“Women complain worse about being ill than men, after all!” says cold remedy
Forget man flu, it’s WOMEN who suffer (and complain) the most
Men have long been figures of fun when it comes to suffering a bout of the flu.
But a new survey has found it’s actually women who struggle to deal with their symptoms – and complain the most.
Female flu lasts 20 per cent longer and has worse symptoms than ‘man flu’, with 21 per cent of women going to bed on the first day of a cold, compared to 16 per cent of men.
The fairer sex are also more likely to complain about their illness – but a quarter admit they do it just to get sympathy, according to new research.
In contrast, 13 per cent of men say they want ‘tough love’ to help them power through, while 14 per cent say that when they have a cold they want people to make them laugh as that will help them feel better.
As if the sexist irritant that was the term ‘man flu’ weren’t bad enough, we now have to suffer the female equivalent in the press (last seen in the Telegraph, five years ago, in a press release put out by Actimel). Both terms, of course, are used to imply a level of weakness and competitiveness between the genders, and neither are based in reality but in self-perpetuating stereotype – this time, fed and exploited by a cold remedy manufacturer:
The research, commissioned by Beechams, also found women are twice as likely to use their symptoms as an excuse to get out of something they do not want to do.
Mona Sheikh, from Beechams, said: ‘Everyone’s heard of “man flu” but it’s really interesting to see that our results suggest that “wo-man flu” may actually be worse and even last longer.
People: do society a favour, and don’t use the terms ‘man flu’ or ‘woman flu’ – they’re lazy, inaccurate, meaningless and annoying. We can do better than that kind of tired sexism, and so can Beechams.