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MEETING ON GENRE AND HEALTH BY THE NATIONAL COORDINATOR OF THE PROGRAMME ON COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH OF ADOLESCENTS OF THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH

ADOLESCENCE TEAM FROM CONSTRUIR SALUD

The so-called meeting on Genre and Health was held at UOCRA’s Cultural Space and was organized by the Adolescence Team from Constuir Salud. 
Juan Carlos Escobar, Coordinator of the National Programme on Comprehensive Health of Adolescents, was in charge of the meeting.
The programme operates under  the  Secretary of Health of Argentina. 

In his exposition, Dr. Escobar addressed, among other topics, the role of adolescents and male youngsters, who by reasons of established cultural mandates, are less involved in preventive health care actions. 
The invisibility of males in health spaces is related to the way in which the male genre identity is usually built being bio-socio-cultural linked to implications and roles in which males, by mandate, are seen as suppliers, actives, independents and powerful unlike the stereotype of women being fragile, sensitive, carer and passive.  
In this way, it is understood how, from the hegemonic masculinity building (term coined by R. Conell), the major social inequality is created among genres. 
With this issue as a debate trigger, the meeting was concluded with the importance of working from the different health programmes with male adolescents, in the need of thinking new approaches to self-care of health, in achieving paternity more committed to childcare and supporting women in order to create more equitable and inclusive relationships in terms of genre, roles and health prevention. 

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