GENDER BIAS IN MEDICINE
“Our immune systems are just as much a battleground for equality as the rest of our bodies.”
Gender bias in medicine is killing women.
Bias against women in medicine operates at every stage from lab research to diagnosis to treatment.
Women are significantly more likely than men to suffer from ME and autoimmune disorders. Yet, many of these diseases are significantly underfunded relative to their impact on human well-being and cost to the economy. Human males and male animals are still used more frequently as test subjects. At the diagnostic level, women’s symptoms are more likely to be perceived as exaggerated or psychosomatic, meaning women are often misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed, or, worse, blamed for their symptoms with invalidating diagnoses like “it’s all in your head.” It wasn’t long ago that doctors were diagnosing women with “hysteria” for diseases they didn’t understand. The medical profession has moved on from the name but the bias lives on.
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