Introduction
We live in a world where menstrual products didn’t start testing with blood till 2023. This complete and long-standing neglect is enough to enunciate the realm of medical invisibility that women are forced to live in. From being misdiagnosed to the unconscionable husband stitch, this article follows the trajectory of gendered medical silences that hide the screams of countless women.
The Pervasive Bias in Medicinal History
The true origin of health practitioners participating in medical gender bias remains elusive due to religious or orthodox reasons. In Greek culture, health was primarily supervised in accordance with the theory of four humors. Needless to say, women weren't exactly the primary concern for Aristotle and Plato.
In ancient villages, elderly women and midwives were the primary authority when it came to women's troubles. However, when Christian settlers established their imperial domain, the ancient knowledge and remedies engineered by the matriarchs were designated as witchcraft. As such, women's health concerns began to be largely dismissed, and attempts at treatment began to be condemned. For most of early modern history, women's sufferings were considered a ‘required tax’ for Eve’s original sin.
Even in modern practice, women have been excluded from scientific research as well as clinical practice. There is an unspoken medical belief that women are incomplete versions of male bodies, categorized as “not men” and “other”. This assumption led to countless doctors presuming that female symptoms tend to resemble male symptoms.
The Truth About the Gender Pain Gap
Women's pain has never been considered seriously by a majority of doctors. There have been numerous incidents where women complain of acute pain only to be dismissed by doctors. This gender pain gap can have fatal consequences.
For instance, chest pain and pressure are considered the general signs of cardiac distress for both men and women. However, recent studies have determined that women exhibit extreme fatigue as their primary symptom.
Image Credits: Pexels
Some doctors even go as far as to label women's pain as hysteria. The unfortunate reality is that, to this day, women are told their pain is either “stress-related” or “in their head”. This inhumane oversight has invariably led to delayed diagnoses of conditions like endometriosis, autoimmune diseases, or thyroid disorders.
The gender pain gap doesn't end at doctors' clinics. Untreated or misdiagnosed, it's not uncommon that many women have no choice but to seek emergency help services. Consequently, one study found that women are less likely to be given opioid painkillers than men in the emergency departments.
This drastic situation worsens even more for women and nonconforming individuals from marginal communities. They are prescribed pain medications of lower potency and given poorer reproductive resources.
Internalized Communication Barrier and Exclusion from Clinical Trials
When my mother started feeling acute pain in her knee joints, the first thing our family doctor advised her was to “lose weight”. Two years later, when my uncle started getting similar knee joint aches, he was advised to take tests and start physiotherapy sessions.
All of us have heard countless stories where women's health concerns are easily overlooked. Women from older generations have ingrained anxiety and often try to avoid going to the doctor. There is an implicit gender bias in doctor-patient interactions. Ignorance by male doctors and underreporting by female patients are the underlying reasons why clinical trials for women only began as late as 1993.
Image Credit: Freepik
Even research on conditions that primarily affect women has excluded women. Around the world, depression is recognized as a leading cause of disability in women. However, most studies on the brain have only been conducted on male animals.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that women may react to antidepressants differently. Women are twice as likely to be prescribed psychotropic drugs, but they are also more likely to have harmful side effects. Women may absorb antianxiety medications more quickly, and the recommended dosage may be more toxic because of the acidity of their stomachs.
Gender bias in medical care stems from childhood itself and leaves lifelong repercussions for the afflicted women. For instance, autism spectrum disorders in girls largely go unrecognised and undetected at key developmental points. Naturally, most neurodivergent teenage girls tend to miss out on life-changing interventions.
This occurs due to the same reason as before; the criteria used for detecting neurological disorders were based on research done primarily on boys. This critical gap in medical care makes women with autism spectrum disorders vulnerable to social anxiety, ****** coercion, and many other handicaps.
How to Eradicate Gender Bias in Medical Care
A survey of 1995 showed that over half of female medical students, hospital staff, and doctors were subjected to ****** harassment, and even now it's difficult to come to terms with. When you think about trying to root out medical gender bias, the solution is obvious (and oversimplified) at first: there should be more female doctors. This solution is partly flawed as it allows male doctors to evade the consequences of their inherent gender bias. The ingrained obstacles of implicit sexism, harassment, and systemic discrimination are omnipresent in every level of medical care, and these aren't going anywhere, it seems.
Over the years, women have made numerous attempts to spotlight this tradition of abuse. Attempts at emphasizing the urgent need for intersectionality in medical care have skyrocketed over the last two decades.
Image Credits: Pexels
Ventures like the Institute for Antiracism in Medicine, founded by identical twins Dr. Brandi Jackson and Dr. Brittani Jackson, aim to help minority students holistically access academic courses in medicine. Documentaries like Black Women in Medicine by filmmaker Crystal R. Emery painted a detailed picture of systematic discrimination in medical academia at the deepest levels.
There is no clear-cut answer to eradicating gender bias in medical care. But we have come a long way from complete exclusion. This progress is largely attributed to the efforts of female doctors, social movements such as #MeToo, and female mentors.
Conclusion
There is a critical need for diversity in medical care. Minority doctors are more likely to provide care to minority, underserved, and disadvantaged communities, meaning their under-representation is of utmost concern. It is imperative that we all challenge the status quo by substituting empowering, positive images for the inaccurate and demeaning historical narrative surrounding gender, race, and ethnicity.
