Compassion and respect to patients are essential to providing effective health care. Despite advances made by activists and patients, the medical field perpetuates its long history of sexism, endangering the lives and well-being of women. From Dismissive Doctors to Inadequate Research, Gender Bias in Healthcare stop women to receive the medical services they need and deserve.

Women have long been subjected to harmful medical practices. Since their inception in the 1930s, lobotomies—known as a horror story of ignored medical ethics—were massively carried out on women. By inserting a needle deep into the brain, surgeons severed the connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain. Originally developed to relieve anxiety and insomnia, lobotomies were known leaving people more docile and without the ability to feel intense emotions – if they even survived.

The mid-twentieth century explosion of the pharmaceutical industry has also imposed drastic effects on women’s health. Tranquilizers like Valium were over-prescribed to women between the 1950s and 1970s, first to serious side effects, including addiction. Despite these known problems, the overprescription of these drugs, aided by the financial incentive associated with it, continued until drug patents expired in the 2000s.

In addition to women’s behavior being wrongly pathologized, their legitimate health concerns have also been dismissed and ignored during millennials. Health professionals often mistakenly attribute women’s symptoms to stress, mental illness or vague hormonal imbalances. Even symptoms of COVID-19 are more likely to be neglected among women, despite the urgency of quickly identifying and containing infections.

“Almost every time I went to the doctor after I was 11, […] the doctor would undermine everything I asked for, and […] attribute my discomfort solely to anxiety,” said Annie Costello, U1 Arts, in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

Since doctors are less likely taking women’s complaints seriously, receiving an accurate diagnosis and proper treatment can be frustrating and exhausting. Long lists of staff anecdotes demonstrate that women often suffer years of unnecessary pain and illness before their medical issues are identified. These diagnostic delays put women’s lives at risk and are responsible for up to 80,000 death in the United States every year.

“I’ve definitely maintained that doubt every time I go to the doctor, even every time I feel sick,” Costello said. “Every time I go there I’m convinced it’s something I’m making up. It’s more than frustrating at this point because I don’t really know if I’m actually sick.

Although medical sexism puts all women at risk, other layers of oppression only serve to make the problem worse. Modern gynecology in North America is built about the brutal abuse of enslaved women, and this legacy has led black women still focused towards harmful disparities in access to health care. Indigenous women, as well as undocumented immigrant women detained in the United States, have long been submitted forced sterilization, with cases reported in Canada as recently as 2017.

High medical costs and inaccessible care have devastating effects on poor and without housing women, who are often forced to neglect health issues. Disabled women too face various socio-cultural, financial and structural barriers to access to medical care. Gay women are also discriminated against in medical institutions; preventive screenings for cervical cancer are less frequent because of the fake assumption that lesbians are less at risk of contracting this disease. Trans women, as well as all other trans people, face prejudice and neglect of health professionals. In addition, recent health protection flashbacks under the Trump administration put them at serious risk of discrimination.

Even when diseases are correctly diagnosed, the treatment options available to women can be severely limited. There is a cry lack research on health issues that primarily affect women, as well as how sex and gender influence the outcomes of common diseases – National Institutes of Health medical studies were not required to include subjects women before 1993.

Inadequate funding is another important factor in this research gap, according to Dr. Lucy Gilbert, a professor in McGill’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Department of Oncology.

“You have to post and research first, then ask for money,” Gilbert said in an interview with the Grandstand. “You need money to do the research, but they won’t give you money unless you do the research and show that you get results.”

Health problems affecting the female reproductive system are particularly neglected, despite their high prevalence among cisgender women, transgender men and non-binary people designated female at birth. Two common diseases are polycystic ovary syndrome, which can lead to mood disorders, diabetes, infertility and endometriosis, a cause of chronic pain and fatigue. Although these two diseases affect up to 18 and 10 percent of cisgender women, respectively, doctors still don’t know what causes them or how to cure them.

The medical Literature on how these diseases affect transgender people—as well as the potential impacts of hormone therapy—is excessively small. Additionally, they may face barriers and stigma in to access reproductive health.

Common medical problems affect women in unique ways, as disease prevalence, drug dosages and symptoms vary by sex and gender. Many active medical trials exclude women, resulting in a great lack of information about how drugs affect half of the human population.

A wide range of diseases are exacerbated by this lack of gender-sensitive medical research. Women are less likely to recognize the symptoms of heart attacks as well as seeking and receiving appropriate care. Although the biological causes behind Alzheimer’s disease remains to be clarified, two-thirds of patients with Alzheimer’s disease are women. Lung cancer is currently the deadliest form of cancer in women and is twice as likely to occur in women in a non-smoking population – proposed theories include women’s exposure to passive smoking and differences in biological responses to nicotine , but it exists no scientific consensus explaining the troubling statistic.

Although much remains to be done, positive progress has been made in various areas. Significant research has contributed reduced mortality rates for breast cancer, cervical cancer and cardiovascular disease in women. In addition, the proportion of female physicians in several countries has been steadily increasing over the past decades.

“People started to understand that women have a lot to offer, that we are the intellectual equals of men,” Gilbert said. “At the highest level, there is still a huge gap […] and this must be filled. A few women pushing through the glass ceiling won’t be enough, the whole glass ceiling has to fall.

Some studies have concluded that women are better doctors: They are more likely to to follow clinical guidelines and communicate effectively, and are less likely to interrupt their patients.

Increasing education and awareness is also an essential step to empowering and protecting women. medical history, a non-profit organization founded by Tori Ford, BA 2019, gender health equity advocate and McGill graduate, is dedicated to giving women a voice and helping them navigate the waters. problems in the health system, thanks to workshops patient advocacy and medical education.

“[Part of Medical Herstory’s mission] it’s about empowering young people, standing up for yourself in medical settings and acknowledging why it’s so hard, why do you feel like you don’t have enough time, like you can’t find your voice,” Ford said in an interview with the Grandstand.

Ford emphasized the importance of building community and connecting with others, in addition to providing people with the tools they need to demand proper health care.

“Unfortunately, we like to think of the medical system as this benevolent system, but it really isn’t and it causes a lot of harm,” Ford said. “Finding ways to protect yourself, know your rights and get the care you deserve [is essential].”