Growing up we were under the impression that getting kicked in the balls was the worst pain someone could feel; until we went through puberty and experienced the feeling of our abdomen being stabbed and squeezed for a week straight.
Most women at some point will experience prolonged pain. Yet, somewhere along the line, women were taught to experience their pain in silence because women should never be “too loud.”
Despite the silence, there are more instances for women to experience pain including menstruation, menopause, childbirth and chronic pain. However, pain studies and research continue to be built around men.
According to Science Direct, a study conducted in 2022 revealed that women remain the minority gender in clinical trials, yet many conditions more intensely affect women. So why are women repeatedly excluded from the conversation?
The answer is simple: Researchers decided that women’s bodies were too complicated and less important than men’s bodies.
Historically, the hormonal fluctuations of women are viewed as more unpredictable than men’s. Women operate on a 28-day hormonal cycle, while men follow a 24-hour cycle. Women will experience drops in estrogen followed by rises of testosterone and progesterone, while men only have daily fluctuations of testosterone. This means that men will, hormonally speaking, feel more consistent physically than women.
Pain sensitivity and reception is heavily impacted by hormones, making women respond to pain and process it differently. Because of this, women are apt to vocalize discomfort, ultimately leading to being stereotyped as “whiny.”
Due to this stereotype, women are often taken less seriously as medical professionals often believe they are overexaggerating. Women seeking treatment for pain wait 30 minutes longer in emergency departments than men, according to a recent study published on pnas.org.
Not only is women’s pain taken less seriously, they also experience pain more often. Women are more likely to experience chronic pain conditions compared to men and frequently report more severe pain. Migraines, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid and osteoarthritis and irritable bowel syndrome are just a few of the pains that women experience more intensely than men.
Additionally, from the time they are teenagers, women are told if they do not want to experience the cramps of menstruation or the potential of child-birth to go on birth control. This, however, presents a new set of challenges.
If a woman does not want to worry about taking a contraceptive pill daily, they must bear the pain of Intrauterine Device insertion — a small T-shaped type of birth control that is inserted through the vagina and cervix into the uterus — with no pain relief apart from Advil. On the other hand, when receiving a vasectomy, a minimally invasive procedure, men are provided with anesthetics. According to the National Library of Medicine, 49 percent of women report experiencing intense amounts of pain during IUD insertion.
As women, we have decided that remaining loud and speaking out about our pain is the only way to ensure that it stays heard. Instead of waiting for the medical field to catch up, we as women must stay informed. Understanding that our pain is scientifically not just us “being dramatic,” we can form better relationships with our bodies and coping techniques.
Growing up we didn’t realize that in a world driven by scientific achievement and advancement, a woman’s body would be the last thing left to be researched and understood.
As we witness all of the amazing advancements in technology and medicine, we must remember the most valuable research done for women’s pain management is yet to exist.