What is the gender health gap?
The gender health gap is the concept that arose because of the issues women face when society does not consider gender and sex differences in healthcare. Physicians then miss or improperly diagnose illness because the symptoms differ from those of men. This bias also translates to screening for mental illness. It seems gender does not just affect our wage and relationships, but our health. 74% of women have reported feeling like they were overreacting when seeking medical attention and that many women delayed seeking attention because of this. On average, women wait longer for cancer diagnosis. In the UK alone, over the past 10 years, 8000 women have died due to misdiagnosis and unequal care of heart disease. The study did not include hospital admissions, so it is estimated that the number is much higher. Learning from male bodies is still the default in medical education and subjects in medical trials are historically more likely to be men. The medical research council (MRG) who fund and organise medical research in the UK have stated they “are yet to produce guidelines on study design relating to the sex and gender of participants in clinical trials and studies. There are also drugs that are not tested on/under tested on women and therefore lead to being either ineffective or causing dangerous side effects.
Examples and Testimonies
In many cases, women have been told they were having a panic attack, when in fact they had had a seizure Becca Fowles spent 12 years going from doctor to doctor, complain- ing about the excruciating pain she experienced. She was prescribed several contraceptive pills. After being gaslit into self-diagnosing herself as a hypochondriac, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, but was kept being told she was not in enough pain for surgery. To this day, she is still awaiting further surgery.
She’s heard them so many times before. She’s left this room – and others like it – knowing that there is something deeply wrong with her. She feels it in her every movement, through- out her whole body. But mostly she feels it deep in her gut. She’s terrified because no one believes her. She’d hoped that this time, finally, she wouldn’t leave defeated. So she tries again as the doctor’s eyes dart to her watch. “This is not normal,” Catherine pleads. “I promise, something isn’t right.” Pausing, the doctor leans forward in her chair and asks "do you think you might just be a bit stressed?".
