Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick

by Maya Dusenbery

The way women’s reports of pain are received seems to be at least as influenced by cultural stereotypes about men as about women. The stoicism expected of men is cited as one of the reasons that their pain is taken more seriously; their reports of pain are less likely to be doubted, because it’s assumed they’re more reluctant to make them in the first place. But there’s no rational reason that men’s assumed stoicism should result in women’s pain not being taken seriously. As Hoffmann and Tarzian pointed out, if men are indeed more reluctant than women to admit they’re in pain, “this reluctance on the part of men does not lead to the conclusion that women, as not reluctant, must therefore be less in need of adequate treatment.” If women, spared from the cultural pressure put on men to tough it out, are more free to express their pain, their reports would seem to be not overreports but simply more accurate reports. Instead, women are treated as if they’re the unreliable reporters. The stoic male stereotype extends to an assumption not only that men are less likely to admit they’re in pain but also that they’re less likely to seek medical attention for their symptoms at all. Public health researcher Kate Hunt and her team point out that an assumption that men are reluctant to seek medical care has become “deeply entrenched” in both medicine and the public at large. And it seems to come with a corollary assumption that women are not reluctant, which “may result in health care ...