Medical Misogyny

Medical misogyny remains one of the most persistent and damaging forms of bias within healthcare, and it is so often normalised. It appears in the minimisation of pain, in the assumption that women and girls are exaggerating, in the tendency to attribute complex symptoms to stress, hormones, weight, or emotion before proper investigation has taken place. It is reinforced by a medical culture that has historically treated male bodies as the default, leaving women’s symptoms more likely to be misunderstood, delayed, or dismissed altogether.

The consequences are measured in years of unnecessary suffering, in missed diagnoses, in preventable deterioration, and, in the most serious cases, in lives lost.

This is particularly evident in conditions that affect women’s reproductive health, where pain is frequently normalised and where the threshold for concern is often set far too high. Endometriosis is one such condition. It is common, debilitating, and still widely under-recognised, despite the profound impact it can have on physical health, mental wellbeing, fertility, work, relationships, and daily functioning. For lots of people, the path to diagnosis is long and marked by repeated encounters with disbelief.

Symptoms are often present for years before they are taken seriously, and even then, diagnosis does not necessarily lead to meaningful treatment.

I was twenty-eight when I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis, after years of symptoms that had been reshaping my life in ways I did not yet fully understand. Even then, the diagnosis did not bring immediate clarity or a clear route to effective care. It provided a name for what I had been experiencing, but not an end to the uncertainty. Now, at forty, I am still navigating that same terrain, still advocating, still asking for care that addresses the disease itself rather than merely asking me to endure it.

Over the years, I have been told, in various forms and tones, to lose weight, to take the pill, to manage the pain.

These suggestions have often been offered as though they were sufficient responses, when in reality they have functioned more as deflections than solutions. At my most recent appointment, I was told that I might simply be “sensitive to my hormones”, a phrase that carried with it both dismissal and a kind of clinical vagueness that left little room for meaningful discussion. When I asked about actual management of the disease, about what could be done beyond pain relief, I was met with confusion, as though I had asked for something unreasonable rather than something entirely appropriate.

There have been moments that feel almost surreal in their disconnect from the reality of living with this condition. Being told that period cramps are normal while lying on the floor, vomiting and haemorrhaging after a cyst had burst, is one such moment. It is difficult to reconcile experiences like that with the expectation that one should trust the system without question, particularly when the body is communicating distress so clearly and urgently. The gap between what is experienced and what is acknowledged can be vast, and that gap itself becomes part of the harm.

It would be incomplete, and unfair, to speak only of dismissal. I have also received care through the NHS that has been excellent, compassionate, and deeply kind. There have been clinicians who have listened carefully, who have taken my symptoms seriously, who have treated me with dignity and patience, and who have offered support that felt both skilled and genuinely caring. Those experiences matter. and they should not be overlooked simply because the system as a whole remains uneven. Good care exists, and it deserves recognition, because it demonstrates what is possible when people are met with attention rather than assumption.

What becomes clear when these experiences are held together is that the issue is not simply individual, but systemic.

Medical misogyny is embedded in the structures, habits, and assumptions of healthcare itself.

It is present in the research that has historically prioritised male bodies, in the clinical training that has too often treated women’s pain as less urgent, and in the cultural narratives that frame women as more emotional, more anxious, or less reliable narrators of their own symptoms. These patterns do not arise in isolation. They are shaped by a wider patriarchal society that has long taught women to accommodate discomfort, to be grateful for partial answers, and to doubt themselves before doubting the system.

The consequences are serious. Women are more likely than men to have certain conditions missed or misdiagnosed, particularly where symptoms present differently from the male norm on which much medical research has been based. Cardiac symptoms are one well-known example, but the pattern extends far beyond that.

When the default model of illness is male, women’s bodies become deviations rather than standards in their own right, and that has real implications for diagnosis, treatment, and survival.

In obstetrics and gynaecology, the failings can be especially stark. Conditions that profoundly affect quality of life are often under-researched, underfunded, and under-prioritised. Painful periods are frequently dismissed as an inevitable part of being AFAB, rather than investigated as potential indicators of underlying disease. Symptoms are normalised until they become impossible to ignore, by which point the person experiencing them may already have endured years of unnecessary suffering. This can mean growing up with the message that pain is simply something to tolerate, rather than something that deserves care.

The emotional impact of this is considerable. To repeatedly seek help and not be believed can erode trust in healthcare, but it can also erode trust in one’s own perceptions. Over time, people begin to question whether they are overreacting, whether they are being difficult, whether their pain is somehow less legitimate than they know it to be. That internal conflict is part of the injury, it shapes how people present themselves in appointments, how much they disclose, how long they wait before seeking help again.

There are, however, reasons for hope. Conversations about medical misogyny are becoming more visible, and more people are naming what has long been minimised. Patients are sharing their experiences with increasing clarity, refusing to accept dismissal as normal. Healthcare professionals are challenging outdated assumptions, advocating for better research, and pushing for more equitable care. There is growing recognition that women’s health has been neglected for too long, and that this neglect is neither inevitable nor acceptable.

My own experience sits within that wider landscape. It is one thread among many, shaped by both care and dismissal. There is anger in, and there should be, but there is also determination and hope. Change does not happen without pressure, and without people naming what is wrong with enough clarity that it can no longer be ignored.

I hold hope in the possibility of a healthcare system that takes women’s pain seriously from the outset, that does not require suffering to become extreme before it is acknowledged, and that invests properly in understanding conditions which have been neglected for far too long. I hold hope in the clinicians who already practise with care and integrity, and in the patients who continue to speak, to challenge, and to demand better.

We deserve a system that does not ask us to prove our suffering before it responds to it. We deserve care that seeks to reduce pain, and most importantly, to understand it.