. Furthermore, whether in the boardroom or in the "cottage industry" household, women appear to be at excessive risk in their occupations. Household work is usually ignored in the discussion of work and health, but a unique 15-year study of Oregon housewives indicated that they faced a significant excess of cancer deaths. In fact, housewives had the highest job-related cancer death rate of any occupation in the study (Pelletier 47).
Many of the pressures associated with minorities in general appear to hold true for women in the workplace. Nancy Milio of the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health believes that the relative health of women will decline by the turn of the century, as more women enter the workforce. Furthermore, according to Milio, women's death rates from heart and respiratory diseases are expected to rise while men's are expected to decline (Pelletier 47-48).
Given the opportunity for comparable jobs, women face the same work environmental risks as men: toxic chemicals, asbestos, coal, noise, heavy workloads, and rotating workshifts. While the environmental risk may be the same for women as for men, the psychological stress factors may be higher. In a study from Stanford University it was found that four times as many young women with MBA degrees seek psychological counseling as do men with MBA degrees. Women showed significantly more psychological and physical signs of stress--stomach upsets and a variety of non-specific physical ailments (Pelletier 48).
All workers, including the white male corporate worker, face stress. Indeed, many men believe that the easiest way to succeed in "white male corporate America" is to make themselves over into people similar to those who manage them: wearing the same clothes, playing the same sports, talking the same way, moving into similar neighborhoods, taking on the same values and goals, and treating people the same way they see people being trea...