As James Brown once said, “It’s a man’s world”, yet women make up more than half of the population. So why are we consistently treated like an afterthought?
The short answer: the patriarchy.
The long answer: For millennia, men believed women were biologically, spiritually, and culturally inferior to them. Now, even though women hold more degreesown more houses, and could crash the economy overnight, old power structures die hard.
Nearly every institution in our culture prioritizes men over women, and nowhere is this bias more obvious than in our medical system.
Women born in the 50s, 60s & 70s had to deal with these offensive realities Gen Z can’t imagine:
Here are a few insane facts about women’s health that sound fake, but aren’t:
1. Medical research ignored women until 1993
Throughout history, the vast majority of our medical research has been performed on men, for the benefit of men.
Scientists weren’t legally required to include women in clinical trials until 1993. Before that, female bodies were largely excluded from studies because our hormones made the data “too variable.” (Even in animal studies, researchers overwhelmingly use male rats.)
Now, almost all of our treatment guidelines, safety data, symptom checklists, dosing information, prescription protocols, lab ranges, ideal body compositions, and medical guidelines are calibrated for the male body.
That’s why men receive accurate diagnoses an average of four years earlier than women, and women are up to 70% more likely to experience adverse reactions from prescription drugs.
2. Surgeons get paid more to work on men
Tyler Olson | Shutterstock
If you’ve ever suspected that the medical system values men’s bodies more than women’s, now we have concrete monetary proof.
A 2025 study called “Price and Prejudice” compared medical reimbursements for 55 equivalent procedures. On average, surgeries performed on men paid 30 to 50% more than surgeries performed on women.
In other words, even when the procedures are exactly the same, surgeons get paid more when working on male bodies.
3. Doctors think IUDs hurt half as much as they do
When I got my IUD put inI read all the pamphlets and asked all the questions, including “Will this hurt?” My male gyno said no; I shouldn’t even bother taking an Advil.
He had to dilate me twice. It was easily the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life and I later found out that for some, IUD insertion hurts as much as childbirth.
When researchers compared how much pain patients felt during IUD insertion to how much pain their providers thought they felt, patients rated their peak pain at roughly 65 out of 100. Providers rated it at 35. Translation: Doctors underestimated their patients’ pain by half.
Some doctors still believe the cervix has no pain receptorswhich has been disproven countless times over.
4. We had a male birth control, but it was scrapped
In 2016, scientists published a study on a hormonal birth-control shot for men. It was almost 96% effective at preventing pregnancy (comparable to the pill) and they only had to take it once every two months.
Then some guys reported side effects like acne, injection-site pain, and mood changes, so they halted the trial and killed the drug.
Mind you, these are the same side effects women have been dealing with for decades. The female birth control pill also causes nausea, weight changes, blood clots, decreased libido, digestive issues, and a documented increase in depression riskbut we’re told to grin and bear it.
5. Most OB-GYNs don’t study menopause
Roughly half of all humans will go through menopause, but as soon as a woman can no longer birth babies, the medical system seemingly stops giving a crap about her.
In one national survey of medical residentsonly 6.8% felt adequately prepared to help their patients manage menopause. One in five OB-GYNs reported receiving zero menopause lectures during their entire residency.
That’s because only 31% of OB-GYN residency programs offer a standardized menopause curriculum.
6. ED receives 6x more funding than endometriosis
Endometriosis is a chronic condition in which the uterine lining grows outside of the uterus. It affects an estimated 190 million women worldwide, causing debilitating pain and potentially leading to infertility, pelvic scar tissue, and intestinal obstruction.
In 2022, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) devoted a whopping .038% of its budget to studying it. That’s roughly $2 per American patient, per year.
Meanwhile, companies focused on erectile dysfunction pulled in $1.24 billion between 2019 and 2023, six times more funding than companies focused on endometriosis.
ED-related issues are treated like a medical emergency, while crippling uterine pain is an afterthought.
And before someone claims that “breast cancer receives more funding than prostate cancer” (a common talking point among right-wing Manosphere misogynists), this cherry-picked statistic falls apart under simple scrutiny.
