How much pain is ‘normal’ for a person to have to endure? For women, that normal is often more than for a man
COMMENT
There’s a flaw in the healthcare system and it’s having dire consequences for women. It’s the fact that pain in women is more poorly understood, compared to pain in men and is thus mistreated. It’s known as the gender pain gap, and it’s widening. A recent report by Nurofen showed that in 2023, 11 per cent more women than men felt their pain had been ignored or dismissed, compared to 7 per cent in 2022.
The report surveyed more than 5,000 people, with a near 50:50 split between men and women. It found that it takes UK women longer than men to receive a medical diagnosis for the same types of pain. 47 per cent of women surveyed received a diagnosis within 11 months, compared to 66 per cent of men.
Additionally, more women than men (14 per cent vs 9 per cent) still didn’t have a diagnosis for their pain after 12 months or longer. And a third of women felt the delay in diagnosis was because they were not listened to, or taken seriously by their healthcare professionals, or, worse still, completely dismissed.
Similarly, in a survey of over 110,000 women taken in 2021 for the Government’s Women’s Health Strategy, 50 per cent of women felt their pain was ignored and/or dismissed. This dismissal was often coupled with being told that certain symptoms should be accepted as inherent to being a woman, and therefore didn’t require treatment. This was particularly prevalent in relation to menstrual health.
Dr Marieke Bigg, sociologist and author of This Won’t Hurt: How Medicine Fails Women says: “… healthcare professionals continually misattribute women’s symptoms to stress or ‘hormones’, while men are more likely to be sent for a physical check – even when complaining of the same type of pain. Over time, this has led to women’s pain being overlooked, resulting in a gender pain gap. Women are waiting longer to get a diagnosis for their pain, and don’t feel empowered to push for the support they need. This is unacceptable.”
Often, we hear that women are told their pain ‘is normal for a woman’. The issue here is that ‘normal’ makes the woman feel it’s acceptable to have and feel the pain, and that there’s nothing wrong. Therefore there’s nothing to be done about it, nor scope to improve it.
But in fact, instead of normal, healthcare p
