The neglect of women in the medical industry

 

Hello my darling readers.

It’s time again, I’m posting.

On today’s chapter of what will Riya be voicing, we are going to discuss the neglect of the medical industry towards women, their attitudes, and their inability to provide holistic care.

I want to start off with a not-so-fun fact.

There are more medical studies regarding erectile dysfunction than the whole of women’s health.

Yes, it’s true. Erectile dysfunction, which affects around 70% of men over the age of 70, and only about 18–20% of men above 20, has more studies than the whole of women’s health. Including PMS, which affects about 90% of all women, from when you first start getting your cycles (average age 11) until the menopause at around age 50.

In a 5:1 ratio. ED is five times more researched than PMS.

Which brings me to my main point of today: for a long time, women have been underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, under-researched, and often dismissed by medical professionals. This gender bias is so deep-rooted that it is a medical crisis at this point.

Historically, male researchers believed that female hormones “messed up” the results of any medical research tests. So, they only studied men, carried out testing on male participants — and then applied the findings of these tests to everyone.

This meant that for decades, most of what is taught to medical professionals, and even the general public, about how certain diseases occur, how they symptomatically manifest, and how to cure them, have all been based on the physiology of men. Even today, there is a severe deficit in research regarding female reproductive diseases, such as PCOS, endometriosis, uterine fibroids etc. And this is so critical, as so many women are affected by these issues, and without the knowledge of how to accurately diagnose, manage and treat them, women are being overlooked.

Take, for example, Naga Munchetty. Fairly recently, the well-known BBC presenter opened up about her diagnosis of adenomyosis - occurs when the tissue that normally lines the uterus (endometrial tissue) grows into the muscular wall of the uterus. She spoke about being screaming in pain for over 45 minutes, passing out, vomiting, unable to function — yet for decades, her pain was dismissed. Doctors told her it was “just heavy periods” , that she "was unlucky", that she should “take paracetamol.” Only when she reached breaking point did she finally receive answers.

It took her 32 years to be diagnosed.

32 years.

Let that sink in.

32 years of horrific pain, of heavy bleeding and unfathomable symptoms that made her life hell. 

And what's even more upsetting is that her story isn’t unique. It is so painfully ubiquitous.(1 in 5 women experience Adenomyosis, 1 in 10 experience Endometriosis, and 1 in 8 experience PCOS - and they all take years to diagnose). And this illustrates exactly what I mean: the system normalises women’s suffering, trivialises our pain, and gaslights us into thinking it’s something we should simply endure. 

We must stop the normalisation of the notion that pain is a regular occurrence for women. Many doctors dismiss female pain and symptoms as “just” their menstrual cycles, or anxiety, or convince them that it’s all in their heads. They may try to placate us by saying “go on the pill,” but this is crucially ignoring the main issue.

And it’s not just about reproductive health either. Did you know that women are 50% more likely than men to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack? Because, again, the “classic symptoms” we’re taught about are male symptoms - crushing chest pain, shooting pain in the left arm. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to experience nausea, back pain, fatigue, or shortness of breath. But because these don’t fit the male template, they are dismissed, misinterpreted, or catastrophically missed until it’s too late.

This is what we mean when we say the system wasn’t built for us. Medicine is supposed to be universal -  but if half the population is left out of the research, ignored in diagnosis, and dismissed in treatment, then it’s not universal at all. It’s patriarchal. It’s negligent. And it’s costing lives.

So where do we go from here? We demand change. We demand research that reflects women’s realities. We demand medical education that doesn’t erase half the population. We demand that doctors listen when women say they are in pain - and treat that pain as real, not as an inconvenience or exaggeration.

Because women’s health is not a niche. It is not 'too complicated to diagnose and treat'. It is half of the population, and ignoring us is not just negligent, it’s dangerous.

Until medicine stops centring the male body as the default, women will keep suffering, and dying unnecessarily. That is unacceptable. And it's on all of us - patients, practitioners, policymakers - to keep raising our voices until we have a system that recognises us, and gives us the due care that we deserve.

Our pain is real. Our health matters. And we will not be silenced.

Thanks for reading.

All my love and rage,

The Pissed-off Patient. xo