I am a woman who was lucky enough to grow up with a father who made me believe that I am just as valuable and just as intelligent as any man. When I was little, I thought that there was very little difference between men and women. Eventually I realized it wasn’t quite so simple.
I recently read the book RAISING BOYS by Steve Biddulph, which sheds some light on the fact that not only do boys and girls’ brains develop differently, but connect differently between the two hemispheres.
“There are actually really important differences between men and women that go all the way down to the level of our cells,” said Dr. Janine Austin Clayton, director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health. (3)
We certainly have our differences, and yet America’s healthcare doesn’t seem to be reflecting this. When it comes to inequality, this is yet another area where women get the short end of the stick. A study last year found that women were less likely than men to be administered CPR in public. This is in addition to other areas of discrimination in the medical field. The paper “The Girl Who Cried Pain” by University of Maryland academics Diane Hoffman and Anita Tarzian found that women are more likely to be given sedatives for their pain and men given pain medication. The paper noted that, “a long history within our culture of regarding women’s reasoning capacity as limited” may have been the cause. (1)
The subconscious disregard for women’s health can be so widespread, it can affect women themselves, making them question if pain is really “all in their head.” I certainly can attest to this. I badly herniated a disc after the birth of my son. I could barely walk, yet with many doctors dismissing my experience as a normal postpartum one, I started to question if my pain was, indeed, hormonal. It took four months before I got an answer and I had to fight hard to get it.
Julia Buckley, a freelance journalist whose chronic pain was discounted for years feels that this gender bias is epidemic: “People are dying because they are female and doctors are blinded by their gender,” she says. (1)
Author Maya Dusenbury wrote, DOING HARM: THE TRUTH ABOUT HOW BAD MEDICINE AND LAZY SCIENCE LEAVE WOMEN DISMISSED, MISDIAGNOSED AND SICK. It is based on over two years of research. Dusenbury believes that the lack of listening to women’s health issues is rooted in the “hysteria” of the early 19th century. In the past, anything that couldn’t be explained was put into the “hysterical” category. If a symptom didn’t match with something that hadn’t been studied, well, it must be in the patient’s head. (2)
Sound familiar?
Women are twice as likely to have chronic pain, but also more likely to be dismissed. (3) For a long time, in the scientific community, men were the ones that were predominantly studied. “We weren’t paying attention to sex and gender differences,” said Dusenbury. The push for change is the #MeToo movement of health care. Even male animals are used more often in studies, showing just how far reaching this bias can be. This means that some drugs that go to market are not evaluated for women at all. It may be no coincidence that women are 75% more likely to have an adverse drug reaction. (3)
There is a long way to go and women may have to ask for second and third opinions until they find the right doctor that will match what their gut is telling them.
Our guts matter. We matter.