More than four in five (84%) women in the UK say that they are not listened to by healthcare professionals. From period pain dismissed as “normal” to long waits for diagnosis of conditions like endometriosis and PCOS, many women describe the system that too often overlooks their pain.
The gender health gap in the UK remains a big issue. Women often receive worse medical care than men. Doctors are less likely to take their symptoms seriously. They are also more likely to ignore their pain and misdiagnose them. Too often, medical professionals see women’s pain as emotional or psychological rather than biological.
The new national research from TFP Fertility found that signs like irregular periods, heavy bleeding and painful cycles are often dismissed as side effects of the pill or other contraceptives, allowing serious conditions to go unnoticed.
Dr Justin Chu, medical director at TFP Fertility, said, “These findings just show how far we still have to go in raising awareness of gynaecological conditions like PCOS and endometriosis. Too often, symptoms are overlooked or misunderstood, with women left waiting years for answers.”
Most women with PCOS are diagnosed between 18 and 34 (84%), yet for endometriosis, almost a third (29%) weren’t diagnosed until after the age of 35. For many, that means years of pain, difficulty living a normal life and uncertainty about their chances of starting a family.
Why is there a gender health gap?
For centuries, women had few or no human rights. Women couldn’t own land, property, or money, not even their own bodies. Society saw them as smaller and fragile versions of men.
Doctors viewed women’s bodies as atypical and men’s bodies as the norm. That’s why they focused most of their studies on men, leaving women excluded.
As Elinor Cleghorn explores in her book Unwell Women, doctors historically blamed women’s illnesses on the uterus and defined their health entirely by their reproductive capacity. Since society saw women’s sole purpose as bearing and raising children, they judged their health through this lens. Medical professionals would dismiss illnesses if women had no children or weren’t sexually active.
These beliefs gave rise to a system of social control over women’s bodies. Women had little power to challenge these ideas, as there was no other research.
Why are women still under-researched?
Even today, these misconceptions shape modern medicine. Scientists still study women less than men because they avoid researching the variability caused by women’s hormonal cycles and biological differences.
Another reason is that too few women hold positions of power. In the life sciences industry, women make up only 14% of board-level positions. Health issues, such as menopause or other conditions, often lead older women to resign from leadership positions or reduce their working hours. Without women in power, women’s issues receive less attention, which in turn limits research.
The thalidomide tragedy in 1962 made things worse for women’s research. Thalidomide, a drug prescribed for morning sickness at the time, caused babies to be born with severe deformities when taken by pregnant women. This led the Food and Drug Administration to ban women of childbearing age from early clinical trials. The intent was protection but resulted in decades of exclusion.
As a result, healthcare providers do not put enough focus on specific women’s issues like miscarriages, menopause and menstrual pain. One in ten women worldwide will be affected by miscarriage, and many will never know why.
Even the conditions that affect both men and women are often studied primarily in men. For example, women are 50% more likely to receive the wrong initial diagnosis for a heart attack.
What can be done?
First step to close the gender health gap is to normalise talking about women’s health. Many women are often afraid to raise concerns over their health because they are ashamed or afraid that healthcare professionals will dismiss them.
Second, medical education needs to improve. From the 2024/2025 academic year, medical schools will require students to take a course specifically about women’s health. It will be a more expanded and structured curriculum to address previous shortcomings in women’s care.
Third, the government should increase funding to support more research on conditions that affect women and ensure that women have access to the right healthcare services. Currently, only 2% of overall public research funding is going to reproductive health and childbirth.
Finally, we need to talk about women’s health as a whole, not only in relation to childbirth. Women’s health is not only about reproduction; it is about overall well-being. Recent findings show that women outlive men but spend more years in poor health. We shouldn’t accept this as normal.
Conclusion
Real change will only come if more people start addressing these issues and stop overlooking women’s needs. Society often assumes that gender inequality is a thing of the past. However, the reality is that we still have a long way to go to recognise and resolve many challenges that women face today.
Sources and Further Readings
For more information about TFP Fertility and its support for women with PCOS, please visit: https://tfp-fertility.com/en-gb/fertility-guides/pcos-and-fertility
For more information on how healthcare and research are failing women, visit: https://acmedsci.ac.uk/more/news/a-mans-world-how-healthcare-and-research-is-failing-women
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First year Journalism student