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

by Maya Dusenbery

In the late eighties and early nineties, pain researchers—spurred by the calls for greater attention to sex/gender differences in all areas of biomedical research—had begun exploring differences in pain perception between men and women. The research suggested that women tend to be more sensitive to pain and/or more likely to report it. Given that, they wrote, “it seems appropriate that they be treated at least as thoroughly as men and that their reports of pain be taken seriously.” At the very least, they shouldn’t get less treatment. “The data do not indicate that this is the case. Women who seek help are less likely than men to be taken seriously when they report pain and are less likely to have their pain adequately treated.” They considered various potential reasons for this bias, ultimately concluding that the main one was that women’s complaints of pain are less likely to be trusted. “The subjective nature of pain requires health care providers to view the patient as a credible reporter,” and women are “more likely to have their pain reports discounted as ‘emotional’ or ‘psychogenic’ and, therefore, ‘not real,’” they wrote. “These biases have led health-care providers to discount women’s self reports of pain at least until there is objective evidence for the pain’s cause. Medicine’s focus on objective factors and its cultural stereotypes of women combine insidiously, leaving women at greater risk for inadequate pain relief and continued suffering.”