered with them running the pregnancy test. I may not; but it's possible.

If men aren't asked about their sexual history to get their colds dealt with and women are, then there's an issue to me.

I think we underestimate the intelligence of women - if they are tired all of the time, and then miss a period and so forth they can probably put two and two together and take a pregnancy test themselves or ask for one. What about personal agency as well? If I lie about my sexual activity and/or history, or my drug use or drinking, or any other lifestyle questions, then I know that I am running a risk of missing something, even if I am correct in my inkling that the major problem here is in fact strep throat. I might miss learning early on about a problem that later will be bigger and worse than if caught now, but that's my fault; I lied.
Personally, I'd rather people stay out of my reproductive organs when my complaint is with my ear, nose and throat, all things considered.

Well, again besides the topic: As an image I take the picture as a sign for us describing "women" (aka "womb-men") calls for more space and time than describing the general "man" (aka "the shortend version of life" with a little difference).

I think you're right. Looking at the section in context it's clear these are intended to be complaints specific to men and women. So this suggests that most medical issues unique to women involve genitalia, which I imagine is rather less controversial. And I suspect the "men's health" section was just added in to balance things up, which would explain why it's so light on specifics.
Although that wouldn't explain why contraception is being assigned to "women's health", particularly when there's a big "sexual health" section immediately after it.

1. Some antibiotics should not be given to pregnant women, due to effects on the fetus (more common) or mother (uncommon). Therefore, women of reproductive age are given pregnancy tests if drug treatment or radiology studies (radiation bad for fetus) are needed. Pregnancy tests are simple and quick. Women may be overly optimistic about "couldn't be pregnant".
2. Men are more bashful than women about getting genital exams for detection of cancer (castration anxiety, most likely).
3. Men are also less diligent about preventative care in general and less informed about disease symptoms until they reach middle age (50ish) and peers are having heart attacks. Young and middle-aged women are more accustomed to and more informed about medical care than their male peers, and will look for specific details of a plan's coverage. The women will zoom in on gynecologic services, the most used category for young women (college students, young faculty and staff). Young men - they often "go bare" (no insurance) if allowed, and if they think about health coverage for themselves, they think about car accidents and other trauma.

Quoting Paranoid Android: And I don’t really care what you have to say about my thinking it is unlucky to be female. Am I not allowed to think that? Although that was originally sarcasm which I guess you didn’t pick up on.

I didn't say anything about your fortunes in life, just that I thought it sad that you might hate yourself for them, and for that I apologize. In the future I promise to celebrate any expressions of self-loathing with cheers of "better you than me!" My failure to detect any sarcasm might just be equivalent to your own, though I do think an argument could be made that your attempt qualified as a "fail." Keep practicing; from your words it's clear you're still quite young but you'll get the hang of it soon enough.

There could be a pill for men, there just isn’t, and not because of a lack of scientific ability.

Well there you have it. Perhaps your superior knowledge of human physiology would be better served helping to develop such a pill than making ambiguous but strident posts on sociology websites.

I have a female doctor who is very nice. She actually made a sarky comment at the 'are you breast aware' stage of my health check along the lines of what a ridiculous question how could any woman ignore them! I wonder whether it is men who are done a disservice in this case as it is important for men to check themselves and get checked as well and this medical leaflet ignores male genital problems. Both testicular cancer and breast cancer are traumatic and can be fatal.

karinova: Thanks for your lesson on how things have changed over time. The one thing I wanted to mention, though, was that many women plan to opt for epidurals. I can count on one hand how many women I know who said they want to have a natural childbirth. The rest all say they want to be as knocked out as possible, or cut them open, they want it to be over with asap. Granted, none of them were pregnant at the time so maybe given more thought and actually having to make the decision would change their opinion on it, but among many women I know, the painkillers are seen as a very welcome way to deal with labor.