Despite the sexism in medicine, women still live longer than men. A girl born today can reasonably expect to live to 100. Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
What you probably already know: It’s no secret that there’s sexism in medicine. Female “hysteria” was a regularly diagnosed condition until 1980 and medications are frequently not tested on women or even female rats because hormone changes make it more difficult. From 1996 to 2006, more than 79% of all the animal studies published in the medical journal Pain only used male subjects, according to Cat Bohannon, author of the book Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. A recent symposium on women’s health at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study took a deep dive into these issues and presented solutions.
Why? Women’s health issues are often considered “atypical” even when they impact more than 50% of the population, said keynote speaker Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a breast cancer specialist and author who has studied health disparities among women. For instance, heart attack symptoms common among women such as jaw pain and indigestion are characterized as atypical, while symptoms including arm numbness and chest pain common among men are considered standard. That can lead to misdiagnosis. Women are told they have anxiety or simple digestive issues, and sent home without treatment. Meanwhile, heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the U.S.
What it means: Despite the lack of medical research and misdiagnoses, women globally still live longer on average than men. A girl born today can expect to live to 100, according to Deborah Kado, professor of medicine and chief of geriatric research at Stanford University School of Medicine. That said, women often have up to 15 years at the end of their lives where they live in poor health and often also in poverty. A study published in the National Library of Medicine found that women are often alone at the end of their lives after having “expended much time, energy and resources to care for spouses and help them have a good death, leaving these women without a spouse and with fewer resources as they approached death.”
What happens now? There’s a groundswell of support for research into women’s health as more women pursue careers in scientific research and medicine, and as pharmaceutical companies identify an untapped market for new medications. The Trump Administration’s cuts to research, however, could stall some of that work. However, the momentum will be hard to stop, especially as commercial entities see opportunities to develop a larger customer base.
