The Gender Pain Gap: Real Pain, Real Ignorance

We live in a world where medicine boasts cutting-edge technology, robot-assisted surgeries and AI diagnostics – yet, if you're a woman in pain, you're still more likely to be told it's “just anxiety”, “stress”, or “your period.” For decades, women have reported being dismissed, misdiagnosed or outright ignored when they describe their pain. This disparity has a name: The Gender Pain Gap.

Despite growing awareness, the issue remains deeply embedded in both healthcare systems and cultural attitudes. This blog will explore the roots of the gender pain gap, examine the hard data, discuss its consequences and make the case for why women – particularly those with chronic pain – need and deserve to be believed.

What is the Gender Pain Gap?

The gender pain gap refers to the systematic difference in how men and women's pain is perceived, diagnosed and treated by medical professionals. At its core, it's about bias – unconscious or otherwise – that leads to women's symptoms being taken less seriously, especially when they are not visible or easily explained.

Key Stats That Prove the Gap is Real:

• 2019 review in the journal Pain found that women are less likely to receive pain medication than men and when they do, they wait longer for it.

• In emergency departments, women with abdominal pain wait an average of 33% longer than men to receive analgesia, according to a 2008 study published in Academic Emergency Medicine.

• A UK study from the charity Endometriosis UK revealed that women wait an average of 8 years for a diagnosis of endometriosis – a debilitating condition that affects 1 in 10 women.

• Women are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health issues like depression or anxiety when reporting chronic pain, even in the absence of other psychiatric symptoms.

These statistics aren't just numbers. They represent REAL PEOPLE – many of whom suffer in silence or spend years navigating a healthcare system that is sceptical of their experiences.

Where does this Bias come from?

Medical Research has focused on MALE BODIES – For much of modern medical history, clinical trials were conducted almost exclusively on male participants. The assumption was that male biology represented the “default” and any variation (i.e.: female biology) was too complex or unstable due to hormonal cycle. This exclusion has created a massive gap in understanding how diseases manifest differently in women. According to a 2020 report by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), many conditions – including heart disease, autoimmune disorders and chronic pain syndromes – are UNDER-RESEARCHED IN WOMEN.

Women are Socialised to Minimise Pain – Cultural expectations often teach women to 'push through' the pain or dismiss their symptoms as normal. From painful periods to post-partum recovery, society frequently downplays female pain as something to be endured. This normalisation leads many women to delay seeking help and, when they do, they're MET WITH DISBELIEF OR CONDESCENSION.

Gendered Stereotypes in Healthcare – Too often, healthcare providers interpret women's pain through the lens of emotion. Women are more likely to be told their pain is psychosomatic, stress-related, or the result of hormones. The infamous diagnosis of “hysteria” may have faded from the textbooks, but its legacy lingers. A 2022 study in the The Lancet Psychiatry found that doctors are TWICE AS LIEKLY to refer women with chronic pain to a psychiatrist than men with the same symptoms – even when no mental health history is present.

Chronic Pain and Women: A Hidden Epidemic

The Gender Pain Gap is especially devastating for women with chronic pain conditions, many of which disproportionately affect women.

Examples include:

• Fibromyalgia: 80%-90% of sufferers are women, yet it remains widely misunderstood and stigmatised.

• Endometriosis: Affects 1 in 10 women, yet often takes nearly a decade to diagnose.

• Interstitial Cystitis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Autoimmune Disorders like Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis – all are more common in women and notoriously hard to diagnose.

Many of these conditions are INVISIBLE DISEASES – lacking obvious external symptoms, abnormal test results or easy treatments. As a result, women often endure years of being gaslit by healthcare professionals.

Real Stories, Real Pain

Every woman with chronic pain has a story and it often begins with being ignored.

• A 34 year-old woman with endometriosis recounts being told by her GP that “period pain is normal” - despite vomiting from the pain every month. She had to have emergency surgery which has resulted in one ovary being removed and losing ½ of the other. This lady is my friend.

• A teenager with autoimmune symptoms (including chronic joint pain) was told she was “just stressed” and prescribed antidepressants and told to exercise. It took six years before she was diagnosed with Lupus. This was my schoolmate.

• A 25 year-old woman spent 4 years in pain whenever she ate and was told by her GP that “it's just anxiety.” She was recently diagnosed with Coeliacs disease. This lady is my sister.

• A 10 year old girl presented to her GP with painful lumps on her skin and continuous headaches. She was told that to “wash more” and “lose some weight.” After 6 years, she was diagnosed with a chronic, painful skin condition and, after 11 years, was diagnosed with a dangerous pressure build-up of cerebral spinal fluid which, if left unchecked for any longer, could have rendered her blind in just under ONE YEAR. This lady is me.

These aren't rare cases. THEY'RE ROUTINE! And they point to a culture that still sees women's bodies as unreliable narrators.

Final Thoughts: It's Not in Our Heads – It's In Our Bodies

As someone living with 3 chronic pain conditions, I don't need statistics to know the gender pain gap is real – I LIVE IT.

I've sat in countless appointments trying to explain symptoms that no one seems to take seriously. I've been told to “relax”, “give it time”, “lose some weight” and yes, the gold old “maybe it's just your period.” I've watched male counterparts get blood tests, scans and referrals, while I've been handed leaflets about mindfulness and sent home.

The worst part? You start to doubt yourself You begin to internalise the idea that maybe it is all in your head. Hat gaslighting – whether intentional or not – is psychologically devastating. We need a seismic shift in how we approach pain in women. That starts with:

• Believing women when they say they're in pain.

• Investing in female-scientific medical research.

• Training healthcare professionals to identify their own biases.

• Listening, with empathy and without assumption.

  
  

Pain is not a character flaw. It's not a mood. And it's certainly not something to be brushed off with the lazy scapegoats of hormones, mental health or “women's issues.” Women's bodies are NOT MYSTERIOUS. They are NOT UNRELIABLE. THEY ARE NOT AFTERHTOUGHTS. They are worthy of care, compassion and medical credibility.

It's time we closed the gap – because every woman deserves to be heard, treated and healed.

References

BBC Future – Pain Bias: The Health Inequality Rarely Discussed - https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20180518-the-inequality-in-how-women-are-treated-for-pain

British Medical Journal (BMJ) – Women still missing out on treatment for their no.1 killer, cardiovascular disease - https://bmjgroup.com/women-still-missing-out-on-treatment-for-their-no-1-killer-cardiovascular-disease/

Endometriosis UK - “Dismissed, Ignored and Belittled”. The long road to endometriosis diagnosis in the UK - https://www.endometriosis-uk.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/Endometriosis%20UK%20diagnosis%20survey%202023%20report%20March.pdf

National Library of Medicine – Gender Disparity in Analgesic Treatment of Emergency Department Patients with Acute Abdominal Pain - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18439195/#:~:text=The%20main%20outcome%20measures%20were,administration%20may%20ameliorate%20this%20discrepancy.

National Library of Medicine – Physical Symptoms as Psychiatric Manifestations in Medical Spaces: A Aualitative Study - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9845882/