Women have always and will always make up half of the human population. No community can exist without women for more than a single generation. Yet men’s health conditions are continually and institutionally prioritised at the expense of women’s healthcare. But how does this disparity operate in the medical world?
Research concerning male pattern baldness, a condition which is not painful for the vast majority of men affected, receives up to five times more funding than research into endometriosis, a severely painful reproductive condition that impacts one in ten women in the UK.
Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons (Infographic from the National Institute for Health and Care Research)
The implications of this are worrying. Despite reproductive health conditions being highly prevalent, accessing diagnosis and treatment from the NHS can take years and, in the meantime, women suffering from constant pain and discomfort are given conflicting messages about how to manage their symptoms in daily life. A 2024 report from the Women and Equalities Committee claims that primary healthcare practitioners lack “awareness and understanding of women’s reproductive health conditions.” Fortunately, this is set to change, with mandatory teaching and assessment about women’s health, including on topics such as menopause, recently included in UK medical degrees.
But are these changes too little, too late? In recent years, waiting lists for gynaecological care have risen faster than waiting lists in any other speciality in the NHS. Whilst this could be caused by women and girls having increased access to information about reproductive health conditions and their symptoms online; it is highly likely that this backlog is a result of a medical misunderstanding around women’s health. Often, women are told by medical professionals that the extreme pain they are experiencing is normal, which leads to them being left undiagnosed and continuing their attempts to seek healthcare. Arguably, these waiting lists could be prevented if medical professionals listened to and believed these women in the first place.
Waiting lists have also caused an increased class disparity in accessing care, as increasing numbers of women are turning to private healthcare practitioners to avoid them. Whilst this is completely understandable, if it continues to happen on a large scale it risks making the situation worse for women who can’t fork out for private diagnosis and treatment by reducing demand for adequate NHS resources.
“Progress is needed because, ultimately, creating more gender equality within healthcare doesn’t solely benefit women; it benefits everyone and anyone who lives in a world where women exist.”
The neglect of women’s healthcare is not solely confined to women’s reproductive health. It also extends to general health conditions that can affect women either disproportionately or differently to men. For example, women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack, due to a lack of understanding of how symptoms differ across the sexes. Furthermore, women are underrepresented in medical trials in the UK. Whilst 90% of trials include both sexes, there are 67% more male-only trials than women-only trials. This is a concerning discrepancy since there are not more male-only diseases than female-only diseases to justify it, and it leaves women and their doctors with a lack of knowledge about how certain diseases, conditions and drugs might affect them.
What is particularly concerning is the lack of knowledge about how diseases, conditions and drugs might affect pregnant and breastfeeding women since they are only included in 1.1% and 0.6% of trials, respectively. Whilst there are valid ethical concerns about including these women in medical trials, collecting this data is necessary so that the medical profession better understands how women are likely to react to specific conditions and treatments at different stages of their lives.
Progress is needed because, ultimately, creating more gender equality within healthcare doesn’t solely benefit women; it benefits everyone and anyone who lives in a world where women exist.
