Throughout the history of the American healthcare system, women have been mistreated, misdiagnosed, and dismissed. Medicine has been made by men, for men. Medical misogyny is a systemic, and largely unrecognized discrimination against women. Medical research is often overwhelmed with a bias towards males. Their health is considered a priority, even within the field of gynecology. Historically, women’s pain has been mislabeled either as illegitimate or psychological in nature.
Historically, one of the more commonly treated diagnoses among women was “hysteria.” The uterus was thought to be a source of many medical issues. Symptoms of hysteria included intense and immoderate emotionality, along with an increase or decrease in sex drive. The treatments used and recommended to women were to orgasm as well as to have sexual relations with a man specifically. This was believed to dispel some of the fluid built up within a woman’s uterus, thought to cause the hysteria itself.
Considering self-pleasure was and is still a taboo topic for women to openly discuss, marriage was a recommended form of treatment for hysteria in women because of the implications that women need men to be sexual.
This psychological disorder was promoted and “researched” by Sigmund Freud, known as the grandfather of psychology. He believed that because women lacked a penis, they were missing a crucial part of their body that was necessary for normal psychological functioning, implying that marriage was the key. This is one example of the male-centered medical practices within our healthcare system. There is a general lack of knowledge mixed with an abundance of misinformation when it comes to women’s medical problems.
In the present day, women still struggle to gain adequate care, often left unsatisfied, violated, or helpless.
Women have been seen as those who can endure tremendous pain because of the almost barbaric nature of childbirth, along with the painful struggles of a monthly period. This notion, as well as general disparities in the treatment of men and women in the healthcare system, often lack proper pain management during certain medical procedures.
For example, a common procedure performed is the placement of an intrauterine device (IUD) as a form of birth control. The device is inserted through the vagina into the uterus; this process is extremely painful, a pain that most women wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies. The only forms of pain management commonly available for this procedure are usually an 800mg Ibuprofen, along with some sort of muscle relaxer or an anti-anxiety medication.
Nitrous oxide can also be provided, but it only calms the patient rather than relieving their pain. There are options offering sedation during this procedure, but it adds an extra expense that many women cannot afford.
Along with a lack of proper pain management during certain procedures, women also have to endure the psychological pain of being dismissed and overlooked by those in the medical field who have been trusted to uphold their oath and advocate for their patients.
An instance in which this dismissal of women’s health concerns occurs is often during a heart attack. Because the medical system is dominated by males and the main concern is men’s health, the symptoms women experience during heart attacks or cardiac episodes are often overlooked. Women often present with symptoms such as nausea, fatigue, stomach pain, shortness of breath, etc. These are quite different from the commonly known heart attack symptoms, which happen to be those of men. These include chest pain, traveling down the left side of the body, usually the left arm. This is the most accepted form of a heart attack known to the general public.
Many women themselves don’t have the prior knowledge to understand what is happening to their bodies when experiencing a heart attack or any form of cardiac distress. Their health is not a priority, making women over 65 the main victims of deadly heart attacks.
Though women are expected to take a world of pain, they are still seen as the weaker gender, their pain being laughed at by the healthcare system.
Women are perceived as those who complain and nag, being labeled as whiny when they worry about valid health concerns. Doctors, those who are supposed to heal, are sometimes unaware of the fact that their treatment towards women is indicative of a larger problem of medical misogyny.
When diving deeper into specific demographics of women and their lack of proper care from the healthcare system, one can see that women of color are affected by medical misogyny at an even greater rate. Women of color specifically experience intersecting forms of systemic discrimination. Black women are twice as likely to die during childbirth compared to their white counterparts. Black women in America have historically been greatly mistreated in the medical field.
While experiencing slavery, Black women were subjected to physical and mental torture in the forms of rape, forced pregnancy, forced medical procedures in which there is no sedation, among many other atrocities committed by white slave owners throughout this time period. Many white people at the time believed that black women didn’t feel pain or could handle intense amounts of pain, this was the reasoning used to perform such acts on Black women. This discriminatory treatment evolved over time.
During the crack epidemic in the 80s and 90s, black women were assumed to be on crack, with virtually no advocacy within the medical system, a tremendous amount of blame was rolled onto Black women and specifically Black mothers. The term “crack baby” (a baby who has been exposed to crack cocaine in the womb) was coined and used during this time to put Black women into a specific box as mothers, as people. Medical professionals evaluate their life’s circumstances with the notion that they know what may be going on but never actually caring because of deeply racist, stereotypical ways of thinking. There was and still is a general denial of Black women’s pain by the medical system.
The sheer amount of misogyny embedded into the American Healthcare system is overwhelming. With the introduction of more women into the medical field, there is more patient advocacy for women, but there is still an overall lack of understanding when it comes to women’s health as compared to men’s. Women still fight to be heard by medical professionals which they are expected to trust, though the system does not have their best interests in mind. It isn’t until women are seen as just as important as men’s, that real change will come about.
Katie Phucas is a sophomore Individualized Studies major at UMBC, and an Opinions reporter for The Retriever.
Contact Katie at kphucas1@umbc.edu