As patients, we put our faith and trust in our doctors and medical system to help us with our health issues, but what if the medical system actually does more harm than good when it comes to treating women?
It’s no secret that medicine has been a male-dominated field for centuries, with women only receiving appropriate medical help due to the Women Health Movement during the 1960s and 1970s. Centuries of female exclusion from medical research has led to severe misunderstandings and underrepresentation of illnesses in female bodies, resulting in an alarming amount of female deaths caused by entirely treatable conditions. These issues often disproportionately affect cis women, trans men and other assigned-females-at-birth people.
“In every aspect, our current medical model is based on, tailored to, and evaluated according to cis male models and standards. This is not an abstract statement or even an observation. It’s a fact. All our methods for evaluating, diagnosing, and treating disease for both men and women are based on previous research performed on male cells, male animals, and male bodies.” Dr Alyson J. Mcgregor explains in her book “Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women’s Health and What We Can Do About It”.
In Dr Mcgregor’s book, she explains that most of the research regarding women’s health is directed only towards OB/GYN subsections and not an overall understanding of how female bodies function and how they differ compared to male bodies. This leads to doctors misdiagnosing women with more psychiatric disorders rather than physical disorders, and unfortunately, is the root cause of the stereotypical misunderstanding that women are more sensitive. Funny enough, they are still deemed “hysterical” by doctors whenever they express pain or discomfort.
To simply say that “male research is directly applicable to females” is a foolish conjecture that does more harm than good because realistically speaking, cis women are physiologically different from cis men, on whom most research is based on. Women are not simply “men with breasts and ovaries” but have their own systems that operate to fulfill their unique bodily functions.
“Women’s bodies deal with everything from internal communication
(neurotransmission) to external influences such as pharmaceuticals according to a different set of genetic and hormonal criteria compared to men. This means that what is considered medically normal for men may not be normal for—or even applicable to—women.”
Here are a few common examples of how male-centric medicine impacts
women’s health every day:
Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death in both men and women, but women have statistically poorer outcomes and higher mortality in otherwise equivalent situations. A 2010 study found that “the under-recognition of heart disease and differences in clinical presentation in women lead to less aggressive treatment strategies and a lower representation of women in clinical trials.”
A 2018 study found that females presenting with a heart attack were more likely to die when a male doctor treated them, compared with a female doctor.
Women are more likely to receive a psychiatric diagnosis for a multitude of conditions—including stroke, cardiac events, chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, and various neurological disorders—while men are more likely to be referred for tests. In fact, 62% of people suffering from autoimmune conditions are labelled “chronic complainers” without actually receiving help for the conditions; 78% of autoimmune patients are women, meaning that neglect and a dismissive attitude disproportionately affects women.
There is increasing evidence for sex differences in pain sensitivity and chronic pain symptoms; while women may be more sensitive to pain, doctors tend to brush them off and “tune out” their complaints rather than prescribe them appropriate medication and treatment. Some women have even reported that their male counterparts receive stronger, more effective medication for the same issues that they struggle with.
The core issue is that the fundamental infrastructure of
the medical system is purely a cis male’s perspective on medicine, and despite decades of research, only a minuscule amount has been dedicated to female research and development. The solution to this, like most systemic issues, is building and reinventing modern medicine from the ground up to include half of the world’s population, a population that has been neglected and forgotten for too long.
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