While the NIH funds breast cancer research at roughly $700 million a year versus about $270 million for prostate cancer, when you adjust the math based on how many people each disease kills, prostate cancer actually receives more funding than breast cancer: about $127,000 per death versus $69,800 for breast cancer.
7. Women are 17% more likely to die in a car crash
Not-so-fun fact: The vast majority of crash dummies are modeled after the average man, who stands 5-feet-9-inches tall and weighs 171 pounds. These dummies were designed in the 1970s, and they’ve barely changed since.
If car brands use a so-called “female” dummy (most don’t), it’s usually a shrunken version of the male dummy, which doesn’t accurately represent women’s anatomy. She’s also rarely placed in the driver’s seat.
For that reason, women are 17% more likely than men to die in a frontal car crash, and 73% more likely to suffer serious injuries despite wearing a seatbelt.
8. Researchers found lead and arsenic in tampons
Polina Tankilevitch Pexels
I switched to a menstrual cup years ago, and the pelvic cramps I’d experienced for decades during my period mysteriously vanished.
Sure enough, in 2024, a study published in Environment International tested 30 tampons across 14 different brands, including organic tampons. All of them contained measurable concentrations of toxic metals like arsenic and lead.
Up to 86% of menstruating people use tampons, the surrounding tissue is highly absorbent, and exposure to these metals can increase the risk of dementia, infertility, diabetes, and cancer.
But don’t worry, the FDA said it’s not a big deal.
9. Almost 90% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation, and according to the CDC, the vast majority of these deaths don’t have to happen.
Roughly 87% of pregnancy-related deaths are considered preventable.
Most maternal mortalities are caused by excessive bleeding, blood clots, mental health conditions, infections, and cardiac issues, all of which could’ve been prevented if the patient received adequate healthcare.
Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, and maternal deaths have skyrocketed in states with pregnancy termination bans.
10. Men get painkillers while women get psych meds
Even when women receive the exact same surgeries and report the exact same pain scores as men, doctors are more likely to prescribe men painkillers, and prescribe women sedatives.
For those who don’t know, painkillers reduce physical pain. Sedatives soothe the mind, insinuating that women’s pain is psychological rather than physical.
Dr. Mary Claire Haver (an OB/GYN and menopause specialist) recalls being a gynecology intern and consulting her chief resident when her suffering patient’s tests came up normal.
He took one look at the chart, smirked, and concluded, “She’s a WW”, an acronym that stands for “Whiny Woman.”
Dr. Haver wrote:
“What I didn’t understand at the time is that I had been trained to mistrust women’s experiences. Not by one professor, not by one resident, but by a medical culture that labeled women unreliable narrators of their bodies.”
11. Almost 40,000 women were lobotomized
Between 1949 and 1952, when doctors had no idea how to handle mental illness like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, roughly 50,000 people had their brains surgically scrambled, and the ice pick disproportionately fell on females.
Up to 74% of lobotomy patients were women, despite men making up the majority of psychiatric patients worldwide.
Why? Because a lobotomized woman is a desirable woman.
This procedure left patients passive, docile, and emotionally non-reactive, and to the men making these decisions, a woman who no longer argued, wanted, or felt was labeled a success.
12. Women with male doctors are more likely to die
A study of nearly 582,000 heart attack patients found that women were significantly more likely to survive when their ER physician was a woman. Similarly, another study found that women were 32% more likely to die after a male surgeon performed their operation.
Researchers aren’t quite sure why.
Maybe it’s that pesky “whiny woman” label. Maybe it’s a lack of education surrounding the female body. Maybe women doctors are more likely to believe other women when they relay their symptoms and pain levels.
Either way, if this list is any indication, we probably won’t be getting a concrete answer any time soon.
Maria Cassano is a writer, editor, and journalist whose work has appeared in HuffPost, NBC, Bustle, CNN, The Daily Beast, Food & Wine, and USA Today, among others. Her debut memoir (Numb, Party of One: A Memoir of Healing From Dissociation) is currently available for pre-order.